Ghost Recon Future Soldier (GRFS) from Ubisoft is a mixed bag of goodies.  Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon series has seen numerous releases over the past ten years with most of the titles falling somewhere between the ‘good to great’ category.  Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 was probably the most notable popular recent release selling over a million when it came out in 2007.

Last year at Ubisoft’s E3 Expo press conference was the first time we had a chance to see Ghost Recon Future Soldier in action.  We witnessed a military squad taking on soldiers from all over, running for cover, diving over obstacles and outflanking the opposition.  My heart was boiling during the entire demonstration as most Ghost Recon games in the past were all about sneaking around and not an all-out battle.

Almost a year later and now GRFS is in my hands and I’m taking on the challenges set forth in front of me.  Ghost Recon Future Soldier has an exceptional attention to detail on motion capture as for running, cover and leaping over barriers.  Probably something I favor the most is the ability to switch the camera’s view from either left or right shoulder on-the-fly, something not many third person games allow yet GRFS does this smoothly.

Ghost Recon Future Soldier’s biggest selling point is  online co-op campaign – apparently reports of local co-op have been exaggerated.  You get the feeling that the developers really had this gameplay in mind when they got the ball rolling.

There’s plenty of fun gameplay to be had sneaking around with your squad-mates picking off targets – unfortunately I found myself getting bored rather quickly in the single player campaign.  Dull transition/cut scenes are a big part of GRFS and you will see them more often then you wish – I found myself skipping through them as most lacked any charm.

Another complaint was too many ‘on-rails’ scenes – especially RIGHT in the middle of action.  Just imagine yourself surrounded by enemy troops, explosions all around you, you are firing rounds in every direction and then suddenly all control over your movement is stripped away and you are playing ‘target practice’ on bad guys while someone else controls your movement.  Yup, it happens often – another thing that happens often is the ‘losing signal out of range’ warning you get on screen whenever you try to wander too far off the course in order to out-flank the enemy.

Ghost Recon Future Soldier’s single-player campaign fell somewhere between ‘good to great’ for me – we had a chance to check out the GRFS multiplayer during its beta so be sure to check that out HERE.

Ghost Recon Future Soldier is available now for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC with DLC already announced and on the way – more DLC info HERE.

Related Videos:

Kevin Love talking Ghost Recon Future Soldier
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkYc__nq3q8

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Alpha Official Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNDRQ9FltSs

Ghost Recon Future Soldier Official Launch Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvrJFzBSf6g

Ghost Recon Future Soldier Official
Believe in Ghosts Dev Diary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5ZZaZgAImo