The prospect of firing .50 calibre bullets over huge distances and silently reducing nameless evildoers heads into nothingness is indeed a tempting one, at least as far as video games go. Fighting the mans way, at a range from which your enemies can’t return fire or even see you.

I eagerly await each game in the Sniper franchise to see how CI Games have advanced the franchise. CI Games have come a long way since their budget debut and are now attempting to box with the big boys.

Learning Curve

The first level of Ghost Warrior 2 serves as a tutorial that covers all the skills you will need to accomplish your missions as a sniper. Much unlike real life snipers there isn’t that much to learn and the tutorial seems to drag a little. Until you realise that you have left the tutorial for probably some time and that the game really likes holding your hand. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with your hand but get off, I said get off!

The learning really begins as you start to figure out what elevation you need at different ranges and how to correct for wind speed. This is if you play without the incredibly helpful snipers’ best friend that I like to call “magical red circle”.

Difficulty

I would so strongly recommend playing the game on hard to disable “magical red circle”. Those who have played a Sniper game before will most probably be familiar with this reticule, that predicts where your bullet will actually go accounting for both distance and wind speed. And it works. And that’s the problem.

On any difficulty you will not survive more than 1 or 2 shots from an enemy, which is good as it promotes stealth and patience. But the only significant difference between difficulties is weather “magical red circle” is on or not.

With it on there will rarely be a challenge in the shots you take. Spend a couple of seconds with your scope steady and the reticule will be displayed. It does tend to remove the satisfaction of a skilled shot which one would expect to find in a game titled “Sniper” out of the game.

The system in Sniper Elite V2 allowing you to customize your difficulty so you could take shots without assistance but not have to fight super soldiers would have been an elegant solution. I would really of liked to be able to take “magical red circle” off without restarting the entire game as I was stuck with it to the end.

Checkpoints are few and far between so if you do fail at any point be prepared to replay at least 15 minutes, sometimes more, of super-stealthy super-slow crawling to get back to where you were. This is especially unnecessary when you finally get chance to choose what to do and decide to complete a section the way you think is best only to be rewarded with insta-detection and soon death in the next area to ensure you get punished for your pesky independent thought. Replaying the way the game wants is successful and allows progression.

In one particular section a successful (and silent) front of the face head shot has your spotter remark “So much for stealth”. I tried 3 times before I realised I wasn’t missing the shot at all, it was just time for some “action”. My spotter sat still with his suppressed XM8 and let the enemies stand behind him and try to shoot me. Neither my spotter or the enemy seemed remotely aware of each others presence.

Over-The-Top On The Rails VS Freedom of Free-Roam

The lack of choice I mentioned above can be a very good thing. It can eliminate constant retries on a section when you seem to be doing everything right. It can allow for some truly epic moments. Unfortunately in Ghost Warrior 2 it does neither of these things. It just limits the players’ choice and adds 2 or 3 cut scenes.

The pseudo-stealth sections end up being a case of follow the objective, with a new checkpoint literally every 10 to 50 meters. Almost all of the sniping sections have a pre-allocated killing order with enemies on very fixed paths, if they move at all. Or you will travel to an over watch point, press square to reveal a totally separate .50 cal’ you apparently had in your pockets, and snipe targets in a predetermined order while fixed in position and fixed looking down the scope – the only difference here being that you can’t move.

There are occasionally sections where you are tasked with clearing an area without any assistance and at this point you must choose your targets and take them out correctly to ensure you aren’t spotted. You can mark targets using our binoculars first, find the best position and get to work. This is both rewarding and satisfying, promoting all the skills and talents a sniper is expected to posses. It’s such a shame that these moments only occurred a handful of times in the entire game.

I could have accepted the monotony of follow the marker, shoot the target, follow the marker if there were spectacular superhero style feats shattering my screen every 3 seconds but I’m glad that Sniper hasn’t gone down this path.

It would fit much better to allow players to choose their own gear at the start of a level, decide on the best spot to set-up, sneak your way there from a choice of paths and do your sniping. That’s not to say it would need total free-roam but just a little choice would provide the satisfaction that my decisions and tactics resulted in a good kill rather than the fact I was able to follow objective markers that shepherd you to a truly ridiculous level.

Characterisation and Plot

The plot is fairly generic but not completely uninteresting and by the third act I was actually looking forward to the conclusion. The voice acting is surprisingly good if you can wade through the sea of uninspiring characters and bland script writing.

There is nothing original about any of the characters, and even less the words that fall from their mouths, but a few twists and three different locals provide some interest until the end of the game. If you want a cerebral plot or characters more than skin deep Ghost Warrior 2 is not for you. I know, big surprise.

Bullet Physics

Such a crucial part of a game based around sniping and, I am relieved to say, the one part of Ghost Warrior 2 that never disappoints. The final resting place of a shot always seemed like a reasonable representation of the current situation and the shot I took. It’s nothing we haven’t seen CI Games do before but it’s good to see they haven’t lost their special touch when it comes to bullet trajectory.

Audio

The music is far and away the best thing about the sound in Ghost Warrior 2 providing occasional orchestral backing. It’s rare but it’s good when it happens.

On the other hand the weapons, footsteps, stabbings and any other effects you can think of are horribly murky and muffled. Apart from the music and dialogue the whole thing sounded like I was listening to it through a pair of cheap headphones.

The music and dialogue do sound up to scratch but unfortunately don’t get a chance to shine when every time you fire a weapon or perform a stealth take down you are reminded that you wasted all that money on a home theatre system.

Visuals

Achieved with CryEngine 3? Not particularly something the guys at CryTech are going to be proud of. I don’t know how they achieved the graphics of Ghost Warrior 2 using the CryEngine. There are some textures that look good, and a couple of times the game even looks great, but it is a very rare and brief occurrence.

Most of the time you are presented with poor textures, bad motion capture and blocks galore. I don’t think there is a single curve in the entire game. The textures and lighting effects on your rifle are average but considering the amount of time spent looking at it I expected a lot more. The graphics really do feel like a huge step backwards, especially so late in the PS3’s life.

Conclusion

It’s great to see CI Games progressing and moving the franchise on and they definitely have come a long way since Sniper Elite but Ghost Warrior 2 is simply a subpar game. An unimaginative script, generic characters, uninspiring linear gameplay and poor AI, sound and visual effects do not make for a good experience.

That said there are a few satisfying moments and playing without “magical red circle” enabled helps add to the satisfaction a lot. The physics on the bullets fired from your rifle are fantastic and feel very realistic, as indeed they should.

I am eager to see what CI Games do next with Sniper and I hope for more freedom of choice and some sense that I am involved in the game rather than just moving the camera to where I am told as well as some modern graphics and sound effects.

Reviewed on PS3.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 is available now on PS3, XBOX 360 and PC.