MatchUp: Warface vs Ghost Recon Phantoms

January 8, 2015 15:23 ( Articles ) 0

 

It’s always a difficult choice of which games to MatchUp, the main requirement being that the games are close enough in nature that a direct comparison can be made, often to the point where the comparison has been made over and over and over by other people. Sometimes the difficulty comes in when the games are so similar in features that it’s quite hard to separate them; this was the case for Warface vs. Ghost Recon Phantoms. Being at least a little familiar with both titles we initially thought that with the Tom Clancy: Ghost Recon franchise and developing giant Ubisoft in the driving seat that it was going to be a pretty one sided fight (nothing to say that Warface developers Crytek aren’t a force in gaming industry). Spoilers; we were wrong.

Both games are free to play, both games generally revolve around micro-transactions as the main form of their business model, though Warface has a number of different publishers that do their own thing with the title whereas Phantoms is published through the Uplay store and also offers a subscription element. For their main platforms they are now exclusive to Windows, though for a while Warface was available on Xbox 360 and, as of writing this article, registration has been closed and the game will shut down in February 2015; in contrast Phantoms is said to be coming to the WiiU, but no one really knows when.

Both games are a traditional team based PVP shooter, so in many ways there’s not that much you can expect in terms of differences, each player has a handful of available classes with Warface just beating Phantoms 4 classes to 3. Primarily the classes offer up different gear, which in turn will kind of predetermined the types of tactics and strategy and overall gameplay your experience with each of them, though Warface also gives each class its own unique ability (though to be fair this could easily be seen as extra gear option in comparison). Weapons are pretty much fully modifiable for both games, utilising a variety of attachments from scopes, barrels, stocks, etc. and armour comes in various forms. They handle item degradation differently, Warface having ongoing degradation for all items and players must spend currency to repair them, whereas Phantoms simply offers armour degradation in the form of Armour Inserts that can be added to give buffs and bonuses but do take damage over time.

In game the combat isn’t all that different, and the same can be said from most FPS MMO’s these days, the graphics for both games are pretty good (though we’ll tip this to Warface’ favour with the Crytek CryEngine3), but the choice of game options is really where Phantoms stats to let itself down. Warface boasts 6 PvP modes, 6 PvE coop missions and a staggering 24 Battlemaps to fight on, almost three times as many as Phantoms’ 9 maps and only 3 PvP modes (no PvE coop). Phantoms does focus on more drawn out battles in comparison to Warface, and the team PVP does feel a lot tighter, however the minimal amounts of game options is quite disappointing for such a title. That said, whilst the PVE Coop seems like a nice addition there are plenty of complaints that players get locked in PVE purgatory forever having to grind quests to gain currency to fund their PVP (repairs and gear) whether they like it or not, forcing players to experience content they might not actually be that interested in.

With Warface having about six months extra time from official release over Ghost Recon: Phantoms, we hope that Phantoms will do a little catching up and start to offer considerably more options (at least they will if they don’t players to get bored of repeating the same maps and modes). Both offer a great level of challenge, exciting gameplay and Phantoms has some official eSports support through the CEVO eSports platform for players that like to engage in competitive gameplay, no official support for Warface is currently available and the only form of competition is in the available Ranks players can earn though they offer nothing more than a cosmetic medal for others to see.

You won’t go wrong with either title, they’re both pretty fun pick up and play MMOs and it’s a fine line as to which one we personally prefer; we like the more close knit group dynamic of Ghost Recon Phantoms, but you can’t balk at how vastly outgunned it has been by the sheer number of options, maps and modes that Warface offers. Yours to decide on this one.

 

 

 

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