Sniper Ghost Warrior 2 Review

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 Review. Lost between long-range brilliance and shooting itself in the foot. Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 is ranked #1076 out of 1397 total reviewed games.

You never hear the bullet that kills you, or so they say. Neither do you foresee the magic bullet that saves you - at least, City Interactive didn't. 2010's Sniper: Ghost Warrior, a budget release from the Polish publisher known only for its low-rent productions, unexpectedly changed the lives of its creators.

The game, a first-person shooter that draws heavy influence from the sniping missions in Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare titles, sold more than 2.5 million copies in the 12 months following its unassuming release, generating profits in excess of $25 million and booting its maker from the low leagues towards blockbuster development. As such, this sequel arrives bedecked in Cry Engine 3 colours with 10 missions spread across a three-act structure, all pieced together by a greatly extended team.

The kernel of appeal at the heart of any sniper game is the rhythm of planning and execution as you wiggle down in the dust, hold a finger to the air to estimate wind strength and direction and line up a reticule on a target 800-odd metres away. Ghost Warrior 2 pays off a well judged shot with a lingering slow-motion camera that tracks the bullet as it twists through the breeze. Then, a hit pause before it enters your target's body with a crunch and a splat. There's none of Sniper Elite V2's X-ray pornography here, revealing the bullet puncturing a lung or severing a testicle, but the effect is similar: a mixture of light titillation at the fatal power you wield over an unsuspecting person, and light disgust at the way in which you've chosen to express it.

In Ghost Warrior 2, this central action is nested within three types of mission. In one, you act as the lone wolf, sprinting down a narrative corridor the designer has laid for you, eliminating close targets with a knife or silenced pistol and distant targets with a crouch and snipe. The second type - which draws most heavily upon Modern Warfare's sniping excursions - pairs you with a spotter, who runs alongside you through a level, calling out targets, instructing you when to wait for the search light to pass and offering whispered encouragement for well aimed shots.

The third and final type is perhaps the strongest of the set and has you set up a .50 calibre rifle on some mountain or watchtower before taking out targets up to 1.5km away while a distant group of friendly soldiers work their way through an enemy compound. In every case, this is a game that prizes action and spectacle over grim realism, lighting up targets in your display so you rarely have to run your concentration over a landscape - but there's still a certain shooting gallery appeal running through the repetition.

The driver towards completion (as is universally the case in Modern Warfare games and their myriad cover versions) is the thrill of the shoot-them-before-they-shoot-you challenge, rather than the sub-Clancy convolutions of the plot. Ghost Warrior 2's story is a mesh of clichés, both on the macro level of its HVTs and ICBMs, and also in the detail of its dialogue, filled with banalities such as 'Let's get this show on the road' and 'Cry me a river'. Stitched into this patchwork of impact-free familiarity is the odd moment of sharp interest - in particular, the scene in which you're required to photograph acts of genocide from a derelict building as they occur in a distant muddy field - but these moments are too few.

At times, it's a beautiful game, particularly during the latter stages in Tibet, but in general the team fails to work the engine as hard others have. These days the Modern Warfare template is only successful when it's delivered with a machine-gun volley of distinct ideas, presented with the flair of an action movie director. In this regard, City Interactive just can't keep up, and the thin, insubstantial core of the corridor shooter template is more fully revealed.

The game also inherits some of Modern Warfare's ugliest cinematic tricks, killing you if you wander just a few steps from the linear path and breaking the game's own rules at certain points - for example, when it wants your position to be compromised for narrative purposes. You can climb over small walls and hoist yourself up onto ledges, but only those that serve the designers' purposes. It's a clutch of treacheries that build an unshakeable sense that you're flitting through a set, not a world.

At times, the game is too easy (a problem the developer seeks to mitigate by spreading checkpoints far apart). On Easy and Normal difficulties, a red dot appears on your HUD after a few seconds to indicate where the bullet will land on a target, allowing for wind and distance. The makes faraway shots too easy but, when removed entirely on the hardest difficulty, shots become almost too great of a challenge. Despite this, there are still some light thrills to be had toppling targets.

The investment of time, energy and financial hope is clear across every aspect of Ghost Warrior 2 except the multiplayer, which offers just two maps and a single Deathmatch mode. With support for up to 12 players there is something distinctive to the drawn-out wars of attrition that emerge online, but it's a curio rather than a long-term solution for the shooter player who prefers to camp and wait rather than run and gun.

