Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

I reviewed Ghost Recon: Future Soldier for Paste. It's a fine game, albeit a very familiar one. I couldn't  see recommending that somebody make an effort to play this game if they already have anything like it in their collection. On the other hand, if it dropped into your lap, as it did mine, it's not as though you'd be sitting there fantasizing about jabbing pencils into your thighs.

Often times I'll get sick of a certain type of game, before something is able to shake me out of it. I loved Battlefield 3, for instance, even though it was superficially similar to lots of other games. But even with a few minutes of playing a 64-player map, you could tell that something much more was happening, and that the game was dynamic and alive in a way that few games are, from any genre. So I'd like to think I didn't go into Ghost Recon ready to reject it for being too derivative. Sometimes a game is just like that, though. There's no spark. You spend most of your time saying, "Oh yeah, this part is just like that other game." It gives you everything except a reason to care.

This Onion article says it better than I could. Especially this part:

"Let us be clear: This sandwich is by no means bad," Forst said. "But we'd be lying if we said this was a great sandwich or a particularly original one. Though we have little doubt that a handful of people will love the Beef 'N' Bacon, for us to claim that we've come up with a groundbreaking new sandwich sensation would be absurd. Boasts of that measure would be foolhardy and deceptive, especially in light of the fact that Arby's has introduced much better sandwiches in the past." 

Are you hungry? Do you mind eating the same old thing? Let me assure you, then, that Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is something that exists, and will not poison you.