Assume the role of the deadliest sniper in an elite Ghost Warrior unit. Dug in deep within enemy territory, throw precision firepower and test your skills in a story of intrigue and betrayal. Feel the kill as you control your breathing and experience a realistic ballistics system...

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 takes the original and batters it to death. The first game wasn't fantastic, but this sequel appears to have been released way too early and with way too many annoying bugs and glitches. Having said that, I still enjoyed playing this for the most part - although once finished I wouldn't want to replay it.

I've been waiting for a great sniper based game for years, and so far all have been pretty dull. Even last year's (2012) Sniper Elite V2 while being an enjoyable offering got a little too repetitive a little too quickly. I think the biggest problem is that game developers, driven by the short attention span of today's gamers, feel that we have to always be on the move. Where's the level where we, as the sniper, have to sit still and scour the landscape for our targets and then take them out as we see them? At almost every turn we are hand held as our enemy is pointed out to us.

The main problem is that it feels like a much older game than it is. There is an annoying flicker to the screen way too often and some of the cut sequences look worse than the in game footage. In addition the auto save is all over the place. There was one segment where I had to fight my way through three areas of enemies in order to get to the next segment, and while that wasn't particularly problematic, the fact that the first two waves were simple (three guards that could be killed with one bullet and another group you had to sneak past) it was time consuming and very annoying to have to repeat steps I'd already successfully passed.

The controls are pretty laughable when it comes to sensitivity. On the online game play I'd find somewhere to hide, look through the scope and the next thing I knew I'd have crawled forward several feet - despite the fact that my hand was nowhere near the controls. It seems if you slightly tap forward then you continue crawling until you tap back. On the online portion of the game it's essential that you find a good sniping point... however, this becomes problematic when you can't crawl over the smallest item on the floor (be it a slight step or a mattress). I found a great place to snipe from, on a mattress, but had to move left and right in order to survey as much of the enemy environment as possible. The problem with this was that I would occasionally crawl off the mattress and to get back on it (which I had to in order to see out of the building) I had to stand up and then try and lay back down on it. This immediately gave my position away.

The online portion of the game can be pretty ropey. There's the inability to crawl over items, which I mentioned above, as well as the fact that there are only two maps (I'm assuming the publisher is planning to cash in on future DLC maps) and not very many people playing. Also the servers have a tendency to disconnect you just before the game starts. In addition, a lot of online gamers have already discovered that the best way to get the most kills it to whip out your pistol, run over to the enemy side and go hunting for snipers that are hiding.

Other online issues, include the fact that your scores aren't very accurate. I played several games and was doing well. I looked at where I was on the leaderboard and the next time I logged on to play the stats showed I had played hardly any games or had very many points.

It's a shame, because with a little more time and effort this could have been a very enjoyable and exiting game. I'm beginning to think that that elusive sniper game I've been waiting for will never arrive.

5

Darren Rea