Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars (Nintendo 3DS) Review

Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars puts you in command of a group of elite soldiers, the Ghosts, who are charged with stopping a total world meltdown in the face of a warmongering Russian’s grasp for power. The specifics of the story are not all-too important - a number of the levels in the hefty campaign conclude with the bad guy bosses almost comically legging it away before you’ve even so much as aimed at them - and serves mainly to set up mission after mission of turn-based strategy RPG goodness.

Shadow Wars is more like a futuristic Fire Emblem than the Advance Wars you may expect from its title. There are six members in your core squad, who can be nurtured and levelled up throughout the course of the campaign by awarding them stars at the end of each mission, the amount you have to hand out dependent on how many of a mission’s objectives you fulfil. Each of these characters have their own classes and numerous combat advantages: your engineer can set up gun turrets, heavy gunners can force foes to miss a turn by suppressing them with heavy fire, and stealthy recon units can sneak around unnoticed unless they are right by an enemy. Your common-in-garden commando, medic and sniper round off the team.

You don’t have to level your characters up, but it would be advised. Benefits include increased health, combat bonuses that give you easier access to different attack options, and extra or upgraded equipment. Before each mission you are invited to choose your squad’s equipment - their primary weapon, secondary weapon and armour - as you see fit. Each weapon has different damage and range of attack values, and equipment dictates how many squares you can move per turn, so all must be weighed up. Upgrading characters such as the engineer practically guarantee you an extra member of your team, as the ‘secondary weapons’ belonging to that class, such as the gun turret or, later, attack drones, act individually each round.

Rather than being mere replaceable unit types, however, all members of your squad are characters, and if any are to perish in combat the result is an instant mission failure. This means that you have to be cautious who you place in the firing line, as one wrong move can end your attempt prematurely. As you select your movements with the D-pad and face buttons - the touch-screen displays a clickable map and various statistics, but the action has naturally been placed on the 3D display, thus meaning you do not have direct touch control over your squad - you have to bear terrain and surrounding forces in mind. Lurking in the shade of trees or barriers, or entering a building, affords you more cover and thus means less damage is incurred, whereas taking higher ground is rewarded with increased attack power over those beneath you. Engaging an enemy should be carefully considered as they, plus any of their allies who have you in range, will return fire upon you, meaning that the character initiating the attack could meet their demise if they attack the wrong target. The mechanic works both ways, however; it’s often best to move your characters in groups so that they can cover each other.

As your troops rack up the kills their power meters fill. Once maxed out, extra attack options become available to them, such as an extra powerful shot capable of taking out most enemies or the ability to act twice in one move. Coupled with command powers, these powers can prove fatal to enemy forces. Dotted around each stage are command flags to be captured, and for each of these held at the beginning of each turn you are awarded command points. Gather enough of these and you can take advantage of a command power: unleash an air strike, give characters a power meter boost, or allow a character to move more than once in a round.

These multiple powers can, if used correctly, make Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars’ campaign a little too easy, though this is opposed by its lengthy nature. There are taxing missions, but many can be torn through with efficient use of your squad and exploitation of the available powers. Take for example the recon unit. Wielding a knife, it can creep about completely unseen, then kill many enemies in just one hit. Combine this with its special power to act twice in one round (while boosting the power of its first attack), in addition to the upgrade that nets it half a power meter per close range kill, plus a decent surplus of command points to let it do it all over again, and suddenly one of your units has just killed three or more enemies in just a few swift motions. Is it fun? Extremely. Does it feels a bit like cheating? Yep.

The campaign is not all there is, though, as plenty of Skirmish missions are unlocked as you play, offering smaller, tougher challenges where you must make the most of pre-set squads to win under restrictions such as number of turns or only having a single unit type at your disposal. Multiplayer is included, but only in hot-seat style, with the same 3DS passed between players, and the way it is done is interesting - similar scenarios to the campaign and Skirmish missions are set, with each player taking a different side. It would have been excellent to have seen this available via local wireless too, or even the ability to have multiplayer missions waged over StreetPass with those you are in regular contact with. Online battles would have been a favourable addition also, either played in a single session or over longer periods of time with notifications letting players know when it is their turn.

Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars does not push the system visually, looking a notch above a well-crafted DS title. Despite this, and the overhead viewpoint, 3D definitely adds something, giving it the appealing look of a board game complete with toy models doing battle upon it. Pylons and powerlines stretch up, poking out from the rest of the action slightly, but the 3D effect is most explicit during story intermissions during missions. Character faces pop up in hi-tech videophone interfaces which are very cleanly separated, overlaying the main environments.

Thankfully the developers clearly understood the necessities of portable gaming while making Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars, as you are able to save at any time to pick up on later. The saves and loads are impressively snappy too given the amount of things going on. Other shortcuts, like pressing the L button to find any characters that still can move that round, or tapping the touch-screen map to hop to areas where characters or points of interest lie, highlighted with icons and neon dots, also help to make this a game that can easily be booted up for a quick go on your commute.