#reloading mission/checkpoint did nothing

[enigmaue]

I was replaying some Ghosts, as you do, and apparently my game decided it did not want the ground or sky anymore! ;v;

[letsplaydcttrpg]

Strangers in Paradise pt 13 - The End (? Again?)

Start this module here!

Previous part here!

Links to all posts for this module in the pinned post!

Lasso Jamal I: "Yes," you say, raising your lasso over your head. "He will tell us all we need to know." Suddenly Maurice Diawara interjects. "Are you going to use some form of persuasion to get him to speak?" he asks. "Yes," Hellene says. "But Jamal is an ambassador, as are we all," Maurice says. "He must be treated with the utmost of respect." "Ridiculous," says Kwa. "If he has nothing to hide, let him submit." "We cannot allow him to spread poison among our sisters," Hellene says. You step forward and put an end to the discussion by gently lowering the rope over Jamal's head. He trembles as the power of Gaea flows through his body. A golden glow bathes his face; the room goes silent. "Why do you want to harm the mission to Themyscira?" you ask. "To prove that women cannot properly rule themselves without men. Such ideas threaten all my beliefs." "Who told you to distribute the amulets?" you ask. "No one," he replies. "You work entirely on your own?" you ask. "I never saw the amulets before that stranger ran through my room tonight and awakened me," Jamal continues. "My plan to ruin this mission was to find the negative side of everything and generally cause tension." You stare at Hellene in horror. "I have made a terrible mistake," you say, slowly taking the rope off Jamal. "This is an outrage!" Jamal bellows, returning to control of his own body. "Making me reveal such things! They are my own private thoughts! I demand to return home at once!" You attempt to reason with Jamal, but he is vehemently insistent. The other ambassadors, appalled at such a manipulative display, have lost most of their desire for staying and much of their respect of Amazon culture. The decision to leave quickly grows into a unanimous one. The return trip is uneventful, as are the ambassadors' respective reports on their experience in Themyscira. THE ADVENTURE HAS ENDED

Whoops! Turns out they did not appreciate the whole lasso thing.

So we reach another point where our decisions have ended the module. That said, I was just earlier today talking about being the kid who stuck a million bookmarks in the choose your own adventure book to try and find all the endings, so I'm gonna throw out the "Reload Previous Save" option again if people want to see what could have happened! Or this is the end and we've made our bed and have to lie in it. As always, it is up to you!

[kapanbenernya]

Far Cry 2 -- Toto ft. Ubisoft

It's currently May 2018, and Far Cry 5 has finally hit the shelves. If you want to know about Far Cry 5, let me give you a cheatsheet: it's Far Cry 3. Yes, there's only ONE Far Cry game after Far Cry 3: it's Far Cry 3, but with the sceneries changed and more toys added. That's why I skipped Far Cry 4 after playing the intro for about 5 minutes, because I'm basically replaying Far Cry 3 again. So with that in mind, let's revisit Far Cry before it becomes Far Cry 3

Now, come join me in Africa

The game starts with a Half Life style in-game railroaded cutscene-but-not-really thing where you're forced to sit down and enjoy all the hard work that went into rendering the foliage, the forest fire, and badly animated humans with blank stares. Great for showcasing the Dunia Engine, not so much for replayability. Especially if there's a game-breaking bug like 30 seconds after the game starts proper and there's no way to skip the fucking thing. After a few minutes, you contract malaria and proceed to pass out on the cab like you’ve had too many drinks. You are then saved by the Jackal, a legendary weapons black marketeer you’re supposed to kill. Starting to think we might not be as professional as our CV shows. The Jackal guy decides to spare your life and leaves you to the liberation front shoot-o-rama that’s happening outside. You then pass out again, and one of the liberation fronts pick you up at random. They then give you a stern talking to for killing their boys, and proceed to hire you and give you weapons on the spot.

"This is the guy responsible for killing our boys with a pistol, a machete, and a fever. Let’s give him a rocket launcher when he wakes up”

So the game starts proper after you’re forcefully employed by the local liberation front by virtue of saving your malaria ridden ass 

Your first job is to save some guy like you from the rival liberation front. This person then becomes your buddy. Oh yes, there's a buddy system here, with 2 being active at a time. One buddy is your storyline buddy, the other buddy is your saviour buddy. The storyline buddy is your main buddy and will give you a slight variation to the missions. Usually calling you after you accept a mission from the usual guys, and tells you all about how the two of you could've done it better. I would've liked this to affect the story in some way, because there's a "buddy history" system, like an affinity I guess. It tallies how many times you've helped each other and how much they love you. Sadly, I haven't the slightest clue how this system changes the game because my buddy got killed in a normal shootout two missions in and I don't feel like reloading a save just to save her. What happened next is that I was sent to rescue another guy that becomes my replacement buddy. So I guess this system is very important for the game that you have to always have some guy. What bothers me is that there is a limited roster of buddies available, which means you can only have so many of them killed until they're completely gone. So what happens then, when all the guys have died? That is something I'm not interested in finding out.

