Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

It's easy if you do it on the ground. Sneak up behind him and grab his vehicle before you trigger the ambush lines. Guy will just enter a fetal ball and you can stuff him in said vehicle. Doing it via helicopter is suicide, though.

• I never knew traveling around in a UNIDAD armored truck would cause people not to notice me and I could just drive past them.

• My headcanon is that the Ghosts kept the truck of billions they "destroyed." It's the American way.

• Nice bit of heart-string tugging with killing La Boquito right after listening to the guy talk to his daughter.

• I captured the Beauty Queen and her daughter. I really like Nidia and am sorry she doesn't have a bigger role.

• Now onto La Cardinale!

Bit of a warning for La Cardinale: I found his capture mission to be the most annoying of the head Buchons.

There's a bunch of issues with that particular mission: to how much security surrounds the guy, how he will ALWAYS run or somehow trigger a fail-state upon the slightest bit of chaos, how the player is forced to scramble from the TV/media balcony of the cathedral, down to the streets, and then somehow catch up to the guy without killing him... and God forbid if you're playing this on Extreme? This was one of the missions where I said "fuck it", lowered the difficulty to arcade, got rid of the barest minimum of thugs, triggered La Cardinale's escape attempt, and then just EMP'ed his car and grabbed him... only for the hordes of security nearby to fill his vehicle full of lead and inadvertently kill him.

The solution? GET THE EMP DRONE AND MAX OUT ITS RANGE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE for this mission. It'll stop him in his tracks cold once he tries to escape the cathedral, at least for a moment; just keep in mind that he's not afraid of taking over another nearby vehicle... and that several sports cars are nearby, meaning you might have a hard time keeping up with the guy if he gets in the wrong ride.

Oddly, I think the El Cardinale mission worked best for being actual "Ghost" like because I just snuck up on the side and carefully took out people one at a time. I also used the Drone to scout through the cathedral to get my entrance right. Then I grabbed El Cardinale as he was running down the church isle and stuffed him in the sports car nearby (eh, padre? Really?). For a guy who was covering up for child trafficking, he was pretty obstinate.

I also have beaten the entire game and am very frustrated because I completed the game with 100% completion and STILL got the bad ending. I mean, it would have been a very nice ending and works well as a finale for the game but I wanted the ending which I'd earned through many sicario's blood sweat and tears.

You always get the bad ending first regardless of your completion.

Run the final mission one more time and you'll get the true ending.

That seems like poor design to me.

Still have the Commandante and the Goat to deal with.

Then I'll either go onto the Fallen Ghosts or Narco Road.

Narco Road is a non-canon and kinda weird DLC. It pays homage to a lot of 80s stuff and tropes and it's pretty light hearted and silly. It really doesn't fit the Ghost Recon tone at all but I'm hesitant to call it properly bad.

Fallen Ghosts is much better and honestly I think I like it more than the base game. It takes place after the true ending. It's dark and the fights are difficult.

That was easier than I expected.

I took a helicopter for the re-match and then I dodged missile fire and flew low until I was on the mausoleum's side then flew straight up to the place I needed to go. Did it in about 45 seconds.

Finished Narco Road and it was awful. What's the point of doing a DLC based around vehicles when you have the rocks and terrain so damned rocky that MONSTER TRUCKS get stuck in the rocks all the time? I mean, that's just awful. Damn near unplayable from beginning to end.

I will say I loved how bright and colorful it was and just wish the rest of the gang had been with the protagonists. This version of Santa Blanca seems a lot more fun than the one under El Sueno and I'm kind of sad we had to take them down too. I also think El Invisible had a pretty intriguing backstory and I'm sorry we killed him at the end since I'd hoped he'd get away. We also never really got an explanation for what was motivating him.

Fallen Ghosts was much more fun in terms of development but I have to say the Extranjeros seemed like a bunch of cartoon villains without the fun of the Santa Blanca cartel. They're all just a bunch of bastards and don't really have much in the way of personalities. I will say that it puts to lie that UNIDAD was ever anything but every bit the same level of scum as Santa Blanca if these are the sort of guys they hired. I do wonder where the hell the mercs got their super-tech, though, It seemed a missed opportunity to say, "the USA, duh" but it's still surprising.

edited 30th Apr '18 11:23:48 AM by CharlesPhipps

The Ubisoft official page seems to imply that some of the Extrajaneros troops were trained and supplied by Russian spec ops, particularly the Bodark unit that the Ghosts fought in Future Soldier.

I bought that and plan to play it next.

There's been a lot of speculation that the secret technology that Sam Fisher is trying to retrieve in the crossover mission is actually the active camo from Future Soldier, which takes place a few years after Wildlands. The implication is that the mercs picked it up after it was sitting on the Unidad server.

Although the possibility that they're just a Russian asset would explain it as well.

A Rainbow/Ghost joint operation.

Please god don't be as annoying as the Sam Fisher mission.

