Ghost Recon Wildlands

[Danimal]

Anyone want to play this tonight?

[Pete1210]

I'll be playing tonight on XB1.

[Danimal]

I'll start a party around 9 ET to see who is around and hopefully we can get 4 people in some co-op. Maybe Terry can put himself away from For Honor for an hour.

[TCrouch]

I'll start a party around 9 ET to see who is around and hopefully we can get 4 people in some co-op. Maybe Terry can put himself away from For Honor for an hour.

No promises!

I'll definitely sink some time into it, in all seriousness....after my For Honor dailies and contracts are both done on PC and XBox

[vader29]

I can give it a try tonight.

[10spro]

I will be on tonight, although I am hoping because of the time difference some of you guys may stick around longer. Make sure you create your character ahead, that's a good 15 minutes of killing time.

[Danimal]

Played a bit with Vader, have to be honest not really sure I'm feeling it.

[Danimal]

Pete sorry when I got back on I saw Vader by himself and both you and Terry had 3 players so I jumped in there.

I don't know why but this game made me feel motion sick after about an hour. I've only had one or two other games make me feel that way. From a graphics standpoint the XB1 version doesn't look very good, the PC is just a little better but even that is not stellar.

I'm not going to lie and say that Vader and I weren't laughing at all of our failures, at least i was. Plus there are tons of jokes to be had while playing or should I say driving, and my helicopter piloting skills were so bad Vader jumped out of the choppa, btw doesn't get old saying "Get to the choppa!". I don't know why we were coop we lost the 2 AI guys. The enemy AI seemed to be pretty good, we were constantly outflanked.

The voice acting is horrendous and I'll admit it took us some time to figure out why our missions weren't syncing and also how to stay on mission. One point we were trying to steal a car and then passed a convoy and next thing we know it says mission failed target got away.

Anyway it just doesn't feel like a Ghost Recon game, more like coop Just Cause with a little less ridiculousness. I'll give it a go this weekend for sure to see if I like it better but I would highly suggest that people try the beta before just blind purchasing. Maybe it is just me but i was expecting more of an Opperation Flashpoint type coop that PK, Teal and I used to play and this is far from that.

[TCrouch]

If you set it to "Extreme" with no UI, it's a Ghost Recon game.

It's not for everybody, and I get that. The chopper piloting in particular is funky at first. It's got a couple of "stages" of flight. RT takes off and controls height up to a certain speed, and then you will start diving down a little bit. But once you cross their speed threshold, RT is just "keep going forward" and the LS controls up or down pitch. It's weird, but I eventually got used to the thresholds and stopped piloting around like a spaz.

The fact that it's drop in/drop out makes the sync interesting. It was easy to miss the "accept/decline" UI element in the left side of the screen with multiple people, where a tap left on the dpad accepted, or no action or right declined other people's missions. But overall, I had an absolute blast, much like the closed beta.

It's just weird that you invite 1 friend and the other 2 AI disappear. Once I got 3 people it sort of opened up. I'm 100% into this one, just not sure where I'll get the time with For Honor, Horizon Zero Dawn, Zelda on the Switch, and then this all within a couple of weeks.

[Danimal]

The fact that it's drop in/drop out makes the sync interesting. It was easy to miss the "accept/decline" UI element in the left side of the screen with multiple people, where a tap left on the dpad accepted, or no action or right declined other people's missions. But overall, I had an absolute blast, much like the closed beta.

Yeah my eyes are really bad and I couldn't even read those elements unless I walked up to the screen. I know I also don't have a 10% grasp of everything but I had to stop because I really felt like I was going to puke which is not a fun feeling. I'm going to try it on my PC tonight.

[TCrouch]

I played it quite a bit on PC, too, but I kept having a Crash to Desktop at the worst times (literally as I'm landing a chopper to complete a supply raid, or at the end of a cleared town). I'll try it with you if you're up for it.

[Danimal]

Yeah that would be good, I should be on tonight at 9pm CT after basketball.

[vader29]

The missions were strange to figure out with the side quests getting in the way, the one mission to protect the radio transmitter we had a ton of enemies coming at us from all directions, both of us died then restarted the mission and got through it with only 3 enemies showing up, weird. The graphics look like an early Xbox 360 game to me, I did see a couple of youtube videos where the graphics look better with HDR enabled on the Xbox One S or PS4 Pro but I'm trying to hold out upgrading until the Scorpio comes out but I don't if my willpower will last much longer with a new 4k TV.

[TCrouch]

Playing side by side on an HDR TV and a non-HDR TV, my wife kept commenting how much prettier it was on my HDR set.

It's noticeable. Night looks like night, but there are like 100 levels of black showing, so you can make out trees on a distant hill, yet not see anything clearly near you without night vision. It looks fantastic there, but yeah...overall the resolution is a bit lower. I think you need to go back and look at some early Xbox 360 games, though

[10spro]

Yeah, must be the combo XBS and KS 8000 but I thought the visuals were fanstastic on my TV. Gameplay wise it gets better as you update on your skills, I am used to Primal and spend time on every room around. The game is a hybrid of Just cause 3, meet FC Primal and some Recon.

[TCrouch]

Yep. When playing solo, my sequence has turned into "finish tutorial, immediately head to the river area to steal the comms chopper, and then have 3 sync shots available before doing any other mission". And explore every nook and cranny to find resources to tag. It's a tough choice, because I'm going to be doing all of it again in a little over a week, so I'm not sure how much I actually want to do (again) now.