The gameplay is your standard old timey sandbox shit. Although those words ring hollow since the gameplay has become the blueprint of sandbox games nowadays. Here's how everything goes: go to mission dealer > do the generic mission > acquire currency and/or XP > spend currency and/or XP upgrading yourself > rinse and repeat, probably do the side-missions which are also generic mission thingy. The missions themselves are kinda bland, they're always go to a place and kill/destroy/steal someone/something respectively. Now if I withdrew the title of the game and ask you to guess the game, you can say any sandbox game all the way from Assassin's Creed to Mafia III, and you'd still be fucking correct. I have to admit the newer ones have polished the elements through and through, but of course there's still only so much that polishing can do.

Perhaps my biggest complaint is that there’s no feeling of progress. The missions are so random and disconnected, it just feels like you're messing around and making money instead of tracking down the guy you're supposed to kill. Why are we doing missions for this liberation front instead of searching for the Jackal? Okay, granted, they DID save our ass on that shootout, but they're the motherfuckers who might've shot us in the first place. But how do you make sense of the fact that after we're done with those guys, we went out of our way to do missions for THE OTHER front? The one that rivals the first front? After seeing this, I decided to drop the game. It has nothing more to offer but generic missions, tedious commute, annoying checkpoint shootouts, and boredom. They do have meaningful events that happen, but everything in between is just making do with smashing puppets with guns and explosions until the next event comes along.

Now let's compare that to the current state of Far Cry games (And by that, I mean let's compare it to Far Cry 3)

In Far Cry 3, your protagonist is set, he's Jason Brody. His story is that he's a rich douchebag in a douchebag circle of friends and they went on a holiday to the tropical island that just so happens to be where the local pirates make a living.

Should've stick to Starbucks next time, eh lads?

They of course got captured, and Jason's brother get killed. This certainly gives Jason the motivation and incentive to fight back, which is to avenge his brother and rescue his douchebag friends. You see, this is called theming. It's about knowing what the goal of the game is and knowing that all the things you do is building up for that goal. You don't learn the multi-stab just to get sick-ass tattoos, you learn it so you can smack the pirates harder. You don't climb radio towers to check off a side quest, you do it because it unlocks new guns to riddle new bullet holes into your enemies. You don't fight a giant ink monster just for the promise of tribal titties, you do it for... uhm...

Actually on second thought...

My point is, the way the game is designed gives Far Cry 3 a great sense of progress and growth. You feel how you, the protagonist grow from douchebag doughboy to a ruthless killer with sick-ass tattoos. This is what in my opinion, Far Cry 2 lacks. You are always a badass mercenary from the get-go, and you don’t have any more motivation but the promise of money to go on. And that shit’s flimsy compared to Far Cry 3, isn’t it?

In Brief

I’ll be the first to admit that Far Cry 2 is fun. The gameplay is very much stellar. It’s become the pioneer’s blueprint for the gameplay of Far Cry games to come. Sure it lacks polish, but it’s good. But apparently not good enough that I eventually stopped giving a shit about it because the important sense of progress is just absent. And while it could be a trivial thing in some games, I believe it is important for a game as huge and expansive as Far Cry 2. After all, it’s the glue that holds the whole experience together, Without it, you’re just randomly setting things on fire and dying from malaria. 

With all the slamming I give Far Cry 3, it’s still my favorite of the series, and the only one I have played from start to finish. It made clearing checkpoints and killing baddies fun while also gets you invested enough to make you want to do so. And what about Far Cry 5? Well I told you in the beginning, it's just Far Cry 3 in rural America. Wait, there's fishing in this game? All bets are off lads, I'm going in.

24/5/2018

[stepphase]

Cyberpunk 2077 Download for PC? Official Video Games

Cyberpunk 2077 has invited you to explore Night City. Of course, there is a fictional metropolis on America’s west coast that is jam-packed with the crime, opportunity, and anything your black heart desires. After all, it is based on Mike Pondsmith’s tabletop RPG. As well as, Cyberpunk is a bleak game that sees the corporations.

In fact, both domestic and foreign keeps a stranglehold on the military tech, drugs, health care, virtually, cybernetic advancements. Everything in common person could need or want. As well as, you can play as a mercenary V. In fact, a person is caught up in a job that is lasting in repercussions throughout its story campaign. As well as, you must hack, shoot, and slice your way out of trouble in a sprawling, open-world action-RPG. After all, this is a highly anticipated PC game offers that is thrilling gameplay that you will love it. Also, atmosphere-oozing sights also sound and those hours of story that have heavy missions but it feels undercooked because of large and small bugs.

