>ghost recon: wildlands
>-------------------------
>despite my general disinterest for open world checklist games
>GR:W really sucked me in. this is mostly due to the
>incredible world design. it has the standard
>every-conceivable-biome-packed-into-a-20-km²-area open world
>design but the detail and transitions between biomes make the
>world feel truly believable. i have spent hours flying around
>the world in a helicopter, forsaking fast travel, because
>exploring and opening the map up is so rewarding visually.
>it's quite astounding. the gunplay is fine and improves as
>you acquire new guns and components. many of the most
>effective guns are only available by spending real world money
>— which is kind of rotten — but there are still way more
>guns than anyone would ever need attainable just by playing
>through the game. it does have a mercenaries: playground of
>destruction "deck of 52" feel to it but locating, drawing out,
>and eliminating the targets is usually tedious and
>unrewarding. to this end i have mostly spent my in game time
>traversing the map, collecting new guns and components, taking
>down enemy camps and bases, and ignoring the story missions
>almost completely. i have found the game to be extremely
>enjoyable when played like this

This is a phenomenal single player game. I beat the main story twice and dabbled in many ghost mode affairs, usually not lasting past 30 hours. I would fly in helicopters even tho every GM player says not to, and I ended up jumping out of the heli and killing myself bc the heli fell on me. Stopped playing it entirely after another frustrating GM death-glitch. may even start some more. one of my all time favorite shooters.