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

this game has good 3d effects and average graphics. BUT the the playability is great i got this game on the launch day and im still playing it the levels are awsome and it is also very challaging and i think i will be playing it for a long time to come as it has over 60 missions and also local online (you can play with a friend) 10/10 from me

I firmly believe this is the best 3DS game out. This is for a number of reasons:
+Great graphics- Bearing in mind this is a handheld device I think they are pretty good
+3D is great- The 3D provides great depth to the game
+It is LONG- This game will last for a long time. I have been playing for hours on the story mode and only done a small %. Plus there is a skirmish mode, which is awesome
+Easy to pick up- Easy controls and the gameplay is not too complex for the less advanced gamer, but also complex enough for the more advanced gamer.
This is why this game is a great one to pick up and I am certainly enjoying it :)

Shadow Wars is a rather simple type of SRPG with only got 6 core characters to level and each of them having a different role. Each of them has a personality though even if it is over the top American. The actual game play is very satisfying. I am quite fussy with my SRPGs only really liking Fire Emblem and Valkyria Chronicles but this game pleasantly surprised me. Despite the team being small the missions were fairly varied. One minute youd be blowing up a train or missile base and the next youd be supporting the local militia in a town and getting the civilians out. There are many defeat conditions such as never allowing one of your core 6 Ghosts to die and usually a few other conditions in most levels. Ive done 22 missions so far and my save file states Im only at 21%. Ive spent hours upon hours on it already so theres a lot of game play time here.

The levelling up system is basic. You earn stars for completing certain objectives in missions and at the end you can assign them to the members of the team who took part. I do have one or two issues here - you can only assign stars to the team on the completion of a mission and you can only increase a character by a maximum of 2 stars per mission. Its probably been implemented so you cant power level one character but its a pain when they show you the rewards per level (they are fixed so you cant choose). That doesnt mean to say youll have enough stars to level everyone evenly and you could probably save stars and repeat an earlier mission to assign them to the character you wanted but its a pain and could easily have been avoided with a character menu between the missions.

There is no online multiplayer. I wouldnt have used it but thought Id bring it up anyway. There is offline multiplayer where I believe you only need 1 3DS and you take turns on it but I havent actually tried this. There are also unlockable skirmish missions which I have also yet to attempt but I imagine they are quick maps for people to play on when they dont want to go through the hassle of the storyline. Ive unlocked 13 of these so far. One other random detail which people may wish to know is that there are 4 save slots for this game so quite a few people can play it if youre going to share the game.

The storyline is nothing special but not completely dire either. Its playable and just sets up some background for the game play. The rough gist of it is a corrupt Russian politician is trying to get in power and to do so hes causing a lot of conflict in other European countries. The American Ghost team are sent in to save the day. Very cliched and very American but makes fine background for those who arent picky about storylines.

I found the 3D effects to be very good and they certainly add to overall feel of the game. I find playing this on 2D not as exciting as the graphics are pretty poor even for DS standards. The character portraits I felt were very nice on a more positive note. The music is also nothing exciting but its fitting. It isnt voice acted but that doesnt bother me.

So overall this game is worth 4 stars to me and take note I am judging this on the fun I got out of it and not on the technical side. Its been quite some time since Ive been addicted to a game quite this much. The graphics music and storyline dont bother me very much for a portable game but this has some solid strategic game play and is a great launch title for fans of the genre. Just dont buy this thinking its going to a FPS because it couldnt be more different. I would highly recommend this to those who are looking for an introduction title to SRPGs however due to its low difficulty and simplicity.

Come on nintendo! what is this!? loves the psn version of the game but was soooo disappointed with this one! difficult to manouvre, jerky gameplay, graphics worse than the original ds games... i was looking forward to this game most!
just shocking! appalling! terrible!

One of the best games for the 3DS is a game that could easily have been done on the regular DS, gameplay-wise.

Seriously, the graphics are functional at best. Don't be fooled by them. While it would've been nice to see a little more polish on them - they'd be barely acceptable in a first-gen PSP game - they do their job for this game. You never question what you're looking at, which is what's important in Shadow Wars. Because this is personal turn-based, grid-based strategy at its peak.

You only ever control a handful of units. Sometimes you get some extra units in addition to your party of six unique classes, sometimes you're stuck picking just a party of four. The good thing about this is that everyone's role IS very defined. You really have to think about where to send each of your squad, and the game will punish you if you send someone out on a solo mission.

At least, it will if you're playing on the Hard level. And you will want to. The game is, with some small exceptions, downright easy at the regular difficulty level. You can tell that it really was meant to be played at the hard difficulty level: Some classes are downright abuseable at the regular level, to the point where you can take one particular character and go on a rampage with them, taking down half the enemy force before they even have a chance to move.

Play at the harder difficulty level, though, and it becomes a game of careful decisions, nail-biting victories, and really playing to each of your characters' strengths. It very rarely turns into a game of trial and error - the game likes to trigger sudden ambushes as you complete objectives, and so you'll want to spend an extra turn just to have everyone ready to move as you complete an objective - but planning ahead means that the game will almost always feel tough, but fair.

It's also a fairly long game, to the point that, granted, you might lose interest before it ends. The story's largely ignorable. The upside is that you'll have played for a good 10-20 hours before you've had your fill, and if you're really hooked, you've got a few more hours of story missions to do after that, and a LOT of bonus missions to complete on the story maps after that's done. There's a ton of gameplay here, no question about it.