The State of Affairs

After all, the Cyberpunk 2077 society has spiraled in a state of Weimar like debauchery and decadence. With advertisements which is peddle of everything from the snacks to the sex plastered on nearly city facet. As well as, the Humankind has embraced cybernetic modifications. Also, every dinky neighborhood across town have a cybernetic mod. Which is called a Ripperdoc, also eager and they are ready to slap new and also, horrifying body enhancements in you for right price.

In fact, You will play as V. Of course, the mercenary who will takes odd jobs across the Night City vast underworld. After all, the game will start that you can customize V look, stat and background. As well as, its character creator is not particularly robust. After all, there are many interesting option which is to explore like tattoos and cybernetic facial implants. In fact, You are starting to stats boost specific talent that once you are into the game proper. like for an example I boosted V's Cool stats and Reflex. So its weapon and stealth and weapon perks opened up relatively early in my playthrough.

more

After all, The background that you have select is determines V's prologue tutorial. And those impacts how you will tackle mission objectives. As well as, a side quest tasked a Nomad-based character with searching for a cop. Who has rocked the proverbial boat by investigating the criminals with clout than she had anticipated? In fact, no one knows the cop location. So it was up to if I will ask around. After all, an odd hooker recognized her, but the demand is a cash for the intel. Of course, V recognizes Nomad in the neighborhood who offer intel after a few if conversation. As well as, it's letting me bypass the sex worker extortion. After all, these Scenarios pop up regularly throughout 2077's campaign.

The Future You Chose

After all, this game is classic and future-noir tropes. As well as, its content is familiar to anyone who has played the Deus Ex games or seen the Blade Runner films are not present in the main storyline. In fact, they are prominently featured in Cyberpunk 2077 a lot of side missions. As well as, its campaign paints the world which has moved beyond its ethical quandaries which are trans-humanism raises. As well as, its Technology and synthetic is a part of everyday life. And its concepts like organic barely exist. Of course, everyone is enhanced in some ways and its culture is grown to embrace also fetishize cybernetic technology.

In fact, This campaign does not ask for big questions that set an action-packed journey through the flashy and bizarre Night City streets. After all, its side quests are where are the story's of the heart truly lies. Of course, it is similar to Assassin Creed Valhalla. In fact, Cyberpunk 2077 side quests flesh is out from the world and people in ways that its campaign does not. Also, the backstories add more to the narrative which should not be optional. In fact, they are essential for playing if you are ready for the full Night City experience.

Blast, Hack and Slash

After all, there are many ways that are to build V. As well as, you can go all-in just on hacking. That will give you the multitude of saboteur abilities that will let you hijack the cameras, defense enemies, and systems. If you will find yourself outgun, and hack grenades on your assailant’s belt and blow him. So nearby compatriots to kingdom come. Or else you can just use a local network to infect the enemies with the debilitations to prevent them from moving. The cool stat of umbrella houses all the assassination and sneaking abilities that you could want in. After all, if the poison, or silent movement, and the bonus damage undercover are more in your speed. This is the place where you have to invest your level-up points.

As well as, the skill trees are massive that is bloated by the passive boosts like reload speed, damage, or critical-hit chance. In fact, that is not to say that the unique moves and the abilities are not there. Also, you can build for melee damage, stealth, evasion, gunplay, and other combat styles. In fact, the skill tree is not nearly as expansive as it initially seems. After all, you will make many incremental improvements to your character rather than the larger ones that are more noticeable. In fact, I would have perks that are consolidated to have more impact. That delivers a smaller and more concise, skill tree system.

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After all, the combat is satisfying so thanks to the game's play style and the weapon variety. As well as, the Power Weapons is fancy lingo for the ballistics like machine guns, shotguns, and revolvers shred targets. Of course, you can easily decapitate assailants if you will pop them into the right place. Also, tech weapons will use railgun-style electromagnets to evaporate anything. If any problem you will aim at the disappears with the pull of the trigger. In fact, the smart weapons will target and curve the bullets around to the cover and corners. which will remind me of the silly weapon scene from The Fifth Element.

In fact, Melee is nothing to sneeze at it either. As well as, the bare knuckles do the surprisingly well in the scrap. But you can not arm yourself with a limb-hacking swords, good old bludgen, grappling mantis claws. Or the other body modifications that will enhance your brutish and physical prowess. After all, the enemies are resilient but not spongey like the shooter-RPGs. In fact, the foes to take a beating but they are stick around enough for you to get the creative that how you kill them. Of course, I had never felt to cheated what the game threw my way. Of course, I run the low ammunition regularly. because I went half on melee and running out of the ammo.

Kinks to Iron

After all, the Cyberpunk 2077 is the fascinating world and the great gameplay systems. In fact, the game is pack with bugs. As well as, sometimes the elevators do not load or do not work. Of course, enemies occasionally bug out and the mindlessly stand around waiting for you that you will shoot them. In fact, the characters teleport into scenes if they did not load properly. Also, NPCs drive through scenery and speed off in sunset. Also, the side quest did not complete correctly. Of course, I force to restart the game from the previous checkpoint.

