The playground of Ghost Recon Wildlands is none other than a Bolivia plagued by a serious drug and corruption problem. La Santa Blanca, the local cartel, derives its power from the cultivation of coca and extends its hold over the whole country. Police, army, judges and politicians are directly or indirectly under the thumb of El Sueño, the local big boss. His facial tattoos and impressive build leave no doubt as to his cruel nature, as Ricardo Sandoval, an undercover DEA agent, will see. His capture and assassination are the starting point of the scenario, and the reason that the members of Ghost Recon were waiting for to land in the country and put an end to the actions of the Santa Blanca. To do this, they will have no choice but to gradually work their way up the chain, eliminating thousands of "sicarios", seventeen henchmen, four section heads (production, traffic, security, influence), four bosses secondary, and finally El Sueño himself. This job represents for the player more than one hundred missions, which can more or less be carried out in the order that one wishes, only the highest targets requiring to have already knocked down enough members of lower level.
THIS IS BOLIVIA !
This degree of free will goes hand in hand with the presence of an open world, which one can immediately browse freely. Divided into twenty-one provinces, the playing area is gigantic and relatively varied, since there are both snow-capped mountains and sunny plains. The playground is still generally very steep, and we will not hesitate to borrow a motorbike to cut through fields and forests in order to avoid the zigzags of the often very winding main roads. Or to take the controls of a helicopter to reach as quickly as possible an isolated village located a little too high. The development team did not skimp on the vehicles, since there are sixty different types. The same goes for the weapons, the number of which climbs to eighty and to which nearly a hundred various and varied accessories can be attached. But when it comes to numbers, it's ultimately the number four that turns out to be the most interesting...
Because a Ghost Recon must be traveled as a team, and Wildlands is therefore indeed playable in four-player cooperation. It is also advisable to browse it in this way, in order to derive maximum pleasure from the gaming experience.
Because a Ghost Recon must be traveled as a team, and Wildlands is therefore indeed playable in four-player cooperation. It is also advisable to browse it in this way, in order to derive maximum pleasure from the gaming experience. However, Ubisoft has not forgotten the loners and asocials, who can count on three partners led by intelligence artificial. The latter does her job rather well, leaving the good role to the player without doing only figuration. To maximize the effectiveness of our partners, we can use a simple and effective system of orders (open fire, hold a position, go to a given place, gather) and even program synchronized shots, marking marked targets beforehand thanks to binoculars and a drone. This modern device is perfect for effectively scouting the terrain before launching an assault, since it allows you to find soldiers hidden behind buildings, or even inside. This makes it possible to eliminate the bulk of the troops discreetly, as long as we use silencers and avoid assassinating enemies in front of each other. Of course, the hotheads can always land in force, for example by tumbling at the wheel of a vehicle driven by a player, while the other three (real friends or allies AI) stand at the window to snipe anything that moves. It should be noted that the management of the aggressiveness of the enemies is very well dosed.
GHOSTS OF THE PAST
Ubisoft has clearly come a long way since its first open worlds. Here, there are no supernatural opponents like Far Cry 2! Crossing you on the road, your enemies may suspect you, but they will not open fire immediately. The presence of different factions also brings richness and credibility to the behavior of the soldiers. The rebels of Kataris 26 are on the side of the Ghosts, and do not hesitate to take part in the fights if they are in the area. Freeing prisoners on an enemy base will therefore immediately make your life easier. On the bad side, not only do you have to deal with the Santa Blanca, but also with the forces of Unidad. This paramilitary organization supposedly dedicated to the fight against drug trafficking actually tolerates the Bolivian cartel but shoots members of Ghost Recon on sight. It takes more or less role assigned to the police in the GTA, with different levels of alert. The management of reinforcements and pursuits is also well done, knowing that it is much easier to sow research teams in the pampas than in an urban environment, the tall grass not being there only for the decoration.
With Wildlands, Ghost Recon therefore undoubtedly succeeds in its transition to the open world. However, the game struggles to fit into the category of essentials.
With Wildlands, Ghost Recon therefore undoubtedly succeeds in its transition to the open world. However, the game struggles to fit into the category of essentials. On the one hand, it suffers from a few minor flaws (uneven French voices, small bugs here and there, PVP mode absent when the game is launched and planned for later…) but above all suffers from a major lack of personality. The game would bear the name Far Cry that we would absolutely not mind. According to the consecrated expression, one must also force oneself to suspend one's disbelief, because attacks on realism are not lacking. Skill points to be picked up as they are in the scenery (they take the form of medals but are actually presented and simply indicated as skill points...), allied AI that teleports behind our backs or in our vehicles, houses with doors systematically wide open or double-locked, sensitive documents scattered everywhere in nature and other such nitpicky things. But the most annoying thing is the constant feeling of playing a typical Ubisoft game. In the structure of the open world, in the presence of a thousand and one things and things to pick up or unlock, in the upcoming arrival of downloadable content and micro-transactions, in the vehicles and weapons reserved for certain editions or pre-orders, in the messages that regularly urge us to join a public session, in the Uplay successes that sometimes appear in two redundant copies on the screen... All elements of this type smell "good" of the industrial recipe, noticeably break the immersion and , in the end, inevitably reduce the sympathy capital of the game.
