First Impression of Ghost Recon - Online

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As I have started my gaming many many moons ago with the Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six On the MSN Game Zone if some of you can remember that far back. I was looking forward to the newest release to the Tom Clancy's series I must admit I lost interest with this series when they came out with R6-Vegas and stopped playing altogether, sticking with my Call of Duty's, BattleFields and Counter-Strike series and various MMO's. With high hopes I applied for this new Beta and was quite guarded in what I expected from TC-Ghost Recon-Online.

Classes
So let's start with the classes. There are 3 basic classes: Assault, Recon, and Specialist. Here is a YouTube video that breaks them all down.


With the classes being set up in this manner, it allows for a lot of custom builds to each class, thus allowing each player to play their preferred class and customize their character to suit their own personal playstyle. By leveling up skills they use the gear & weapons of their choice to assist them and their team mates.

One thing I did kind of like was they allowed for a minor amount of character customization -- as in I could pick a face and skin color; but this was very limited and not altogether useful in game as when the round starts not many people are going to stop and say "wow I like his/her avatar" as they are facing a hail storm of bullets and nades heading their way.

Game Play
The in-game interface takes a bit to get use to but is well laid out and simple to figure out. Not sure I like the way it searches for games and randomly puts you in a match with random people. It does allow you to invite a friend to your current game. Not sure how that will go over if you're in a full room and all you want to do is play with your clan and friends. It seems they have integrated a chat lobby that was useful.

While in game, as it was very limited time for me, I found the 3rd person view a bit of a pain in the ass and didn't have much time to see if I could change it as the games were fast paced and fun.

As I started out at level 1 recon there was a bit of a hard go as most games I was thrust into I was facing much higher level players with much better gear where it would take me 2 to 3 well-placed shots to drop them and it took them only one to drop me. I think this has a lot to do with the Recon has a crit % as you lvl up yourself and gear that % only gets bigger. As well from what I can tell, you can buy items to increase your overall abilities that are unlocked at different levels. So not sure I like that fact throwing a level 1 in a room with people 10 and more levels higher than them could discourage new players from staying if they are unable to compete on an even playing field.

Graphic-wise I was very impressed as the game was full of eye candy. There were a few glitch parts but it is closed beta and I'm sure they will get looked at and fixed; but other than that game play ran very smooth. The sounds were top notch as I use a megalodon 7.1 surround-sound gaming headset. While roaming the map I could hear shots being fired and echoing throughout the map it -- was very impressive.

I am not sure if this game will make it for me as I am stuck on this 3rd-person view game play, but I was unable to look into seeing if I could change it. There very well might be an option that allows me to change the view other than changing the shoulder the camera is over. I personally prefer the 1st-person with the option of using 3rd-person to peek around corners and over in-game obstacles. For now I don't want to get into too too much detail as it is a great looking game with lots to keep the gamers out there happy and busy. As this is just a first impression I strive to keep this short and sweet.

Happy Gaming all!