As well as, these issues are the game-breaking problems and they are frequent. In fact, if you will buy the game at launch then you have to expect to see the bugs at play through. After all, the Developer CD Projekt Red have patch alleviate these issues.

Can Your PC Run Cyberpunk 2077's?

Of course, the Cyberpunk 2077 is open-world games. After all, this is grimy aesthetic off-putting. When compared to Deus Ex then the Mankind Divided's the clean and bright environments. Also, the Night City is larger and more interconnected to the world that is fallen on hard times.

Of course, the Night City is pack with a visual delights. Also, the car is interiors drip to detail and the streets is densely pack ads and cyber-enhanced NPCs. As well as, It is good to drive around the town also in the environments. After all, sitting in the shadow room and conversing with gangsters, clients, and kingpins looks stylish and cool.

After all, the game elements are not pulse-pounding action sequences stories. It is driven around the town during missions and enjoying Night City's sounds and sights. In fact, CD Projekt Red have craft world that visual settings suit PC and the game at best atmosphere.

Cyberpunk 2077 System Requirements

Of course, the Cyberpunk 2077 is the first game in Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 graphics card feel latest. After all, this game is default to the Medium settings on my gaming desktop. With CPU AMD Ryzen 5 3600 / GPU GTX 970 / RAM 16GB. In fact, this setting deliver best visuals that moved at 30 fps. Also, the Low frame rate will dance betweem 40fps and 50fps. But the gameplay is not smooth the visual hit. After all, playing on the High or Ultra High will drop the frame rate to 20s low that is not the trouble.

Of course, to play the Cyberpunk 2077 you have to need a PC that contains atleast the Windows 7 OS / CPU: AMD FX 8310 or Intel i5 3570k / Graphic Card: AMD Radeon RX 470 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 / RAM: 8GB / Space: minimum of 70GB or more. After all, the recommended system requirements setting is Intel CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 3200 or i7 4790 / Graphic Card: AMD Radeon RX 590 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 and RAM is 12GB.

In fact, you can purchase the Cyberpunk 2077 at jsut $59.99 from video game stores. As well as, this game is supporting many features of steam like Steam Trading Cards, Steam Cloud, and Steam Achievements. In fact, this is full controller support. There is no way to make character stroll when using a keyboard and mouse.

Unpolished Gem

In fact, I was not impress with the Cyberpunk 2077. Because the distinct west coast grime turn me off and few perks that did not appeal to my play style. After all, I fell so good and fall in love with the Night City. As well as, if bugs can get iron out then the Cyberpunk 2077 is potential Game of the Year candidate. Here’s we are hoping that the CD Projekt Red will push out fixes.

We are here to hear from you

After all, you can contact us to let us know if we are missing something on our page. I hope you like it and thank you for your visit.

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[game-refraction]

Game Review: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon - Wildlands (Xbox One)

Mission Failed.

It’s a phrase that this game is too keen on shoving in your face after something goes wrong, and you can bet it will. I lost track of how many missions I had to re-attempt well over a dozen times, usually due to the awful detection system or because of the too-many-commands attached to a single button. Ghost Recon: Wildlands is as every bit as frustrating as it can be entertaining, providing you set the bar very low, and then set it even lower.

With the release of its first DLC expansion, Narco Road, I finally got around to finishing the main game, eliminating all the cartel leaders and ensuring I completed each and every story mission, including replaying the last mission for the alternative ending, both of which imply there is more for this team of ghosts to tackle in the inevitable Wildlands 2.

Ghost Recon: Wildlands is your typical Ubisoft open world game that has its copied and pasted locations sprinkled around with the same care as its thousands of icons that share the same map. While it seems that the publisher is looking to make nearly every one of its franchises some form of an open world, it does so with the least amount of care and passion. There isn’t a single frame in this game that has any sort of polish or, like I just mentioned, passion, behind it. Nearly every aspect of this game is repeating almost immediately after it’s given us something unique. Whether it’s reasons for taking down a cartel drug lord or a random line of dialogue, you will end up doing the same things, hearing the same things, again and again. I must have heard one of my AI companions repeat the same joke well over twenty times, or one of them asking why I would not let them drive; which the game doesn’t even allow, so why ask it? If I had to hear “and baby makes three.” one more time, I fully expected I would just uninstall the game right then and there.

