7.3

Sniper 2 Ghost Warrior
(STEAM DOWNLOAD)

The Sniper Mantra one shot one kill comes to mind when playing City Interactive revisit to the Sniper Ghost Warrior series. While the story line is the basic cookie cutter generic military story line, it still gives you a fairly good spin on a sniper based story and game play. While very linier at times I did find myself enjoying the experience.

The main times I found the linier nature of the game to be so restrictive that I felt as if I was a dog on a leash and had to stay in an area, was when during one mission…I found the restrictive boundaries of a level. My Spotter went one direction and I felt I had to break right into some brush even for a moment due to a patrol boat coming around the corner. I figured …ok... Stay hidden till they pass and rejoin the Spotter. No such luck as soon as I went just past a fallen tree, the screen started to haze out with the message that I was LEAVING the Mission area.

So to even get my main screen back I had to expose myself to the enemy and get fired upon. If there is anything that derails the experience it’s the forced player must stay in these small boundaries in a level limitation. There are no multiple approaches for the player on maps…so much so that it feels extremely restrictive. Most times your Spotter will tell you who to target first, only on occasion are you given the opportunity to choose who to smoke check first.

The story this time around feels secondary to the game play; it never really got me overly involved in what was going on. Character wise there is no real back story to ever really care about the fellow soldiers who are on missions with you. The story does do the job guiding you through this Sniper experience. Voice acting was not bad at all, lending life to the characters in the game.

One thing for sure though, the Spotter’s input and guidance is invaluable. Choose not to listen and the player may be able to bull their way through a mission, but things will go easier if you follow the Spotters lead.

The game delivers opportunities to feel some of the Sniper experience, and that my friends is what we wanted coming into it. True it’s not open and free sand box, to where you are making all of your own choices, but the Sniper experience and game play is enough to engage the interest level. If you are looking for a run and gun game, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for an interactive Sniper game experience where taking your time, lining up your shots and plenty of stealth…then Sniper Ghost Warrior 2 is your game.

Moving slow and sure unless you really have to sprint, is the way to go. Sprinting will affect the characters heart beat which is shown in a hud like display during game play. Having a faster heart rate when trying to take a shot seems to make the aim a little shakier, so slowing yourself down and firing with a lower heart rate yields better results.

Playing the game at the two lower levels of difficulty (Casual or Medium) gives more visual cues when taking longer range shots. A red marker shows where the bullet is projected to go, so there is no need to worry about wind direction nor speed or the distance of the shot at these lower levels. Further deterrent for the lower levels, it just feels like the game babysits the player far too much at these levels.

For a true challenge and a better overall gaming experiences try playing it at the hardest difficulty which is Expert. Much of the visual cues are not there. This will also facilitate you as a player taking some time for your shots. This would be a good thing, first of all because you have to take ballistics in consideration and figuring out where your shots are going. Secondly, a higher difficulty may make the game last longer since it seems to be a rather short campaign.

Being a sneaky bastard is what it’s all about, so being stealthy is all part of the game. Sneaking up behind an enemy and performing stealth kill gives way to a nice animated sequence of a knife kill. The standard military stuff to be sure but still rather satisfying.

I actually felt more intense play when it was time to do over watch for a team. Clearing the way for a team of soldiers and coordinating take downs from over watch ratchets up to a bit of a thrill really. Methodical to be sure, but I had a blast. The player is also treated to a bullet cam once in a while. It’s not over done to the point of being passé; it seems to reward the player just at the right moments as we watch the bullet in slow motion flight to the point of impact.

This brings me to bullet impacts on the enemy soldiers. Some of the rag doll effects are there, but this is sprinkled with some incredibly realistic movements when some on is hit. On these occasions the enemy reactions are better than the normal rag doll effects. As I said to one of the folks from City Interactive…It’s almost as if the designers simulated the tail splash effect and the bullets impact of kinetic energy to the surrounding tissue of the target.

Those looking for some diversity in the sniper environments will definitely find it here. From swamp and river filled jungles to urban settings and mountain terrains like Tibet. Even with less than stellar use of the Cryengine 3, I find myself actually enjoying Sniper Ghost Warrior 2. The textures are not horrid, they are ok. Light sourcing looks really well done. The poly count on objects even at the highest level of graphics still seem to me to be lower than what it should be. Perhaps that was what was done to keep up the very high frame rates of the game. I think this is a fair trade off.

The other let down to me would be the check point saves, which by the way are few and far between each other. Which facilitates a cry of aw crap I have to go through all that again? If you get killed and have to redo a mission…the path is long my friend. The game play is satisfying and does keep up with an entertaining ride as a Sniper. While there is multiplayer, it did not seem to be part of the primary design of the game. It’s almost an afterthought to the blast of a single player experience.

Have fun play games
Edwin Millheim