Review: Tom Clancy’s “Ghost Recon: Wildlands” Technical Test

Entertainment
In the deserts of Bolivia, “Ghost Recon: Wildlands” takes players on an adventure as classified soldiers dealing with cartels. Photo Credit: Ubisoft

Eduardo Hilario

El Observador

By now you may have heard of the newest installment in the Tom Clancy game series, “Ghost Recon”, which recently had a tech test, in advance of its open beta.

“Ghost Recon: Wildlands” is a tactical third person shooter based around an elite team of soldiers called “The Ghost” infiltrating the country of Bolivia and dismantling the drug cartel in that country, known as the Santa Blanca cartel, after a DEA agent is kidnapped and tortured by Santa Blanca and determining their connection between them and the local government. Last weekend I got a chance to participate in the closed technical test for the game. Here are some of my first impressions of the game so far.

When starting the technical test, I was given a brief rundown of the story so far from the starting point of the game, in which the DEA agent, Ricky Sandoval, is kidnapped and tortured by the Santa Blanca cartel in order to get any information about the DEA and what their involvement in Bolivia is. He is obviously found dead. That’s when you and your team, The Ghosts, are deployed to Bolivia to find out as much as you can about the cartel and deconstruct their empire one piece at a time leading up to eliminating the boss of the cartel, El Sueño, along with The Beauty Queen and El Cardenal.

Once you start, you are taken to a character creation menu, where you can create your own character. Almost everything is customizable, from your facial features to any type of tattoos you want on your character. The game wastes no time in dropping you into its massive world which encompasses most if not all of the country of Bolivia for you to explore. Unfortunately, all of it was not available to us in the tech test, but what was there, which was one are called Itacua, one of the 20 massive regions in the area, was large enough that simply walking from end to end would take a couple of hours. You are one of four operatives in The Ghost. You can choose to either play the campaign solo or with friends online and there is where the true fun of the game lies.

After teaming up with my friends in an online match, we started our journey with some of the story missions available to us in the tech test, which was to find and eliminate the local drug lords that had oversight of the area and its operations, “El Pollito” and “La Yuri”, a couple, who happen to be surgeons that are used to torture the enemies of the Santa Blanca cartel. Six missions were available to use, the final being a showdown with this dastardly couple. Also available to us, were side missions who help level up your character and earned you points to unlock new abilities for you and your squad. The upgrade tree has some neat upgrades like night vision, thermal vision, explosive drones, more damage resistance, etc.

With the release of Wildlands just around the corner, the developers have stated that they will have another open beta prior to the game launching on March 7th. I came out of that beta confident that this game will keep my interest for a very long time, especially with the inclusion of co-op for the entirety of the campaign. There’s lots of fun to have in the dangerous and explosive lands of this game’s version of Bolivia. “Ghost Recon: Wildlands” releases March 7th for Windows, Playstation 4 and Xbox One.

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