Upon arriving in Bolivia, you are tasked with tracking down a Cartel Warlord named El Sueño and you’ll need to dismantle his empire in order to flush him out. While this is the typical way these stories usually play out, it does so in the most boring way possible. There are several locations on the map with a cartel captain in charge that needs to be flushed out. While the outcome with the cartel leader is making them spill the beans on El Sueño, or just flat out killing them, the setup to locating them is the same for each and every captain you’ll encounter and this game seems built upon you reliving the same hour of gameplay over and over again. While you are free to tackle the captains in any order you wish, the story is never connected in a way that shows the level of threat you possess as you eliminate leader after leader. Each province you clear of a captain is checked off as if it doesn’t matter to the core story, and aside from a phone call from El Sueño late in the game, he seems almost disconnected from the very narrative that is built upon taking him down. I would have loved to have seen the few remaining captains band together to stop you, and since the order is up to you, these scenes would play out differently depending on who was left remaining.

As you enter a new province on the map, your contact will radio you with information in regards to your target, this info is also joined with a narrated cutscene that introduces you to who the target is and the backstory of who they are. These scenes are ok but the use of real people mixed with their awful character models is very distracting and these moments stand out in a very bad way. The problem with each of these leaders is that apart from some flimsy backstory, they become nothing more than background dressing and are so two-dimensional that none of them really stand out. Had each of these characters been involved in more of the missions leading up to them, then maybe, and just maybe, the game would have been far better for it.

Once you’ve been prepped with this intel and are ready to explore, yellow folder icons will populate the map. These are the intel needed to find people or items required to find your target. These missions at the start of the game are fun, sometimes enjoyable and depending on which province you head into, can offer you a wealth of variety. The problem is there is only a small handful of variations on how these story missions play out; Elimination or retrieval.

While the circumstances regarding each mission will vary, this two-fold approach is constant throughout the game. You will either kill your target, destroy property, or retrieve someone to become a snitch or take items like a car to lure out your target. There are small variations on the elimination and retrieval types that do worm their way out of these labels, but they are so rare and frankly, they still operate very similar.

This repeated structure is semi-broken up with another form of repeated structure with its side activities like protecting a radio cart, flipping switches on a few towers or recovering some supplies for the rebels, usually in the form of a plane, helicopter or another type of vehicle. These missions are ok, but if you play by yourself and not online with actual people, then prepare to fail on every attempt protecting that damn radio cart. These missions will help you upgrade your support skills like calling in a mortar strike or requesting a vehicle for a getaway.

Despite my ramblings of disappointment with the title, I did have many moments of enjoyment with the 50 some hours I spent with it. Among the echoing nature of how it disperses its content, there is still an enjoyable game here. The character creation system could be a bit better in the variety of clothes and hairstyles, but overall it allowed me to make a fairly enjoyable character. The shooting aspects of the game are handled well and with a quick tap of a button to change shoulder perspective, it allows you to get a solid shot no matter the way you play.

I’ve played a good portion of it solo as while I did have an ok time playing with other people, I find that most players don’t approach the game in the same way I do and this can lead to frustration when your playstyles clash. There is something very satisfying when a plan comes together in this game as a few missions do give you the ability to tackle a mission in a variety of different ways and then you’ll head into the next mission that is structured in such a way where there is a clear way how to go about this and any other attempt will be met with a mission failed screen.

What I rather liked about playing solo was the Sync shot system of my NPC companions. When you play online, even with just one more person, this AI team is nowhere to be found, taking your team down from four to two, for some odd reason. This Sync shot can be upgraded to three one-shot kills and this tactical method of clearing out a base comes with a swift delight of a pop, pop, pop and they drop. I lost track of how many bases I cleared without myself firing off a single shot and while the Sync shot can be done in co-op online, it lacks the same flair unless you are playing with a group of friends and not some randoms that can just go Rambo at any minute. The multiplayer is fun when you can stay connected, and I like the fact that your 3 other co-op partners retain any progress made on the map and missions can be easily replayed to catch up with a friend who may have fallen behind. There was one aspect of playing solo that did rather annoy me; the nonstop window that would pop up asking me to hold A to join an online match.

The best aspect of playing with a large group of people is the variety of ways you can infiltrate the base. Having a team conquer a base from all sides is something that is rather difficult to do with an AI team. Flying over a hillside with a group in several vehicles is extremely fun, as is the rush of almost getting caught until your teammate drops a nearby enemy who just spotted you. For as much fun as I had with my AI companions, some experiences in this game are vastly improved with real life players, regardless of how long you’ve known them. Going back to infiltrating bases, I found it rather odd that for how the ghosts are a team of professionals, that no one has a set of wire cutters for a chain link fence or a grappling hook for a difficult climb.

The detection system is probably one of the worst ways this type of mechanic has ever been done in a video game. I’ve been spotted through buildings, from distances that make no sense for detection, and through walls when the enemy is not even facing me. I’ve gone prone on a hillside and taken out a whole base and then a random car will spot me from below and fail the mission for me. The worst is when you are minutes away from completing a mission and a random helicopter will spot you and then the proverbial you-know-what hits the fan, and when it does, then my word does this game ever throw whatever it can at you, and then it will pile on even more enemies in such force that you’ll beg to reload the checkpoint and try again, but you have to die since there is no manual way to reload that checkpoint, and even then, the checkpoint will be either at the start of the mission or at a distance that is rather far away from where you were.

