Recent reviews by TekiTacs

This game died with ijji, Rest In Peace, you sweet summer child

Welcome to phantoms, or as I originally knew it as, GRO, Ghost Recon Online.

Things were simpler then, you had a lot of flexibility with your credits, and you didn't feel boxed in because you didn't have the best everything. You were still competitive with level 2 or 3 weapons and Mk1 skills because they did well in balancing.

Sure event weapons and specialty items existed back then, but it wasn't on a 'You need X gun' basis. In fact I did not get my first event gun for some time, and I only had one for quite some time. The AG VSS, lovingly engraved with gold inlay and a nice red wood stock texture. I scraped enough credits together by selling my original VSS to get it. My friend at the time, David, also got one, and we were marveling to each other about how awesome it felt to have a special gun of our own.

Now, keep in mind, this all happened before the steam release of even GRO. This was back when you had to download it's downloader to download the installer. Most importantly, it was more fun back then. Sure there were little nuances like the fact your character's gear didn't originally overlap, meaning I couldn't have my PM350 on both Assault and support at the same time, but we lived with this kind of stuff.

But, more onto the gameplay itself. It had an interesting system I hadn't seen before, one that requires you to hold your aim and not full on sprint to get the best critical chances. It rewarded being in a spot or being in cover, because free-standing shooting got uncontrollable very quickly. It also favored sneaky snipers more than one would think, as getting set up in a primo position let you get at least 3-4 kills before being found out.

But why am I being sentimental for a game I don't play anymore?

It's because the day after I came back for the first time, it slapped me in the face. My first match, I was getting ravaged by some chincy pay-to-win Nemesis 50 CQB that it seemed everyone and their mother had. If it wasn't that, the fact that now unique weapons were a dime a dozen, the fact that they now openly sold them, as opposed to being time limited offers, and to get a previous one you had to spend money and risk not even getting one you wanted.

But speaking of coming back, they gave me some free stuff for returning after my hiatus, something in the order of like 30 GC and some little things that I don't quite remember anymore. I spent my GC and got myself a halloween 2014 pistol, which was nice I guess, but the acquisition felt washed out by all that was lost from the experience.

I remember only ever getting matches on Chertanovo because the game just didn't know what random map selection was. I remember actually having good conversations with the GMs, and seeing their IGNs hanging around global chat all the time. I especially remember all of the desperate battles over point C on Markov station, everyone ducked in cover trying to find a weakness and capture the point. Now it just feels like a ghost of what it was. None of the original people I was friends with in the game show up anymore, not even the GMs. I mean, it's a shame that a wonderful game with so much potential got lead down a back alley and robbed of what it could have been for the free-to-play market.

But I ramble. For the what this game was, it *was* amazing, but now with how the mechanics and the weapon economy is, it feels quite diluted. Special guns are now easy to come by, unlike how they used to be, being event, holiday, or just because they wanted to release some new content. Even at that, the original specialty guns cost a decent bit more than their original counterparts, enough to make you work for it, and feel proud to own something so unique. Now, when you open up the shop screen, there are two specialty guns glaring you in the face for each weapon class. And obviously they are always top tier, because why wouldn't they be, right? My old VSS-AG now pales in comparison to the things they offer. Yes, my old tier four gun that I was so proud to own is now a victim of severe power creep.

Mentioning power creep, it seems that any long-standing players now have the absolute endgame gear, the T4 armor vests with like 6 slots on them and consistently buy up a stock of gold armor health boosters and have these Mk3 skills and T8 guns with fancy camos all decked out with the absolute best attachments and magnum ammo only. Sure, magnum ammo existed back when I first played, but it didn't feel necessary in any sense of the word. It was just a temporary booster that sometimes made kills easier. Now with all of the vets armed to the teeth and health ratings like a literal M1 Abrams tank it's like you need to have something in the order of at least 500 damage per shot to kill them. This also means that not many new players are willing to play, as they feel very weak and minuscule compared to the long-standing powerhouses. It definitely affects us middle-level players, because now we're caught without a decent supply of middle-skilled players to be more evenly matched with, since most newbies drop the game after only a short period.

If I had advice for whoever headed this project at Ubisoft, I would recommend they seek some outside consultancy or remove this game entirely and offer compensation for Uplay accounts, as the lack of attentive, caring upkeep of this game is quite a shame and I feel does not warrant keeping it alive in a comatose state. Sure, there's a possibility it might rebound, but there's a large percentage of it not coming back around to it's glory days.


In short, GRO is that childhood friend you thought was going on to be CEO with his aspirations, but ended up being a junkie, face-down in a drainpipe.

I had this game before they introduced the first person camera, the game was much more fun then to say the least. There was a better selection of permenant, non-currency guns (as in paying real money for these items), and the upgrades you put on had no time limit. Now, since they've broken what the game was originally meant as, and the overwhelming amount of hackers seeming to have come over from Combat Arms, AVA, and other F2P/P2Y FPS', the game just isn't worth the code making it's poorly built structure.

TL;DR It sucks, don't play