Sniper: Ghost Warrior

Sniper Ghost Warrior is a first person Sniper game from CI games available for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Unlike other shooting games such as the Call of Duty franchise, the objective of this game is to successfully carry out contract work in return for a monetary reward, as long as it revolves around sniping.

What It’s About

The story goes as such. The democratic government of Isla Trueno is one day overthrown leading to an aggressive military battle for power. A highly trained special ops united is then sent in to help the rebels accomplish their aims in a way that only a sniper could handle. The sniper is you (how fun!) and throughout the game you’ll be switching from person to person, acting as paid assassin or hired contract killer all within the aims of trying to help the special ops unit get a handle on things.

What Was Good

There are a few other games succeeding this one in the Sniper franchise, with more developed mechanics and items that are more thought through. If you’ve played any of those games then Sniper: Ghost Warrior may seem like a step down to you, but if not, then it’s still got some decent things to offer. You’ve got a standard bullet cam where you can watch some good kills, and on the occasions where you can actually use fully automatic weapons, you get some good recoil off them, too. The story mode is concise and not particularly elaborate or challenging, which, depending on the type of player, will either be a pro or a con.

What Was Lacking

There is, unfortunately, a whole lot in this game that left me unimpressed. The game itself is based around shooting and killing, yet that seems to be a function that the game struggles with greatly. Often when firing at targets, enemies will suddenly gain terminator levels of invincibility, with shots just being absorbed into their stomachs like nothing had happened. You usually have to fire a few times to get the kill shot and when it lands it looks good; however the glitchiness of what should be the main function of the game is down to a dodgy AI that takes you right out of the experience of being a sniper. Another example of this is found upon shooting an enemy; it doesn’t matter how efficiently or quietly you do it, the rest of their team will be automatically alerted. This means that a lot of the game basically revolves around running away from foes and trying desperately to take them down with your seldom-working gun. I honestly found it to be tedious, repetitive and quite dull.

Overall

Unfortunately there happens to be more bad than good to say about this game. There are points where it feels like it has something, and then the haywire AI or just the downright boring gameplay rears its head and it puts you right off. If you’re not mad about vicariously living out your sniping fantasies via video game, then perhaps this is one best left alone.

Pros

• Some good shooting mechanics
• Easy enough to run through

Cons

• Boring, repetitive and dull throughout
• Invincible enemies are not a fun element of the game
• A sniping game that doesn’t give you freedom when sniping is not a good one

4/10

City Interactive Are mostly known for lower-than-bog standard stuff like Beauty Factory and those atrocious Art of Murder adventures, amazingly of which there are now three and counting. Sniper: Ghost Warrior is their attempt to push forward out of the bargain bin bollocks zone and into the mainstream area. The strange thing is, as a game with "sniper" in the title, there's a surprising amount of run-and-gun shooting.

The first thing you notice is that everything is very Modern Warfare-inspired, right down to the slow-motion door-busting room clearances on an oil rig. Familiar? Indeed it is. As is the part at the beginning where your spotter says, "You take the one on the left." After a couple of missions of sneaking around in the long grass, you switch to an assault team, attacking the aforementioned oil rigs and, from there, merging missions with the sniper, approaching the situation from different perspectives.

This all works pretty well, but considering the developers just ripped off a highly successful game, it's not surprising that they manage to get the basics right. Sniper never goes beyond the simplistic, copycat approach and never tries to, so at it's very, very best, this is an average-yet-enjoyable stealth-shooter. Sadly, it sinks below this level on too many occasions.

Lethal Bushes

A stealth-shooter has ensure its stealth element is spot on, and this is where S/GW falls down. It seems the best way to get through most areas is to find the route the game wonts you to take, because if you do the enemies don't seem to be able to spot you, regardless of how close you are. Deviate from this line a little and enemies will suddenly spring into life and mow you down. The combat side of things works better, but only in the previously discussed "does just enough" way.

As for the multiplayer, avoid it unless you love people crouching in bushes blasting you from miles away - it's all snipers, all the time. You rarely see an a fault with the sound, meaning you hear distant gunshots and death screams as if they were right next to you. To say this makes things mildly disorientating is an understatement. As a budget alternative to Modern Warfare 2, you could do worse than Sniper Then again, you could also do better, because Sniper's not on sale at a budget price. Only worth buying if you see it in a bargain bin.