As you find guns and grenade-like items on the battlefield, you’ll level up your character and earn skill points. These points are used to purchase skills like more ammo capacity, upgrades for your reconnaissance drone, or being able to take more damage. There are dozens of skills that can be unlocked and they will require resources as well as those skills points. The resources; Medicine, Food, Gasoline, and Comm Tools are scattered around the mini-map with green icons. You can earn higher quantities of these resources from the side activities that are also green icons on the already populated icon-filled map. Other items that join the collectible hunting are upgrade stars that add perks to certain skills you can purchase, and parts that you can equip to certain guns to give them better scopes or enhance other traits to make them more lethal. While collecting items can bring out the OCD in you, depending if you are a completionist or not, the icon-filled map is just ridiculous. I’m all for adding content to a game, but this method of making your game a collectible hunt is just filler, plain and simple.

Vehicles can make or break your experience here as they can come off a bit weightless and far too bouncy. I love the motorbikes, when you don’t get flung off one that is, and was my main method of transportation. I loved that you don’t have to wait for your AI companions to get in the vehicle as they will teleport to a seat in the car as you speed away, even if they are dead. Vehicles do tend to bounce around far too much and this can lead to accidentally rolling a car down a hill or getting it wedged between some rocks while racing down a rocky mountain. Helicopters I found a bit slow to take off and the learning curve of how to properly fly a plane can take some getting used to.

The development team spent two weeks in Bolivia taking in the location and looking to make the game as visually impressive as they could, as the Anvil engine is fairly impressive. While character models are quite bad, the environments are not and can look rather great at times, if a bit copied and pasted. Bases all tend to look the same and you will get moments of Deja Vu as you take a few down. The variety in Bolivia here is decent as you’ll take to jungles, arid deserts and snow filled mountains. There are also many locations that are based upon real-life landmarks that add a bit of credibility to the world Ubisoft Paris has created.

The audio in Wildlands is a mixed bag for sure, as radio stations became so annoying that Ubisoft themselves produced a patch that allowed you to turn them off. The audio between the team is fantastic, at first, but starts to repeat itself so much it became painful to listen to. The voice acting itself is split down the middle with a few actors giving solid performances while a few of them really looked to ham it up.

As I mentioned in my opening paragraph, Wildlands tends to put a lot of commands on the controller, especially the A button if you are playing on Xbox or the X button on PS4. When you go to target an enemy for the Sync shot, you’ll press A/X to lock them in. The A/X button, however; is also the climb button. I’ve had so many times where the enemy moved slightly and my character would then mantle over my cover and expose themselves, to either the base then going on alert or part of the instant fail mechanic they use far too often, all for my attempt at locking them in for a Sync shot.

Another few issues that caused a bit of frustration is the climbing mechanic and the inability to swap to the driver’s seat should you select the wrong door. There are several instances in the game where you can climb and it works well when it wants to, but not when it needs to. Your character will have no problem scaling a 5-foot wall when it’s required but will be unable to when it’s a short 2-foot incline where climbing isn’t allowed. I’ve tried to use a vehicle as a step ladder of sorts to climb over a fence and it just wouldn’t allow it. When you enter in a rear passenger door you can only swap to the other seat and not to the driver’s seat. While not a huge issue, it has caused me a great deal of time wasted having to exit the vehicle and re-enter it to the proper seat and more often than not, my target got away. I also found that backing up in a vehicle would swing the camera around to see the front of vehicle and this can cause you to drive in a direction you don’t want too and the time needed to swing the camera back around can lead to a target getting away or your vehicle taking a lot of damage.

Apart from the minor, but frustrating control issues, the game is rather buggy and glitches were fairly constant throughout my time with the game. I’ve had NPC’s stop their role in a quest, as several times where I was to tail or protect the NPC as they proceeded to their end location just stop and stand there, with a few cases of them getting stuck in traffic because other NPC’s got in an accident on the road, as you can see in the picture here. I’ve had one time where as I was driving my captive to my home base just suddenly die in the car. I’ve had enemies discover me through walls, or shoot at me through them as well. There was even a time where I went to snap a guard’s neck and he dropped to the floor before I could touch him, but the animation still played out. I’ve had the game lock me out of my gun and not allow me to fire, forcing me to turn the game off and start it up again. I could go on and on with more examples of glitches and bugs, but basically, my point is that the game is just full of them.

Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a mess, plain and simple. Yes, it can be fun, enjoyable, and with the right group of people, a blast. That being said, the game looks to repeat too much of itself and wears out its welcome fast. The copy and pasted approach to how the world is constructed is lazy and environments lack that wow factor to make their set pieces memorable. As a game, Wildlands is a bare minimum effort, stretching its mechanics across a map that is so densely packed with collectibles that it can ruin the pacing of what the story expects from you.

