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What sets these series apart from other Chiappa lever guns is that these are modernized guns packing some features that modern-day hunters demand. Currently, this series includes four rifles: two Winchester Model 1892 replicas, a takedown 1892 and a takedown 1886. It’s an unsatisfying, repetitive jumble, brilliant to behold and yet so numbingly empty.In their 2020 catalog, Chiappa Firearms has a new series of lever-action rifles called Wildlands. It is Just Cause, without all the stupid explode-y bits and the potential for pure mayhem.
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Wildlands is Far Cry, but with a weaker story and more repetition. It’s just a shame so many of these worlds are about as meaningful as virtual bubble wrap. Look at these amazing virtual worlds people create from thin air. Some part of me is fascinated by Wildlands in the same way I was once fascinated by Crysis. Bottom lineĮven so, Ghost Recon: Wildlands is not a fantastic game.
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It was enough to bump our score up a notch or two. I can think of zero reason to play this game solo, but with a group? Just looking to have mindless fun? Yeah, maybe. It was a thoroughly mediocre game, made better by having friends around. Hell, we even said as much about The Division last year.
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I can say that about so many games though, many of which are better in their component bits. It feels like a completely different game. When you can set up a real plan and execute on it, when you can ignore the trite story because you’re just there to hang out and chat with people, when those long minutes of travel downtime are filled with lighthearted chat, when every encounter has the potential to become a funny anecdote-that’s when Wildlands is at its best. Buggy at times, sure, but infinitely more bearable. Wildlands does feature four-player co-op, which I played for a bit with my colleague Adam Patrick Murray earlier this week and again with some internet randoms later on. Which I guess brings us to the big caveat: Co-op. Nope, you still get to hear all the terrible barks and every useless, bland thought that comes out of their mouths. They swear like teenagers who just learned what Urban Dictionary is, they make jokes so bad even your dad would be too embarrassed to say them out loud, their personalities vacillate between nonexistent and detestable, and they never shut up, even if you’re playing in co-op and those characters aren’t actually around. Playing solo, you’ll create your character and tag along with three other AI nobodies who are insufferable. The absolute bottom of the barrel though are your own characters. Worse are the purposefully-edgy villains, like the torture experts who-and I swear I’m not making this up-are featured in a two-minute audio log discussing some dead guy’s genitalia. You know: The old general, the young social media handler, the pop star, all with tenuous ties to this fictional drug cartel. I don’t even know where to start here, except to say “It’s bad.” You’re sent to Bolivia to take down the Santa Blanca cartel, a drug-smuggling, child-smuggling, smuggle-smuggling ring populated almost entirely by forgettable archetypes. Finding the rare airplane is an actual joy, but helicopters possess the grace of a flying cow and cars drive like you’re back in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, with no weight or physics to the handling. That’s another part of the problem: Travel in Ghost Recon just isn’t very fun. Ghost Recon is an actual shooter, not a shooter/RPG hybrid. I like the moment-to-moment of Wildlands quite a bit better than its Tom Clancy brethren The Division. Ghost Recon: Wildlandsīut seriously! Ghost Recon: Wildlands is just Far Cry 3! Every mission is some variation of Far Cry’s outpost infiltrations, with you scouting out a base (either with a drone or binoculars), marking targets, then either picking off targets quietly or storming your way in-or, most likely, some combination of the two. That sort of info can be useful, but it also feels lazy to write. It’s usually some sort of faux-pas to describe games within the context of other games-“It’s Dark Souls by way of Gone Home crossed with a bit of Crysis.” Ugh. We’re mercifully spared the whole tower-climbing routine Ubisoft made notorious, but Ghost Recon’s been transformed from a beloved tactical shooter with a rich pedigree into a cheap Far Cry clone. I’ve talked at length about the Ubisoft Formula™, the bizarre process by which all Ubisoft games have become somewhat indistinguishable, but Wildlands is the most egregious. It is the most repetitive Ubisoft game yet-worse still because you’ve already played its ilk before. Wildlands may top the list in both respects.