Alas, I was rewarded only with a loading break and a trip back to the nearest campsite, where I spent five minutes painting a rifle pink, tossed a grenade at a passing minibus, then climbed into my chopper and smashed it repeatedly into the ground. Perhaps it'll be like that scene at the end of the Matrix 2 - a burst of radiance, a room walled with television screens and a chair swivelling to reveal the avuncular figure of Yves Guillemot, there to explain the Ubiworld's ultimate purpose. Perhaps there is something outside of all this, I thought.
On reaching the majestic salt flats that extend beyond the world's northwestern perimeter, I immediately leapt aboard a nearby dirtbike and roared off towards the horizon - hoping to break free of both the game's effective but desperately routine activity design and the Clancy franchise's moribund obsession with grizzled wetworkers changing the fates of nations by knifing anybody with a funny accent. Vehicles extend from pick-ups and homely two-seater planes to helicopter gunships and APCs. And the occasional surface-to-air missile. Up there, all you have to worry about are power lines and the impetuous handling. While crossing the landscape I typically eschew fast travel in favour of a helicopter or plane, seizing my chance to slip the surly bonds of yet another bloody mass of Ubi-brand emergent distractions - resources and gear items to gobble up like plankton, convoys to pester, patrols to waylay or be waylaid by. I can't quite bring myself to loathe it, but it says a lot that I keep trying to escape it - or at least, to escape the part Wildlands expects me to play in reshaping its coked-up appropriation of Bolivia (whose government has lodged a formal complaint with France over the country's depiction in the game).
It is by turns plodding and vivid, entertaining and abhorrent. It's a game about extrajudicial murder whose creators have taken the time to animate children playing hopscotch in schoolyards, a realm of soothing splendour in which you'll kick in the door of a village church to retrieve a laser sight accessory from the altar. Aside from being another Ubisoft love letter to icon-studded map screens, it reprises the fond Tom Clancy daydream that the answer to every festering international dilemma is a squad of all-American roughnecks armed with a list of names and a relaxed definition of collateral damage. Just make sure you get a good group.Wildlands is that familiar glossy contradiction, the "gritty" quasi-realistic open world blockbuster - a work of great craft and care that's also a work of macabre war tourism, wowing you with its geography even as it casually up-sells the bankrupt fantasy of playing global policeman. Whether it’s friends or other random players, it has to be better than the alternative, right? Thankfully, co-op mode alleviates this pain by allowing you to group up with real people. Most of the time, you’ll barely notice they’re there – except while you’re twiddling your thumbs, waiting for them to get in the damn helicopter. Hoofing it out of a fight will leave them trailing behind you, a good half-a-mile down the road. It’s even more of a problem if you find yourself in too deep. In combat, they’ll engage at will and help you out a bit but they’re severely under-prepared and a large group of sicarios can quickly overwhelm them. The problem is, they tend to just follow you around. Ghost Recon: Wildlands is fastest-selling game of 2017 Sure, they’ll regale you with hours of chatter about the fictional Bolivian drugs trade but when it comes to a fire fight, you might as well leave them back at HQ. There’s no getting around it – Ghost Recon: Wildlands has terrible AI when it comes to your squad mates.