jackscratch76
06-13-2005, 05:03 PM
I felt like Ubi made a few simple missteps in Ghost Recon 2 that I pray they will avoid in Ghost Recon 3. The 3rd person view I can take or leave; and they left the option to play in 1st person to anybody who wanted it.
Here's the 3 things I hated about Ghost Recon 2 that I hope get addressed in the follow-up.
1. The Great Outdoors
What happened to clearing out buildings? Don't get me wrong, I love creeping through the forest and sneaking through jungles, but my favorite parts of GR and GR:IT were going into buildings and clearing them out room by room. The docks level in the original Ghost Recon is a perfect example of this. Clearing out the bank in the embassy level. Bring back (and even improve on) the inside of buildings!
2. B.B. Guns
What is with the complete nerfing of all the guns in GR2?? I was just playing OGR the other day, and when I hit some fool in the sternum with a .50cal round from my sniper rifle, he went down and stayed down. One bullet. One well-placed shot from any kind of rifle, or a quick double-tap to the chest and you put a guy down.
In GR2 sniper rifles are like glorified binoculars that just happen to shoot bullets. Unless you hit a guy in the head there's no way he's going down, and even if you DO hit him in the cranium it's not always a gurantee. I've had to put half a clip from an M-8 into a guy at close range before he decided to drop. I don't know what you did to the guns, but they seem a LOT less powerful, and a touch less accurate, as well. I would say I missed the presence of submachine guns, but in OGR an Island Thunder they were so weak they were completely pointless anyway.
3. Where the Buffalo Roam
The levels in GR2 are all WAY too linear. I understand having some plot-driven levels, where events force you from point A to point B, but my favorite levels in OGR were the ones where you were dropped off on the corner of a map with half a dozen objectives and just let loose.
Do you want to blow up the SAM or rescue the hostages? Up to you. Go pick off fools around the guard tower or destroy the jeep? Whatever you like. Clear out buildings in any order you please--oh, wait; you can't do that at ALL in GR2. Don't take away our freedom in EVERY level to take objectives in our own order, and to find the most effective or quickest way to complete a level. You don't have to walk us by the hand through every level with each objective popping up as soon as we complete the last, with one set path from point to point.
That's my 3 big complaints. GR2 just strayed from too many of the things that made the originals so much fun. I understand wanting to shake things up and take the series in a new direction, but you have to be careful not only what you add in--but more importantly what you're taking out.
A few other random thoughts while I'm on the subject: what happened to the night visison? It seems a lot brighter and harder to make anything out than it used to be. I used to love night levels, where you could see enemies from a mile off. Now you're just a sitting duck in the dark because you can't make out enemies 20 feet away from you, while they pick you off at leisure through the forest from a quarter mile off.
Which reminds me: the AI in GR2 seems a little off. I understand that's got to be the hardest thing to improve and to balance in any game, but good god. I thought Elite in OGR could feel a little cheap, with some guy putting one round from an un-scoped AK-74 through your forehead while you were still sighting in on him with your sniper.
Well at least in OGR you usually had time to SEE the guy and try to get a bead before he killed you. Creeping around in GR2 seems pointless, because the enemies all have senses like Superman and accuracy like Deadshot. Even on normal difficulty I died way too many cheap deaths from enemies with supposedly inferior weapons and training that I couldn't even see.
And I like the new classes, and the ability to take a sniper AND a rocket launcher, or a LMG AND demolitions charges. But why don't we get that in the single player as well? One of the reasons I bought GR2 was for some of the fancy new weaponry, and then I didn't get to USE any of it until halfway through the game. You want to make some levels Lone Wolf only? Cool. But what's with the randomly arbitrary weapon selection on every other level?
I can comprehend only getting to use some of the OPFOR weapons in the multiplayer modes, but at least give us the full selection of US guns in each category. Make it a little more flexible--get rid of the basically useless pistols--or at least make them an OPTIONAL backup weapon--and let us take grenades or a laser targeter or demo charges instead.
Set it up more like Rainbow Six, with a primary weapon slot, a backup weapon slot--which could be a pistol, a grenade launcher, grenades, whatever, an explosives slot for grenades or a rocket launcher, a slot for med kits or extra ammo... I don't care how you divide it up, but give players a little more freedom to customize their mission pack, so long as they take a primary weapon and any special equipment required for the mission.