[Teal]

I know it's early in the beta, but still, first impressions in general...should we be as excited as we were, or tamp down expectations? Is it truly Just Cause 3 with co-op, or does it in any way seem like the original GR? Again, I know the impressions are early, but...

[Danimal]

I know it's early in the beta, but still, first impressions in general...should we be as excited as we were, or tamp down expectations? Is it truly Just Cause 3 with co-op, or does it in any way seem like the original GR? Again, I know the impressions are early, but...

Impressions will vary and I had fun last night with Vader. However I was expecting kind of a Operation Flashpoint coop experience and it was nothing like that. You literally run into bad guys or something a lot of the time, there is no big trek to this waypoint and do this because you can carjack people ala GTA style with really no repercussions i saw and you can fast travel as well.

I wouldn't call this a military sim in anyway, I think 10's nailed it with his description. I know you have a data cap issue but you really should try the beta IMO.

Oh yeah also be prepared to hear a lot of cringe worthy dialog about condoms, STD's and bloody condoms. Apparently this is somehow funny.

[TCrouch]

Again...put it on Extreme (which used to be called Ghost in Closed beta). Turn off the UI.

And then tell me it doesn't feel like a Ghost Recon game. One bullet kills you from who knows where. The enemies will hear the smallest sounds.

Until you do that, it's basically GR-Lite.

As far as getting around, yeah...carjacking is very GTA-esque, but it's in a lawless land where the Cartel does whatever the f*ck it wants, so it makes sense in the larger picture. It's not like downtown New York--you're on dirt mountain roads with some scattered villages.

[TCrouch]

Also, in the closed beta I did a lot of foot travel through hills for a few KM. Coming up on camps was very cool, finding little resource crates in the middle of nowhere, etc.

I really think you can make it whatever you want it to be, but on the default settings and with the default UI and just carjacking people...it's going to feel very familiar to other arcade shooters. If you don't carjack people but instead steal parked cars, don't have the minimap and UI stuff on, it can get hairy in a hurry.

[Danimal]

Again...put it on Extreme (which used to be called Ghost in Closed beta). Turn off the UI.

And then tell me it doesn't feel like a Ghost Recon game. One bullet kills you from who knows where. The enemies will hear the smallest sounds.

That's not really my point. Like i said I did enjoy the coop and I'm going to play it more this weekend.

I think the AI is plenty smart and I didn't think they were bullet sponges like The Division and I seemed to die plenty fast. I'm talking about the sheer number of side missions, collectibles, things to tag etc. None of that feels like previous Ghost Recon's which is fine this game took a different approach and went with the open world ala Tomb Raider, Far Cry, Just Cause etc.

While waiting for this game PK and I were referencing OFP Dragon Rising that we used to play coop with Teal and this game is nothing like that. Just telling him if that is his expectation I would play the beta.

[Danimal]

Also how do you have any idea where to go Terry if you turn off the entire AI? Without waypoints aren't you just wandering aimlessly?

[TCrouch]

So the definition of something more unlike OFP would be "too many icons"?

In my mind, the difficulty of old GR and OFP games were the lethality of fights. And that's what I see most people complaining about...but the older GRs were much more limited in scope, and based on levels.

OFPs were basically big worlds (similar to Arma) without a lot going on from pocket to pocket. The one thing Wildlands has for it is sh*t going on almost EVERYWHERE. It feels lived in, like the world is living more than most other open world games like it. I walk into a bar and people are dancing. People worship at shrines (where I found some "legends" to collect).

But it's DEFINITELY got the "Ubisoft Open World (TM)" vibe to it. And it can feel like Just Cause 3 if you just start wrecking shop. Like I said, I get that it's not going to be for everybody. And I don't even mean to come across as defensive about it or anything, because I really don't care whether somebody likes it or not--I've got no vested interest in it. It would just be a bummer for somebody to get a vibe after a bit of time and give up on it, when there's a ton to it. It's really one of the most open-ended types of games I've seen.

I feel like everything Ubisoft has done has been building to this, honestly. The rendering techniques, the gameplay of something as far back as Watch Dogs. They upped the animations and did more skill trees with The Division, but the world wasn't as open. Now you've got vehicles and a world that feels "big" in real-world sense, not video game sense...complete with the high-quality animations and seamless cover system (rather than a clumsy button).

I'm digging it, but it's cool if other people don't. But if it's because of the icons, that would be a missed opportunity--even if most of Ubi's games do have that icon-overload aspect to it at the beginning.

[TCrouch]

Also how do you have any idea where to go Terry if you turn off the entire AI? Without waypoints aren't you just wandering aimlessly?

You still have a map. You can open it and go anywhere, you just have to consult with it. Hell, if you have another player with you one can be the navigator while one drives.

This video does a pretty good job of displaying what it does:



When you're playing like that, it's a hell of a lot more immersive than a typical Ubi game, IMO. But there are times I just want to blow sh*t up, too, so I just set it to normal and wreck shop.

[pk500]

Terry:

I downloaded the demo last night but only got about five minutes into it before I got drowsy. Drove the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, and back yesterday with my sons. About eight hours in the car.

Does GR: Wildlands feel like The Division at all? If so, then I'm all in. The Division is one of my favorite games, period, of the last five years.