Ghost Recon Phantoms

[heybeardo]

 

I've made a short video with my initial thoughts on Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Phantoms (ridiculously long name), a new F2P from Ubisoft.

 

Is it too early to tell if it'll be pay to win? I've played a bit more after this was made and run across a few more things that concern me:

 

- having to spend points to repair armour

- having to spend points to buy grenades; good in theory but can become a nadespam nightmare for people who load up on them

- the Metro map is startlingly similar to BF4's Operation Metro and plays about just as well; loads of chokepoints

 

Have you guys checked it out yet? What are your thoughts?

 

Beardo

[brkl]

Ghost Recon Phantom Spectres: Wraith Haunt.

[heybeardo]

Ghast Hunt 2: Geist Attack

[brkl]

This is actually interesting. I haven't tried it, but in my experience all multiplayer shooters these days pretty much have mechanics that annoy me just as much as F2P, except I have to pay full price for them. Asking me to grind 50 hours in order to get the same tactical options as more experienced players is just as bad as asking for money. The difference is, when it comes to F2P games, people actually care if equipment gives too much advantage and cry foul if it does. In something like Battlefield, high level equipment is "earned", so it doesn't matter if it's unfair for new players. They should've known to throw their life away and play the game every day since it was launched.

[Justin Leego]

Tom's Gone Home OST: Reconnaissance Fan Tom

 

In something like Battlefield, high level equipment is "earned", so it doesn't matter if it's unfair for new players. They should've known to throw their life away and play the game every day since it was launched.

 

Heh! Thanks for the laugh, that's exactly how it felt. I greatly enjoyed Bad Company 2 and playing with the same bunch of players was fantastic, so Tom Clancy's Ghost's Ghost interests me because it seems to place an even greater emphasis on teamwork.

 

The thing that grated with BC2 was just as you described. It would have been far more interesting if the experienced players had a restricted armory - of course, that's not going to work in a F2P game where you can just create a new account and become a "new" player again. Evidently DICE didn't think it would in a BF game either...

[Gef]

I've played a few rounds over the past week or so and I don't think Ghost Reconnaissance: Phantom Pain suffers too much from the pay to play model. Should my patience hold up, I've been able to do plenty of damage with basic weaponry and armor. The game still has absurd features like armor repair and having to buy grenades with in-game currency, but they're not overly offensive.

 

My biggest issue with the game, sans my prehistoric internet connection, is the map design. The game seems to adore its bottlenecks and one map in particular, called "Metro," starts the fighting in what amounts to a corridor with some pillars to hide behind. In a game that seems to thrive when one team can out maneuver the other, starting off a game in a bottleneck makes it a game of patience over tactics. I'm not a game designer and I don't claim to be a clever man, but it seems like starting with an open space and narrowing the map from there seems like it would make for a better paced competitive experience. I enjoy a game for the most part, though.

 

I have yet to see the full extent the game has to offer and have only been able to play on two different maps, so my complaints could easily be void when the matchmaking gives me something different.

[Berzee]

Ghost Reconnoitering: Reckoning

[itsamoose]

I absolutely love the in game UI, how so much of it is dedicated to showing you what your team mates are up to.  It seems to lend itself to serendipitous team centered play without cluttering the screen too much based on my experience.