Ever since Metal Gear Solid first gave me a taste of what being a sniper in a game could be like I've been itching for a game dedicated to lying in the dirt for extended periods, staring down the scope of a high powered rifle. So imagine my delight when a trailer sneaked into my consciousness for Sniper: Ghost Warrior, a game based primarily on accurate sniping mechanics! Now, I've seen Enemy At The Gates and watched enough Discovery Channel to know that a sniper does not run around like Rambo trying to save the world single handedly and I've played enough games in my time to know there's often another approach. Knowing that, I started playing the game cautiously and stealthily and I found it very difficult. Not because it's broken or hampered by poor AI but because, and this is a real shocker, I was being a crap sniper. S:GW doesn't hold your hand for a second longer than the patronisingly easy tutorial which casts you as trainer rather than a recruit and lasts only about 5 minutes of the 12 hour game. From the first minutes of your first mission you have to be aware of everything around you, constantly checking that twitch in the far distant to make sure it isn't an enemy guard, constantly being careful not to stick your feet out for passing guards to see or to reload too close to one and give yourself up with the noise. The production values of S:GW prevent it from being the best looking game on the market but the Chrome Engine 4 does an admirable job of creating a lush tropical environment that looks like Uncharted: Drake's Fortune meets Far Cry squeezed into slightly angular boxes. For the most part the graphics, which never become immersive enough to draw you in fully, are completely acceptable for a low budget game of this generation. The big let down comes on the few occasions you get close enough to an enemy to see they're more akin to Action Man than any believable life-form. Other than that a few niggles with overly shiny rain effects and the odd rock that you pass right through give the look an arcade style shooter as opposed to the gritty realism attempted by some AAA FPS's.
The controls will be instantly familiar to any FPS fan with 'looking down the sights' mapped to LT and 'Fire!' mapped to RT. All the other usual jump, crouch, melee controls are there too but they're joined by 'hold your breath' which is just an LS click away. That's a good thing too, not only because it free up your right hand to concentrate on the dirty stuff but because you will need to hold you breath, a lot. S:GW's USP, if it has one, is the sniping mechanics that make up the vast majority of the gun-play in the game. As you look through the scope of whichever high-powered rifle you're equipped with at the time you'll notice the cross-hairs rise and fall in time to you character's breathing (It's worth a side note here that you play as several different characters a la COD which I why I've not referred to him by name). At the same time you'll be lining up your shot and adjusting for wind speed, bullet drop and sometimes rain, although in easy and normal modes the game helps this with a dot that shows where you bullet is likely to end up. It all makes for some challenging and often exhilarating shooting as you lie in wait for a shot knowing you have only seconds, if that, to perfect your shot and move on undetected. So you'll hold your breath. AND press LS in so you character does the same, his breathing stops and the sights steady, the target comes into view and RT. Head-shot! Yeah! To make those perfect moments better City Interactive saw fit to include a bullet time, slow motion barrel to brains reply for some head-shots. It's often a welcome moment and can be very useful too as you get a close up of an area up to 300 metres away. Unfortunately this moment is sometimes spoilt by jerky animations but at their worst it looks like a deliberate attempt at a stutter effect and never froze or broke the game during my play through.
The story is generic war game fodder with an evil 'Regime' becoming a threat and us good guys having to go and save the day. This is delivered by game engine cut scenes, between mission narrative (over loading screens to prevent boredom) and through cinematic set pieces which range from defending yourself with a heavy machine gun as wave upon wave of enemy troops try to cut you down to making a mad dash amid hostile fire to reach your pick up and safety. These changes of pace are a welcome break from the intense paranoia of the stealthy sniping but could have been fleshed out to make a more compelling game. One such example of a great idea not fully realised is a section where you and your team are heading up a river in a small boat and you are charged with picking off as many of the enemy guards as you can while the rest of your team clear up the stragglers. It's a nice change of pace but it's all over too soon. Other section of the story are played from both the sniper's and the ground troops point of view and you'll alternate between cover fire from a vantage point and run and gun action with an assault rifle. These sections are solid enough but don't expect AAA shooting. The core or this game is in the sniping and the more in-your-face elements, while solid, are average at best.
In the end what you get with S:GW is 12 hours of fun if what you like in a game is hard as nails, balls to the wall shooting and you don't mind what it looks like. I loved every cursed, infuriating minute of it. While I may have turned the air blue as I repeated a section for the twentieth time I always knew that, firstly I would restart within 5 seconds - very important and secondly, I had failed because I'd done something wrong and could do better this time. I saw none of the alleged glitches other critics have talked about and I ultimate discovered the 'super visioned guard that could see me through a bush at one hundred yards' actually always had a friend six feet away from me staring at my feet as the poked out of cover.
Sniper:Ghost Warrior never was a AAA title and if you have to save your pocket money or only get to buy one game a month thanks to a filthy drug habit the rent it or borrow a friend's copy. My copy was a birthday present so I've invested £0 and definitely got my money's worth. More importantly though I don't think my Mum was ripped off either.
Cold Hard Critical Score: 6/10
My Opinion / Enjoyment score: 7/10
cheers,
R.
Ps. I did tell my Mum to buy the game so this isn't a glorified thank you note.
The images used in this review were download from www.sniperghostwarrior.com/ as part of a screenshots downlaod pack
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