Makes me wonder if our new tag-along Team Rainbow member is going to have any unique abilities, or just be a skin change.

This guy took an unusually broad approach at analyzing Wildlands, ranging from analyzing why it didn't receive as much media attention upon its initial release and how much improvements and additions have been made since, and how it compares against similar games in the market (mainly MGSV). He also mentions how the game seems to have a hard time deciding on whether it wants to be a realistic tactical squad shooter with punishes rambo tactics, or a GTA-style crazy romp through the Bolivian countryside.

But then once he starts reviewing the game proper, he starts complaining about a lack of player agency and choice... which has to be one heck of a weird nitpick. Apparently one of his beefs is that you can't choose alternate story paths when dealing with the missions. Not a bad suggestion in itself - it certainly would be damn sweet if the game allowed more flexibility when dealing with missions instead of the typical single scripted and expected path - but his suggestions seem to imply he wants a branching story. And then there's the usual mis-understanding of how military operations talk on the field, or how he felt Bowman went too far with one of the Buchons by threatening to make him over-dose on Cocaine.

The biggest omission of his re-review has to be the lack of any disussion about Ghost War, the PVP mode that was added in several months back. It's already beginning to develop a small cult following, especially amongst fans of the old SOCOM games or other titles that preferred a slower, more meticulous approach to Pv P, yet he only mentioned it briefly. He didn't do the game justice by ignoring that addition - it's arguably the biggest change to the game, even moreso than the DLC packs.

I think it was Immy who told me this but apparently Wildlands sold like obscenely well despite not really being talked about online or being marketed at all.

According to Ubisoft the Ghost Recon games pretty much sell themselves so they never bother to market it.

I have liked most of the crossover missions more or less. The predator is kind of neat if OP as fuck. The Sam Fisher missions is a nice nod but the no-kill part was really damn annoying. The Rainbow Six siege crossover was not that bad at all. It was kind of shallow but not bad for a one-off. I sort of enjoyed a soft return to the breech-bang-clear methodology of the Rainbow games.

Your correct, they talked about it on there investor reports.

Ghost Recon Wildlands was one of the best selling games of last year, all accounts sat in the top 3, and some even put it in the top 1 slot and steam verifies that.

The investor report flat out says, that they never bothered to market it because the Clancy games, especially Ghost Recon sell themselfs.... and since the marketing budget is normally about half of a games entire budget why would they?

OPERATION ORACLE

Wildlands will be receiving yet another pair of free missions this month, this time about rescuing a Skell Tech developer who was kidnapped by Unidad and likely had some connections to the last two leaks of classified weapons tech (aka the previous two DLC missions). You'll be working alongside a rather vindictive Ghost Team Leader by the name of Maj. Cole D. Walker.

BTW, the new Ghost operative in question? He's being played by Jon Bernthal, AKA the Netflix version of the Punisher.

Feeling Ubi-softed out right now but I do want to play this. Only isue is a lack of consistent PS 4 / PC buddies to play it with. And be interesting to see if they play up the Punisher connection... (Yes I know it ISN'T the Punisher but I can see them throwing allusions all over the shop)

After the Predator DLC I was hoping Ubi could wrangle that license away - imagine a Concrete Jungle remake but with Assassins Creed or Wildands levels of detail...

This is one of the rare titles I bought for two consoles. I do have a copy on PS4 but wound up playing on [Xbox more because my friend in Texas only has the Xbone.

If you are looking for someone for MP I could load it back onto the PS4

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on May 2nd 2019 at 6:56:34 AM

Got the PC version with the offer on the Ubi store. It's good fun. May actually go for a PS 4 version as well, we shall see. Solo is fun as you can cheese with your team's mystical automatic sniper rifles that can turn into machine guns it seems! But it'd be nice to co-op some of the more complex bases. I can see the appeal of four people trying something really stealthy and synchronised... then just all going full A-Team when the shit hits the fan, with monster trucks, improvised C4 and mines, jacking a helicopter etc.

Just wish it had some of the Just Cause elements, where if you took out a SAM site, it stayed "taken out". Or if you wiped a base, it could be taken over by Rebels / Unidad.

Apparently there's an upcoming announcement soon:

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-05-07-ubisoft-will-reveal-a-new-ghost-recon-this-week

Connected to Operation: Oracle that is being run.

Wait, you're on PC? Dude, we need to share contact info, would be fun to go causing chaos in Bolivia with a fellow Troper.

Deffo: Jeremy Lashotron on Uplay - add me on and we can try this crazy co-op malarky! I'm fairly early on in the campaign so haven't gotten too far unlocking things. Be good to try a fun infiltration and extraction - as the AI is essentially just three turrets that follow you around.

Also, 7:30 BST / 8:30 CEST tonight - new Ghost Recon announcement. Another 4 player co-op game, sequel to wildlands likely....

I need to get some decent AR / Sniper gear too. And to learn how bullet drop works to get better at long range.

Edited by JerekLaz on May 9th 2019 at 1:54:54 AM