STORY

Wildlands will strike you with its vast and very thought-out open world, filled with llamas and a very psychotic drug cartel. You will immediately want to explore every nook and cranny of this fictional Bolivia, but that doesn't mean you should.

Though the game has a beautiful landscape, a great open world, fluid and fur-fulling gameplay, Wildlands problems start to show early on.

First off, the story, its not that interesting. You're set in a fictional version of Bolivia where the Santa Blanca drug cartel seeks to take over the country and become a narco state, with its bat shit crazy leader El Sueno.

Sounds interesting enough, however the story is plagued with generic characters, poor voice acting and an overall lack of drive for the story itself. Definitely the weakest point in the game, but don't let it deter you from the whole experience.

GAMEPLAY

Its fantastic, fluid, fun, dynamic, rewarding.....if you have another person to play with.

The main issue is that the AI are worthless in every aspect. The only thing they're good for is reviving you, and they cant even do that right sometimes. Seriously, I've had them stand over me and do absolutely nothing until I died!

Having an actual person with you takes out the useless AI and allows you to share the experience. In all honestly, its how the game was meant to be played. This is a co-op experience so if you don't have a friend to play with then I doubt you'd be able to suffer through the game with the AI.

"What about the gun play?", you're probably wondering. It's complicated. Overall its great, however a lot of the weapon dynamics are weird and don't make much sense.

For example there are a plethora of weapons in the game and plenty of options to choose from, but that's what the game wants you to think. Only a handful of weapons are actually viable and worth using. There is no true balance between them.

Once you get certain weapons you could very well be limited to that one weapon for the majority of the game, simply because it out performs every other weapon currently available to you. But thankfully you can look up the weapon locations and go get any or all the weapons and take your pick.

TIER MODE

I want to talk about Tier Mode. DON'T fucking do it. Save yourself the headache, please. Once you reach max level in the game, which is 30, you will have the option of going into tier mode, which ramps up your difficulty to max and progressively goes beyond that the more you level up.

The benefit is that you get more supplies and you can upgrade your weapons damage, but trust me, its not worth it. The game goes from being fun, to annoying and unfair. It doesn't turn into Dark Souls where you have to become better and learn from your mistakes, no.

Its a sloppy way to artificially extend the games playabilty by ramping up the enemies health and damage by 20-fold. You will soon be 1-shot by an enemy who apparently went to fucking Hogwarts and teleports around a corner to shoot you!

Though the gameplay has issues, it is one of the best redeeming features of this game. There's nothing better than perfectly infiltrating a base with your friend up on a hill covering you and then taking out anyone in your way.

Its a fantastic journey to go on with a friend or even a couple of friends. Go in stealthy or go in loud, the choice is yours!

The game plays on that perfectly, you don't have to always be the silent assassin, sometimes you can just run in with your LMG and slaughter everything, no penalties and no questions asked.

GRAPHICS

Not much to say about this. Like I said earlier the game looks beautiful, of course its not the best you've ever seen but for a large open world game it does a great job.

Whether your trekking through the jungle on your way to wipe out a compound or running over llamas to exhaust your frustrations you wont be disappointed with the visuals of it all.

Environment

And Lastly, lets talk about the world you'll be spending so much time in, Bolivia. Wildlands has a great diversity of snowy mountains, a vast jungle, swamps and a huge salt flat.

Most zones have a completely different feel to them and come with new challenges. No one zone is completely the same as another, however to some it can feel that way.

For the most part the cities and towns are the same, same buildings and assets as the others for the most part. But, it's the environment around it that changes, and that's what matters both from a visual and gameplay perspective. You're a lot easier to spot in the middle of a salt flat than you are in the middle of the dense jungle.

You'll never feel lost in Wildlands, mostly because of the map, but that's not the point. Each place is distinct enough to know where you are and where you need to go.

Conclusion

Though Wildlands has its faults its hard to put into words the fantastic time I had with it. The best way I can put it is, as a journey; one filled with killing llamas, cartels, and civilians that you're not supposed to shoot (but you do it anyway).

If you have a friend that's willing to put in a good 70 hours with you, then I highly recommend Wildlands. Its a game that has come far, but also has far to go. If you can look past the frustrations and flaws, then it'll be some of the best 70 hours you'll spend!

Reviewer : @gandar (AKA : Buck Fankers) - He had trouble getting his account verified so I posted his review for him on my blog to get him started. He is now on Scorum ready to answer your questions below. Please visit his blog for future reviews!

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