Ubisoft has taken a franchise that could easily go toe to toe with the likes of Battlefield and Call of Duty and turned it into a Division meets Far Cry game that at no point feels like a Ghost Recon title. While I am not opposed to a developer changing up their franchise and breathing new life into it, the fact you are slapping a new coat of paint on recycled and overused mechanics isn’t new, it’s giving us the same thing again with a new name and expecting us to reward you for it.

Ghost Recon: Wildlands was reviewed on a digital copy purchased on the Xbox One Marketplace. All Screenshots were taken via the Xbox One and uploaded to the Windows 10 App.

Game Review: Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon – Wildlands (Xbox One) was originally published on Game-Refraction

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Front Mission Evolved

I got Dad Titanfall 2 for Father's Day, and the mech combat inspired me to look at something I've owned for years and something else he finished years ago--Front Mission Evolved.  It took me about seven and a half hours to get to the end on Normal and I in no way got close to 100% completion.  I used an Xbox 360 controller but I did at least try keyboard and mouse a little bit.  There's Multiplayer but I didn't touch it at all. 

Front Mission as a series is typically a strategy RPG akin to Final Fantasy Tactics or Fire Emblem.  You have a number of pilots on your roster and they all have their own Wanzer, a giant humanoid battle robot they drive and fight with.  A big draw is being able to customize not only the weapons the Wanzers use, but also the parts that make up their bodies, sometimes giving them different abilities.  This game is not a typical Front Mission, instead it has more in common with Front Mission Gun Hazard (SNES game), where you control one person in a third-person shooter environment with some on-foot sections, though this is all in 3D. 

Dylan Ramsey is just a typical Wanzer engineer.  During a performance test of a prototype Wanzer, he learns of an attack by an unknown group of Wanzer pilots in the city around where his father works, so he rushes off in the prototype to go save him.  From there, things get worse and Dylan ends up in the middle of a war.  Good thing he's a natural despite no military training.  And there's an ace-in-the-hole system he can use if things get too tough...

I, um, may have tried to color my Wanzer in the ‘blue body, white limbs, red toes’ Gundam style. 

I actually had a little bit of trouble with the controls at first.  I guess it's been a while since I've done a third-person shooter and I couldn't remember if I had inverted Y-axis or not.  I'm used to holding the controller with the index fingers on the triggers and I'd bring them up when necessary, but I needed to change to middle fingers on triggers and indexes on shoulders due to how the game works its weapons.  Your Wanzer has four weapon slots, one in each hand and one on each shoulder, and each of those four buttons is tied to those slots.  The initial setup of a missile launcher on the left shoulder and a gun on the right trigger is fine, but you might need some coordination to use all four.  Of course, the game has a weight limit vs power output system, so you won't have all four filled unless you use weaker yet lighter gear. 

There are quite a few different parts and weapons to equip and naturally you unlock more the further through the campaign you get.  One thing I found neat was that instead of having a typical RPG "buy part, sell part for reduced value" system, you keep the full value of the things you buy no matter how long you use them.  When you buy a new part or weapon, you merely pay the difference (or are refunded it) between the old and new with zero loss.  That said, I found myself low on funds especially during the last act of the game.  You're given the option to replay any mission you've cleared previously, but I didn't go back and grind out money.  Probably should have.  You especially want a strong torso part since if that runs out of health, you're dead, but you still want strong arms and legs since those getting destroyed greatly screws your accuracy and movement speed respectively.  But then you need strong weapons to deal with enemies, so where do you balance the budget?  There are little money pickups in each map as well as mini-achievements for each mission that award cash when completed, but I didn't really try for those. 

I had “Weapon Pack 1″ DLC installed already, as it must’ve come packaged from when I bought the game.  They’re pretty nice weapons apart from their weight, if only because they cost either nothing or $100 to use, and they’re competitive with much costlier weapons.  I honestly made use of these to offset my deficit, but I wouldn’t recommend shelling out real money to get around not having enough game cash. 

Another neat thing I found was that if you die, you can go back to the Hangar and refit your Wanzer, and the game will put you back to the last checkpoint instead of having you restart the mission.  If you're having trouble with one segment, maybe you just need to swap gear around to get through.  I know I made use of this feature quite a bit near the end. 

With the below gripe, this is the only time in the game where the changes are actually forced on you instead of the game saying you need X. 

One gripe I had regarding the customization is that some missions require the use of specific gear.  You need a long-range weapon for this one, you need this type of legs for this other one.  It kinda gets in the way if you have a certain playstyle, though in a couple of cases, the requirements seem just arbitrary.  I'm pretty sure you can't use quad/hover legs in the last mission because of the prerendered cutscenes and they didn't want to have a continuity error. 

