This is my 5th most played game on Steam, mostly because I’ve played through the campaign solo once, then replayed it with a friend, then re-replayed with another friend. Plus, after the campaign is over, there are daily missions you can complete that change every day, so it’s not like you run out of things to do in-game.
Slots #4-7 in my most-played games list are all Tom Clancy games, actually. As a former military guy, I actually love Tom Clancy games. It’s fun to compare them to reality. Yeah, there are a lot of fantasy future-tech situations in those games, but sometimes a real-world military scenario plays out, and it’s fun to compare/contrast with how the military actually operates.
This particular screenshot was snapped while I was fighting a Behemoth tank. I was getting my butt kicked with little progress, so I decided it would be easier to just nuke it from the air with an Overseer helicopter with Mk. II guided missiles.
Little did I know, the Behemoth also has missiles and locked onto me as soon as I came within range. This is me bailing out before my helicopter was blown to bits. I was too close to dodge the guided missiles in time.
Below is a shot of my usual team: two of my close friends (left and right) and me (center). Ignore the floating backpack in the foreground. 😅 It glitched and stayed in place when we entered the bivouac.
My buddies modeled their characters’ appearance after themselves, but I like to play as women if given the opportunity. I was raised by a strong, independent-type woman (and also married one!), so I always lean toward women protagonists in my games. Action hero men are boring and overplayed, in my opinion. 😜
Man. I’ve always wanted to try a Tom Clancy game but it seems so daunting with (what seems like) a lot of them. I should pick one up some time to try.
They’re a bit different than the military ones, but the first three Splinter Cell games are fantastic if you enjoy stealth. Chaos Theory in particular is absolute cinema, one of the best stealth games of all time.
They’re all independent games, so you don’t really need to worry about playing them in any sort of order. Just pick one and enjoy!
Except The Division 1 and 2. They’re a continuation of the same plot, but you won’t miss much if you jump into the second one first. They do a pretty good job summarizing the story to get you going.
My favorites are the two latest Ghost Recon games, Wildlands and Breakpoint. They’re open world games, so you can travel anywhere on the map and get into trouble wherever you want.
The Ghost Recon games are meant to be more subtle stealth games (you are playing a Ghost operative after all), but 95% of all missions can be completed by running in guns blazing if you want. Very rarely do you get a mission that actually requires stealth. But I find it far more rewarding to scout out a mission area, identify my targets, and stealthily sneak in without alerting anyone. Hint: use a drone to tag enemies from the air and then you’ll never accidentally bump into someone while sneaking around.
Ghost Recon sounds like the one I should check out. I’m a big fan of games that reward players for being stealthy
Splinter Cell is another that is stealth based. It can be much more tedious than ghost recon, but has a lot more options for being stealthy.
Splinter Cell was amazing back in the day! But trying to replay it nowadays, the controls are so wonky. I barely got through the tutorial before I got tired of it. I’m so used to modern controls now; Splinter Cell came out in an era where part of the gaming challenge was the controller itself.
Both recent Ghost Recon games are about toppling dictators in foreign countries.
Wildlands takes place in a South American-esque nation where the local drug cartel has taken over the government. You’re sent to sneak in and take out the regional leaders one by one, freeing the oppressed people from their control, until you gather enough intel to find the dictator himself and stop him. It’s very much like a Tom Clancy spin on the Just Cause game franchise.
Breakpoint goes a little more sci-fi in its story. It takes place on a technologically advanced island nation that’s overthrown by a militia (run by a former Ghost buddy of yours) who wants to use their AI drone swarm technology to “end all wars” (read: conquer other nations via fear, intimidation, and billions of deadly drones).
You’re sent to investigate what happened to a ship that got too close to the island and got attacked, and find yourself also attacked and marooned on the island, with no way to escape or call for backup. So you’re now a one-man army, figuring out what happened on the island and slowly overthrowing the coup and rescuing civilians caught in the middle.
Both recent Ghost Recon games are about toppling dictators in foreign countries.
Wildlands takes place in a South American-esque nation where the local drug cartel has taken over the government. You’re sent to sneak in and take out the regional leaders one by one, freeing the oppressed people from their control, until you gather enough intel to find the dictator himself and stop him. It’s very much like a Tom Clancy spin on the Just Cause game franchise.
Breakpoint goes a little more sci-fi in its story. It takes place on a technologically advanced island nation that’s overthrown by a militia (run by a former Ghost buddy of yours) who wants to use their AI drone swarm technology to “end all wars” (read: conquer other nations via fear, intimidation, and billions of deadly drones).
You’re sent to investigate what happened to a ship that got too close to the island and got attacked, and find yourself also attacked and marooned on the island, with no way to escape or call for backup. So you’re now a one-man army, figuring out what happened on the island and slowly overthrowing the coup and rescuing civilians caught in the middle.