Sniper Ghost Warrior 2

 

As I complete surprise this game is actually quite worse than the first, which is shocking. This seems at first glance like a total step up in all areas, the graphics are much nicer, it really isn't a bad looking game and has some impressive visuals for a budget title,  it seems much more polished, it uses the modern crytek engine, all the mechanics got an overhaul, seems higher budget etc

But there is one fatal flaw:
This, much more than the first game, is hardly a video game, but more a 'Simon says' simulator.
The entire game you have a sidekick with you whos entire purpose is to walk you through every single step in the game, telling you exactly what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.

The entire loop of the game consists of waiting for your sidekick to tell you "shoot x guy"  " go here"  "wait for my say"  and it really doesn't feel like you're actually playing a game, but rather an actor in a really boring play. This alone makes this game a worse experience than the first Sniper Ghost warrior, which atlesast had some modicum of freedom.

The final nail in the coffin that solidifies this as a horrible slog and all around worse than the first game is:

No longer can you quicksave. The game operates on a checkpoint system, however, the checkpoints can be at times 5-10 minutes apart from eachother

Now, this usually would not be a bad thing. But as I've stated before how the game is more or less a 'simon says'  game, you can only imagine how much of a boring, painful, irritating slog it becomes having to wait for your stupid sidekick to repeat the same boring script for the fourth time, having to be his lap dog and bark at his every order, all because you got impatient the first time and shot too early and ruined the scene or something. Truly a shocking gameplay design.

Usually I actually prefer when games don't allow you to quicksave, and force you to 'git gud' to pass segments, but here, there is no skill. There is no player agency. Simply if you deviate from the pre-defined script, the game punishes you and you have to go back and do the whole thing again.


Finally, another thing that makes this an awful experience compared to the first game, is the fact that levels are 10x longer than before.

In the previous game, the average level could be anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes long. This is rediculously short, but I liked the pace and sense of fast progress you got, it made the game a breeze to play through with such clear cut stop-start points

However, now, the missions are anywhere from 30-50 minutes long. And they're not interesting, fun, or enjoyable, as I've explained previously.

The game is also twice the length of the first, which makes it even more a tough pill to swallow.

I don't feel the need to talk more about this game. Yes almost everything techincally is better about it, the gameplay philosophy is just atrocious. This could of easily been a much better game than the first, but they botched it.
 

3/10

Sniper: Ghost Warrior

 

Yet another budget title from City Interactive. This developer makes the most bargain bin 'arcade' games out there. Arcade in the sense that there is hardly ever any story, and its just pure gameplay.  This game is incredibly simple and repetitive, you enter every level with a giant objective marker and you run towards it. It's funny how you think of a Sniper being some stealthy subtle mastermind, but half of this game you are blazing through outposts and fortresses with assault rifles or turrets and shit its pretty funny.

This is what I like to call a 'Quicksave shooter'  where you constantly mash F5 button after every kill because you don't want to lose progress and why would you? Which makes the gameplay really trivial but thats what the developers intended so..
 
Speaking of those sections, the guns handle awfully. Yes its a sniper game so you would hope to expect the assault rifles to handle like shit, but they are forcing you to use them and honestly it makes my head spin to shoot them. The screen shakes so damn much and the muzzle flash takes up half the screen you cant see what youre shooting. And To make things worse there is hardly any impact or satisfying reaction when you shoot enemies, so you barely even know if youre shooting anyone.


The other half of the game is sniping obviously. It's as generic as it can get. The whole game is basically in a jungle, and I must admit for an extremely budget title the graphics and textures and enviorments arent all that bad. There are some decent shadow effects running all around the enviorment and the whole game seems to be inspired by Far Cry a bit. you have the tropical island mood, as well as a hit 'Q' to heal yourself by injecting a needle.  Your health revives up to 30, but anything past that requires manual heals.  But I just found for the majority of the game to keep your health at 30 and just tank shots or simply run past enemies and let your health regen up to 30.

The enviorment is pretty linear but it almost gives the illusion of open space. The maps feel big because of the tropical location, and it is like you can wander around as you please, but upon further inspection there are a ton of invisible walls and barriers so..

The AI is so piss poor and dumb they mostly just stand around staring at you or walking around aimlessly. Hell, if they spot you, often times you can just sneak a few meters away and they suddenly instantly forget and keep chatting again.

More about the sniping,
I played on the second hardest difficulty 'medium'  and it seems everytime I scope the enemies were highlight for me with a very obvious red. Why they decided to do this I don't know but it really made the whole game trivial as I could just quickly hit the scope button and instantly know where all my foe are and take them out with ease or just run past them. There is also a compass which shows any enemies in the enviorment which makes the game even easier.  You can also infinately hold Shift to slow down time and make it further more simple.
 
 The sniping in general feels really meh. You have a few  different snipers that each mission will randomly assign to you, the silenced 10 shot one is by far the best because it has the least recoil and the best looking scope.
 Another thing that kind of makes the combat super trivial is the fact that the game gives you 400 bullets for every sniper, every mission. Why would I even bother to take careful delicate shots when I can just spam the damn button and hit everyone cause I have so much ammo? A lot of design choices in this game really hurt it and it could have been a lot more tactical and a lot more engaging but as it stands its a mindless trivial shooting gallery where you turn your brain off and just sprint to the next objective.

 And all the objectives are really typical stuff. Cover these guys, plant C4 here, clear this outpost, steal the intel, kill the general, etc..  Nothing memorable, but nothing too bad either. Generic action movie stuff. It is what it is. I don't mind it.  

There are a few half assed stealth sections which were the worst parts of the game just because it offers nothing interesting and only serves to slow down the pacing and progress and punish you for wanting to get with it.


Something that almost helped the games enjoyability was the levels being so damn short! Most of the levels in the game are about 5-10 minutes long. And there are only 18 of them. I completed the whole game in 2 hours!

So as an extremely short, mindless shooting gallery, with really cheesy, short, and stupid cutscenes it's not so bad. It's akin to watching a dumb cheap action movie from the 80s.


5/10