Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

GAME OF THE WEEK:16 cert, Ubisoft, PS3 (also Xbox 360) ****

The shooter genre is quite a crowded one. With Call of Duty churning one out every year, Medal of Honor tackling more modern-day conflicts and Battlefield trying to stomp its particular brand of warfare all over the genre, you can barely move for shooters of different types.

So Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier needs to stand out. And it makes a decent job of it, opting for a tactical shooter that is a mix of stealth, speed and deathly accuracy.

You take on the role of a member of highly trained special-ops soldiers, the best of the best, hunting down targets in the world’s most dangerous war zones. At your disposal is an arsenal of weapons and military hardware, from advanced shielding to a useful drone that multitasks like a pro.

Unlike rival shooters, spraying bullets blindly in hopes of hitting something won’t get you anywhere. Neither will distracting the AI enemies long enough to make it to cover. At least, not all the time. You have to move like the titular ghosts, blending into the background. While there are some sections where speed and firepower are necessary, it’s often more important to think about what your next move will be, and plan your attack.

The campaign mode isn’t anything too much out of the ordinary. Ubisoft has given players what it knows will work. There’s more than 10 hours of play here if you go it alone.

Our advice? Head for multiplayer once you’ve brushed up on your skills. Or go for co-op, where you can play up to four people.

Visually, Ghost Recon passes the test most of the time. However, the visuals are occasionally substandard, the environments don’t quite work and, in general, the game fails to live up to the high standards set by other shooters before it.

But weighed up against improvements to the cover system, and the ability to mark targets for your AI soldiers, Ghost Recon has enough to keep most fans happy, if not coming back for more. CIARA O BRIEN