There are Battle Skills for each weapon type, and each weapon has a number of slots you can equip to them.  Each skill has a percentage chance to activate when you use the weapon, and then it lasts for a set amount of seconds.  Effects range from simply more damage to damage over time, to stunning the enemy or weapon-specific effects like homing missiles locking on quicker and shields taking zero damage.  Remember to set your Battle Skills every time you change weapons since even changing weapons within the same type resets them! 

While you sometimes have allies on the field, you don't really need to worry about them and it didn't seem like there was friendly fire...at least on your part to them.  I'm pretty sure I got tagged by a friendly but I don't remember if it did damage or just did the stun animation instead.  One of the parts you can equip lets you heal allies in return for all of your energy, but I don't think it was necessary at all, though having an on-demand heal is extremely useful, even taking into account the torso having regenerating health on its own.  Maybe it works better in Multiplayer?  Enemy Wanzers can have the same gear so you should probably kill the Engineers first.

Squishy meaty foot soldier VS giant metal killing mecha goes about as well as you’d expect.  At least they can’t step on you like you can when you’re driving...as far as I know.

I honestly had quite a bit of trouble in terms of difficulty.  Brawler Wanzers are extremely dangerous, partly because they abuse the "use melee while skating to inflict extra damage" feature, but also because they only hit your torso.  And uh, also because they force you into a hit animation if they connect.  Maybe kill the Brawlers before Engineers.  A couple of the boss battles were troublesome too, mostly because they have really damaging weapons.  Most telling was the penultimate battle where I had to retry at least 20 times.  Even with the best torso part, either his missiles completely shredded me (dash under him to avoid) or his sword attack got me (back evade but watch for his fake-outs).  And then the second phase with the EMP traps as well as the scattered ones...  I really should have done some grinding, I guess.  The actual final boss tripped me up a couple of times but it was a matter of avoiding his big attack and then unloading when he was open, and the second phase wasn't bad at all.  I wound up actually using all four weapon slots for that one, and while they were weaker weapons, I think the alpha strike method worked out okay. 

Four versus one just doesn’t seem fair to them, honestly. 

I'm pretty sure I died at least once in every on-foot section.  The controls are pretty similar, though you have just two weapons you carry with one in use at all times, you can't jump and instead do a combat roll, and instead of worrying about the health of individual parts, you just have a basic health bar that regenerates when you're not hurt after so many seconds.  And you actually need to reload your gun.  You have zero pilot upgrades so each section is pretty much the same in terms of how you'd expect to perform, other than enemy density and positioning.  There are no timed sections there and your allies are still invulnerable, so you can probably do a better job than I did if you just take your time and stay in cover to heal up. 

There are three sections where you're being airlifted to another area and you have to fire at the enemy using the ship's guns attached to your Wanzer.  It's basically an auto-scrolling level but your guns and missiles have infinite ammo, just you have to mind their overheating.  Those aren't bad, but you don't have a very wide angle of attack so something slipping by and getting under the helicopter can potentially hurt you a bit.  

I almost wonder how much of the military’s money I wasted just by holding down all four fire buttons.  Maybe that’s why I was broke all game? 

The controls otherwise did fine for me, though I had some trouble setting up the keyboard and mouse controls mostly because of how many functions you need to set up, and I tried to make it as close to how I have Warframe's controls set, though that didn't work out too well.  I also got so used to needing the Agility backpack to skate using B that I completely missed that you can skate without it by pressing L3.  Remember to read the manual and controls! 

I don't really have anything to say about the music, other than I didn't really notice it most of the game.  The voicework was all right, but I noticed that some cutscenes had drastically lower volume for the voices than the rest of the game, and that kinda threw me off.  A couple of the voiced lines during the missions seemed to get cut off immediately by another character but that didn't seem to break the game any the two times it happened.  

The quirky miniboss squad would be right at home in a Metal Gear game.  The twist: Kojima Productions actually is in the credits...

Each mission has 20 sensors to find and destroy, as well as three emblems to discover, as well as the mini-achievements specific to those missions.  100%ing the game would take some time, especially if you don't have a guide to hunt down the sensors, but the game is otherwise pretty short.  No extra endings, no New Game Plus, though you can always play early missions with your late-game gear and steamroll the enemy.  You don’t seem to unlock anything for beating the game, either.  I think I got about all the enjoyment I could out of this, though. 

It's not turn-based or grid-based, but Front Mission Evolved still isn't too bad of a third-person shooter with giant robots and secret government weapons.  Someone who's really followed the series might get more out of it despite the gameplay departure, given some of the locations and the factions involved, but even someone new to the series could get into this.  It ran well enough on my aging computer, but given it's a game from 2010...  There are probably better games on the market, but I had interest in the series and I don't regret this purchase, even if it’s years down the road.   

Zombie Wanzers.  I’m pretty sure this isn’t a Metal Gear game.