A game of limited worth, then, less enjoyable than 2012's World War 2-themed Sniper Elite V2, but which demonstrates a developer on an upward trajectory nonetheless. Now City Interactive has found the money, it needs to find the confidence to strike out with some ideas of its own, else risk a derivative career that diminishes the strengths of its inspiration while accentuating its ever more present weaknesses.

6 /10

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I hate sniping and I hate snipers. When it comes to the likes of Call of Duty, I can use a sniper rifle for toffee. Yet, at the same time, I regularly find myself on the receiving end of a bullet from some sniping little turd camping in the shadows.

Due to the above, I was rather surprised with the amount of fun that I had with 2010’s Sniper: Ghost Warrior which I picked it up during the Steam Christmas sale. Little did I know that it’d only be a few short months before I’d have the game’s sequel, the aptly titled Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2, in my hands.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior was no slouch in the graphics department; the visuals provided courtesy of the tried and tested Chrome Engine 4 (the same that powers the likes of Call of Juarez and Dead Island). For Sniper 2 the developer, City Interactive, have employed the services of Crytek’s Cry ENGINE 3, the same engine that Crysis 3 runs on. The result is a stunning-looking game with lush vegetation, realistic buildings and beautiful lighting.

The campaign story consists of three acts, each one set in different part of the world. The game starts with players in charge of Cole Anderson, a crack sniper, who is charged with disrupting a bio-weapons deal that is going down in the Philippines.

Cue a lush tropical environment, similar to the first game, to ease us in. Unlike the lone-wolf gameplay of the first game, this time Cole is assisted by CIA Special Agent Diaz preforming the role of spotter.

Together Cole and Diaz make their way through the jungle dodging and dispatching bad guys. Being a sniper, the game is all about stealth and setups; to go in gung-ho will end in tears. As the two of them make their way through the levels, Diaz will identify targets and advise on order that they should be dispatched. On the easy and medium settings enemies are highlighted on the HUD and the targets clearly identifiable. On the hard difficulty all the aids are off and you need to pay extra attention to what Diaz is saying. Shot the targets in the wrong order and you’re going to get discovered by the enemy.

Whilst for the most part, the enemy AI were no more than the hapless victims of my mediocre sniping skills, the moment I stuffed up they were on to me. Step into the enemies’ line of sight and they’ll spot you and tell all their mates where you are. This’ll put an end to your carefully planned tactical and stealthy assault. With the enemy alerted to your location they will start to approach your last known position. The only way out is to quickly take them down before they reach you.

I’d like to say that when alerted the enemy tries to flank you, but they don’t quite manage it; instead they sort of run about a bit and stop, usually in the same place, ready for a bullet in the head from your pistol. Sounds worse on paper, as in the midst of a battle when it is all going off, you are just as likely to make a dumb and deadly mistake as the games AI.

From the present day Philippines in the first act, the second act whizzes us back to the 1990s to find out exactly what the dour reference to the mission being “another Sarajevo” means. This switches the environment to a war-torn urban setting giving the Cry ENGINE another chance to show itself off. The crumbling buildings make an ideal setting for some serious sniping.

You may think that Sniper 2 is a bit of a one trick pony and dull compared to its peers, lacking the vast arsenal of other first-person shooters. It’s not.

City Interactive have packed the game with sufficient variety, enough to ensure that players never get bored. It’s not all about traveling from A to B, shooting folks on the way. My most memorable moments in the game were when providing allies with assistance from an overlook position. In some cases this was assisting in an assault and in others it was aiding an escape. Whilst prevalent throughout the game, these superb sequences really highlight the level of suspense that taking the role of a sniper imparts on the player. You just don’t get this is sort of tension in a regular action-orientated FPS.

That’s not to say that the game is pedestrian. Yes there is more patience involved, and using binoculars and heat sensors to plan tactics is essential. But when it all goes off, it really does all go off; you’ll find yourself dodging a terrifying hail of bullets that are less forgiving than those in Call of Duty.

Moving on from Sarajevo, the third act brings us back to the present and packs us off to a stunning -looking Nepal, still on the trail of those bio-weapons. All mountain tops and sniper-friendly towers, Nepal provides another unique environment as a backdrop to the game’s conclusion.

Sniper 2’s plot is OK. It is, however, one of the those game where I found myself glazing over during the cut-scenes. The story does a decent enough job of stringing the levels together, but it is pretty forgettable stuff.

