BacK2GraW Review... Ghost Recon Online

Ghost Recon Online Beta:

It would be an understatement to say that the return of the Ghost Recon Series was over due and so it was with great expectations that i joined the Ghost Recon Online Beta list. Fortunately once i entered the testing arena i was in for a pleasant suprise!


I should probably quickly cover the fact that although i didn't have a huge amount of background info on this particular game (more focus was on Future Soldier if i'm being honest!), i didn't expect an out and out open world game that i was used to from the team co-op missions from GRAW and GRAW2. It was always likely that Ubi were going to follow the current format for the first person shooter, which as we know is much smaller, faster paced and altogether lone wolf. I can report though that ultimately the mix of squad based play and run and gun action seems to be finally breaking into the modern fps.

Developer Effort = Win

GUI:
As a FREE game you would expect that effort and depth would be lacking from what is little more than a marketing experiment, but once again Ubi have excelled in this too. The depth of guns, player customisation and allround thought into balance shines through. With abilities to change everything from the gun barrel to the hat on your sweaty head it rivals even the most expensive of AAA shooters for options in its stylish and user friendly GUI.

Classes:
There are 3 classes in GRO which then branch into slightly more specialist areas. Assault, Specialist and Recon make up the trio that offer vast playstyle differences even from within the same class. 
Assault has the option of shotgun or Rifle to take the offensive with. My personal opinion is that this classes excelled in medium to short areas and it was the assaults that really pushed up and took the game to the opposition for those vital flag caps. However it wasn't just guns that made a playstyle difference... the abilities were starkly contrasting too but i'll cover those in a bit.
Specialist is the heavy artillery of the squad. Rocking out either a LMG or Shotgun you are really in a position to put in the suppressive fire! Once again you are offered a medium range option or the up close and personal choice. I found that it was the specialists that really pulled the squad together and instigated the teamwork. If the specialsits were not operating their abilities in the right areas (or not at all as some people were showing) then the mid ground of the battle was a real struggle and the assault guys didn't get the chance for the big push!
Finally is the Recon class (or as i like to call it, the COD class). Offering either a sniper rifle or SMG the Recon guys could operate at either end of the battle and a good sniper was an invaluable asset to any side. As the enemy pushed up it was often the longer range fire from the Recons that was giving us the best chance of gaining extra ground. However on the other hand the SMG element meant that they could punch holes in the enemy forces from awkward angles due to the Cloak Perk. Honestly this class was the go to for all the noobs and as a result teams often ended up flooded with awful snipers and selfish kill whores. Once people became mroe aware of their roles however it was good to see some excellent team play instigated by this highly adaptive class.


Perks:
Assault has Blitz, a riot shield type affair with advanced damage protection and the ability to knock over and stun enemies. Its' second perk is Heat, a suppressive radiation emitter which slowly damaged enemies but caused a major inability to fire at a target. This was my favourite perk for its useful nature in team work and for the trolololols. 
Specialists have Aegis, a force field type perk that, according to the description, caused small airbursts when a bullet came into range to deflect the offending projectile... So a force field lol. The second perk was Blackout, which is an EMP device causing enemy perks to be disabled and also to be electronically stunned. The video below has evidence to show that this weapon when used properly is a devastating perk.
The Recon class was offered both offensive and teamplay orientated perks. Cloak is an adaptive camouflage that allows temporary invisibility/transparency.. much like the car in James Bond. This perk allows stealthy insertion behind enemy lines but due to it's quick regen and ability not have to charge up like the other classes' perks, was massively over-used. The last perk on offer is the Oracle Perk. This gives a field of view to your team over a set distance, showing enemy positions through your HUD. An invaluable perk to the team based squad this allowed co ordinated attacks on unsuspecting badders and in defensive let you get into position early to anticipate enemy attacks. Probably my 2nd favourite perk of all.

Map Dev:
Ok so there are some bugs in the maps... One is even a gamebreaker being that the crouch animation (and more importantly hit detection box) doesn't work 100% of the time. Fortunately though the devs are working hard on it and hopefully, come the next round of beta testing, it will be gone and the game will be near perfect for this genre. So onto the maps themselves. I was fairly impressed with the map design but at the moment there is alot of choke points that can get clustered during rounds. This causes the inevitable stale sniper battles that need good teamwork to break through. They are alot bigger than say Call of Duty but they do follow a "we start this end, you start that end" sort of feel which also has the dramatic ability to let the Spawn Rapers (or arseholes of society as they should really been known) cage you in and spoil the game.
It would seem like im slating this part of the title but it is so important to the dev of the final product that at this time there should be more bad than good points. That way once they are fixed come the next round of testing we can look at a shiny game. 
Effort has been put into thinking about cover points throughout the map and personally this pleases me. It is nice that the ability to move forward in a more strategic manner has been taken into consideration.


Conclusion:
I know i may not have done the game justice with this short review but i hope i got across the fact that once the few bugs are ironed out and the weapon balance has been addressed across every class this is set to be my go-to fps. I loved the way the classes were so adaptable and the maps almost demanded teamplay but was somewhat dismayed that spawn camping was enabled and the weapon imbalance only existed for the first few rounds of guns (after that it was laser time!). 
All in all i was seriously impressed by this game and in my opinion if you like the fps genre you need to be making every effort to play this game.... Its going to be a beast!!


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