I've been trying Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun and Ghost Recon: Wildlands.
Shadow Tactics is part of a spiritual series, each game has a different name but they're all the same crap with a different coat of paint, with Desperados 3 and Shadow Gambit. Isometric stealth games where you control a party of people. All stealth games are retarded and unrealistic in some way, but Desperados was different because it had you be brutally outmatched (like a puzzle) and had guards that could spot you in a second. The gameplay felt like a creation tool for making movie scenes (like coordinated ambushes from the bushes to wipe out a whole patrol, or the seductress distracting a guard while other guys slip back).
Shadow Tactics was their first, and it was exactly that in a Sengoku Jidai setting, but it suffers from being ugly as fuck and having boring Japanese characters. A lot of that just comes from the stock characters and sensibilities of Japan, but it's boring as Hell, that was even a big downside in Ghost of Tsushima which was otherwise good. The other thing, graphics... well, it's older, but it looks like piss. Desperados was fucking beautiful, like a moving painting. This just looks like garbage.
Worst part, though, is that it seems much easier, so the sense of achievement isn't there. Like I'm just blowing my way through the level instead of actually solving something. Pretty disappointing.
As for Ghost Recon, I had the impression it was the most soulless goyslop in existence, but I got curious after Ghost Recon Breakpoint started infesting my YouTube Shorts recommendations. Had hopes that it might be like a tactical shooter equivalent to Far Cry and Just Cause.
Well, I was kind of right, and its both good and bad. It does do its commando thing fairly well in terms of atmosphere. Dusty towns, chatter on the radio, spending much of the time crawling, not because I need to but for immersion. As far as gameplay goes, I haven't seen much special about it yet. The drone is absurd, a real consumer camera drone can easily go five miles and this piece of shit can't go far enough to even be useful. The downside is that it does truly feel empty and barren. Like something that exists specifically for you to mindlessly shoot in if you can't be fucked to play a multiplayer game at the moment. I also don't like the regenerating health, it's way too fast. If the shooting was such that getting shot actually mattered, it'd be way more intense, reward thinking way more.