Whilst the environments and missions are all top class, Sniper 2 did feel like it was leading me around by my nose a little more than its predecessor. The levels are, for the most part fairly constrained and linear. I didn’t feel that I have the same level of freedom as I had in the first game.

Carrying over from Sniper: Ghost Warrior is the inclusion of the bullet-cam. As a special treat for particularly long shots or to celebrate the last kill in an arena, the camera follows the trajectory of the bullet to its target; offering up a morbid level of satisfaction that needs to be experience to be properly understood. Watching that bullet spiral in slo-mo towards its unsuspecting target is a joy to behold, a feeling that intensifies as the projectile connects with its victim and makes a mess. I’m not proud to say it, but it just feels so good.

The game controls are the standard FPS faire. It isn’t wise to fire a sniper rifle from the hip, though. As well as taking aim down the sights, you can also hold your breath to steady the shot and enter a sort of slo-mo elevated state of concentration. At this time – on easy and medium settings – a red circle will also appear which is offset from the crosshairs, indicating the bullet trajectory factoring in bullet drop (the effect of gravity on the fired bullet) and wind. On the hard setting players need to adjust their aim, without any aids, by assessing the effect of distance to target and the indicated wind direction on the shot.

As well as the rifle, Cole also has a silenced pistol for those up close and personal moments. For really close kills a knife can be used for stealth attacks from behind. There also infra-red thermal imaging and night vision modes, available when needed, which can be used with the scope and the binoculars. The PC game is fully compatible with a wireless Xbox 360 controller and the right dongle or the wired USB version. PC purists can still stick to the classic keyboard and mouse controls.

Weighting in at a little over four and a half hours of game time, the single player campaign is a bit on the short side. The release of the single player DLC, Siberian Strike so close to the game’s release adds insult to injury for this rather lean offering. It is even more of a shame as the DLC is rather good fun and addresses my concerns of the linearity of Sniper 2’s campaign missions.

Siberian Strike serves as a prequel to the events in the main campaign;with Cole, again, on the trail of those pesky bioweapons. The much more open Siberian tundra setting allows players to plan their own way through the level without being bossed around by a spotter, similar to the first game.The DLC adds another two hours of gameplay and I’d suggest that it is an essential purchase (at US$10 on the PC via Steam) for owners of the main game, bringing the total single player campaign length up to a more acceptable six and a half hours.

The game’s longevity can also be extended by upping the difficulty.

I’m a casual gamer when it comes to difficulty, opting for the normal or medium setting for the first play through. The medium setting for Sniper 2 is just too easy. All the HUD prompts, highlighting of enemies and that handy little aim adjustment circle that I mentioned earlier, significantly reduce the challenge of being a sniper. To be honest the only challenge on medium difficulty is to your patience.

Nine times out of ten when it went all FUBAR for me it was because I didn’t wait for the right moment to take the shot. That being said the difficult ramps up considerable on hard due to the care needed to adjust your aim for wind and distance. But, the feeling when you hit that target from 720m away in a strong wind without any assistance is pretty good, I can tell you!

For players wanting to ease that transition from to the high difficulty setting, or for just a bit of practice, Sniper 2 provides a shooting range. From a fixed location overlooking a jungle settlement, players can shoot targets at varying distances. The static targets don’t fire back, so it makes for some good practice on the hard setting at adjusting shots for wind and distance. It is surprising the effect these factors have on aiming. I recommend a few goes on the shooting range before embarking on the hard setting in the campaign.

Lastly there’s the multiplayer mode. Not the most action packed affair, granted; but it does require patience and cunning, traits that FPS games rarely reward players for. As you’d expect with a multiplayer game that only features snipers, there’s a lot of camping going on. All players are basically trying to conceal themselves as must as possible whilst on the lookout for any signs of moment that give their opponents position away. On the PC, I can’t say that the online community is abuzz, but I could always get a game.

I found the multiplayer game refreshingly different, but sometimes bordering on annoying; again the game testing my patience. I can see this proving too much for some players who are going to detest the slow pace of the multiplayer game.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 is definitely a more polished affair than the first game. There is a bit too much hand holding this time and the levels are a little to linear, but overall, and especially on the hard setting I found the game very entertaining. Purchasing the Siberian Strike DLC is a must, for the extended play time and the more open gameplay.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 is a must buy for all fans of sniping and worth a punt for anyone looking for an FPS with a difference.

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Darren Price

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