Anyway, that's my $1.50 worth of $.02
Thanks,
JS
Here's the 3 things I hated about Ghost Recon 2 that I hope get addressed in the follow-up.
1. The Great Outdoors
What happened to clearing out buildings? Don't get me wrong, I love creeping through the forest and sneaking through jungles, but my favorite parts of GR and GR:IT were going into buildings and clearing them out room by room. The docks level in the original Ghost Recon is a perfect example of this. Clearing out the bank in the embassy level. Bring back (and even improve on) the inside of buildings!
2. B.B. Guns
What is with the complete nerfing of all the guns in GR2?? I was just playing OGR the other day, and when I hit some fool in the sternum with a .50cal round from my sniper rifle, he went down and stayed down. One bullet. One well-placed shot from any kind of rifle, or a quick double-tap to the chest and you put a guy down.
In GR2 sniper rifles are like glorified binoculars that just happen to shoot bullets. Unless you hit a guy in the head there's no way he's going down, and even if you DO hit him in the cranium it's not always a gurantee. I've had to put half a clip from an M-8 into a guy at close range before he decided to drop. I don't know what you did to the guns, but they seem a LOT less powerful, and a touch less accurate, as well. I would say I missed the presence of submachine guns, but in OGR an Island Thunder they were so weak they were completely pointless anyway.
3. Where the Buffalo Roam
The levels in GR2 are all WAY too linear. I understand having some plot-driven levels, where events force you from point A to point B, but my favorite levels in OGR were the ones where you were dropped off on the corner of a map with half a dozen objectives and just let loose.
Do you want to blow up the SAM or rescue the hostages? Up to you. Go pick off fools around the guard tower or destroy the jeep? Whatever you like. Clear out buildings in any order you please--oh, wait; you can't do that at ALL in GR2. Don't take away our freedom in EVERY level to take objectives in our own order, and to find the most effective or quickest way to complete a level. You don't have to walk us by the hand through every level with each objective popping up as soon as we complete the last, with one set path from point to point.
That's my 3 big complaints. GR2 just strayed from too many of the things that made the originals so much fun. I understand wanting to shake things up and take the series in a new direction, but you have to be careful not only what you add in--but more importantly what you're taking out.
A few other random thoughts while I'm on the subject: what happened to the night visison? It seems a lot brighter and harder to make anything out than it used to be. I used to love night levels, where you could see enemies from a mile off. Now you're just a sitting duck in the dark because you can't make out enemies 20 feet away from you, while they pick you off at leisure through the forest from a quarter mile off.
Which reminds me: the AI in GR2 seems a little off. I understand that's got to be the hardest thing to improve and to balance in any game, but good god. I thought Elite in OGR could feel a little cheap, with some guy putting one round from an un-scoped AK-74 through your forehead while you were still sighting in on him with your sniper.
Well at least in OGR you usually had time to SEE the guy and try to get a bead before he killed you. Creeping around in GR2 seems pointless, because the enemies all have senses like Superman and accuracy like Deadshot. Even on normal difficulty I died way too many cheap deaths from enemies with supposedly inferior weapons and training that I couldn't even see.
And I like the new classes, and the ability to take a sniper AND a rocket launcher, or a LMG AND demolitions charges. But why don't we get that in the single player as well? One of the reasons I bought GR2 was for some of the fancy new weaponry, and then I didn't get to USE any of it until halfway through the game. You want to make some levels Lone Wolf only? Cool. But what's with the randomly arbitrary weapon selection on every other level?
I can comprehend only getting to use some of the OPFOR weapons in the multiplayer modes, but at least give us the full selection of US guns in each category. Make it a little more flexible--get rid of the basically useless pistols--or at least make them an OPTIONAL backup weapon--and let us take grenades or a laser targeter or demo charges instead.
Set it up more like Rainbow Six, with a primary weapon slot, a backup weapon slot--which could be a pistol, a grenade launcher, grenades, whatever, an explosives slot for grenades or a rocket launcher, a slot for med kits or extra ammo... I don't care how you divide it up, but give players a little more freedom to customize their mission pack, so long as they take a primary weapon and any special equipment required for the mission.
Anyway, that's my $1.50 worth of $.02
Thanks,
JS