GHOST RECON WILDLANDS
It’s better with buddies – cartel your friends
Ubisoft’s latest open-world romp allows you to soar through the sky in a plane, skim over water in a boat, hover in the air in a helicopter, drift on a parachute back to earth, and tear across muddy roads on a dirt bike. Despite all these options, one of my friends refuses to conform – wherever we go, he always travels in the boot of our car. It’s absurd.
Everything is better with friends. Teaming up with a bunch of pals and parachuting into Ghost Recon Wildlands’ Bolivia is no different. When you’re equipped with a headset, a microphone, and a good mate, even the bugs are funny. Dunking your pal in a river while he’s curled up in the boot of your car is downright hilarious. Hell, even the weird physics that happen as a result will elicit a chuckle, from dunkee as well as dunker. This co-op shooter’s flaws are more bearable when shared.
There’s no mistaking it – online co-op is the only way to play Wildlands if you want to have any fun. This is still a buggy mess of a game, but with a headset strapped to your face you’ll be able to share a joke or five about its jankiness. Like with my friend curled up in the foetal position in the back of a truck, you’ll revel in the game’s more ridiculous moments. There’s nothing quite like seeing a team of special forces soldiers sneaking through a coca field, all supposedly working without the official backing of the US, each with the American flag painted across their face like a true, highly identifiable, patriot.
The extra fun you’ll have in co-op isn’t all unintentional, though. The game is quite clearly designed around a team of pals co-ordinating attacks. It might be infuriating when your
IT FEELS INCREDIBLE WHEN YOU ALL WORK AS A TEAM AND YOUR PLAN GOES OFF WITHOUT A HITCH.
friend who’s bad at games keeps alerting a compound to your presence, but it feels incredible when you all work as a perfect team and your plan goes off without a hitch. There’s something novel about taking aim at an enemy soldier just in time to see a cloud of red mist spray into the wind, all thanks to a well-placed shot from a sniping buddy eliminating him for you. Night-time infiltration of bases via helicopter elicits similar thrills, with one player dropping off their squadmates via parachute at strategic locations as another sits on a nearby mountainside calling out targets.
After a while, though, you’ll still get ground down by the game’s repetition and lack of mission variety (outpost clearing ad nauseam), if the long driving sections and inconvenient bugs don’t get to you first. Crucially, in a game as grimy as this, at least co-op lets you set the tone.
VERDICT
Wildlands benefits from being played online, but it’s still far from an essential purchase thanks to bugs and design issues. You’ll have some fleeting fun. Kirk McKeand