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Looks like the 'in' thing to do when making a trailer for your game is not to show the game at all. The latest Ghost Recon: Future Soldier video is more like a war film than a game teaser, with live action actors and big-budget special effects.
That said, assuming it's not all a big smoke screen for Tom Clancy's first Tetris-style puzzle game, there's a lot of gameplay info to be gleaned from it - all of which looks frickin' awesome. Let's take a look.
The scale has been ramped up
The trailer implies the scale of the play area will allow one unit to snipe from a distance, while another player can use stealth to get in close at street level, before sending in the ground troops when it all kicks off. The squad mechanic is notoriously hard to pull off convincingly, but if this is done right, it should be superb.
Stealth camo looks brilliant
The lone operative in the trailer uses stealth camo to infiltrate a building, passing two guards completely undetected. Of course, once you fire your gun, you'll become visible again so it's more about tactical insertion than a cheat mode. At the end of the trailer, it's revealed that all of the ground soldiers in the group have this camo gear. Take that, Modern Warfare 2.
Metal Gear-style mobile guns are in
The mobile mule-style gun units seem like a more realistic version of Metal Gear Solid's Geckos and it appears both sides of the conflict will have access to these drones. They look like they're directly playable too. While the tech may seem super-advanced, it's still based on real-world prototype technology (or the logical continuation of it), as our preview attests. We're not as far into the realms of science fiction as some fans feared.
The HUD is like The Terminator's
Another piece of new info that we didn't get to see at preview stage is the HUD, which is looking very familiar - not just in the sense that it's a continuation of the previous games' style. Hmm... inset photo, mission status and 'Terminate' instruction? Next we'll be needing to procure clothes, boots and a motorcycle.
We'll still be getting the old green and red icons for friendly and hostile targets and computer-guided artillery for taking out tanks and the like - there's definitely a huge focus on the technology here.
The plot is actually believable
While Tom Clancy has not been directly involved with writing the script for this game, there are definite parallels between this and other recent Clancy games, most notably EndWar. Russia, having risen as a new superpower is apparently being torn apart from the inside by a group of ultranationalists.
The plot is to be conveyed by the player actively taking part in events rather than as radio-linked information that essentially means nothing while you play. Getting right into the thick of the action in this unstable country with all this fancy tech should make for an explosive story.
The first two Advanced Warfighter games were high-quality, intelligent shooters and this one doesn't look like it's going to buck that trend one little bit. We'll show you some actual gameplay footage as soon as we get our hands on it.
29 Mar, 2010
