Sniper: Ghost Warrior (video game)

Sniper: Ghost Warrior is a tactical shooter video game developed and published by City Interactive for mh:awesomegames:Microsoft Windows, mh:awesomegames:Xbox 360 and mh:awesomegames:PlayStation 3. It is the second installment in the Sniper: Ghost Warrior series.

Plot
The main plot involves a highly trained special ops unit that is sent into the fictional country of Isla Trueno, whose democratic government has been overthrown by a hostile force.

Why It Misses a Target

 * 1) The game was released in 2010, but the dated graphics make it look like something from 2007.
 * 2) The game plays like just another generic modern military shooter, but more stealth focused. In fact, it's practically Sniper Elite but in modern times.
 * 3) Unlike those games however, the gameplay gets really boring since it plays like your standard military shooter with nothing unique outside of the bullet cam.
 * 4) Not only that, in some levels the game will ditch stealth in favor of more typical FPS action, though this was taken out of the PS3 version.
 * 5) The AI is unfair as they can spot from a very long range, will lock onto you instantly once you're spotted, and can hit you with pinpoint accuracy from several hundred feet away. It's also pretty stupid as sometimes they don't react when another enemy has spotted you or when an enemy has been shot right in front of them.
 * 6) The plot is very generic since it involves a bunch Delta Force Operators hunting and assassinating a dictator. That's it.
 * 7) The game is a lot harder than a typical first-person shooter, largely because the enemy soldiers will lock onto you instantly once you're spotted, and can hit you with pinpoint accuracy from several hundred feet away.  Despite this, it's also really short, clocking in at about 3 hours.
 * 8) The gunplay is bad as the guns have no tracers making it hard to know where the enemy is shooting from and looks like you and the enemy are shooting blanks at each other. There also isn't proper feedback when shooting enemies.
 * 9) The guns are also really lacking. The sound effects are weak especially for the pistol as it sounds more like a silenced airsoft gun than a real one, the recoil on assault rifles is too high making hard to hit enemies, and worst of all, the recoil on the turret is so high that the camera will violently shake making it hard to see the enemies, let alone hit them.
 * 10) You can't swap out your pistol for another gun, only your sniper, which would make sense if it was the other way around.
 * 11) Despite being a stealth game, there are a number of mechanics missing that are common place in stealth games.
 * 12) * You can't do a stealth takedown like most other stealth games or games with stealth elements despite seeing Tyler do stealth takedowns in cutscenes.
 * 13) * When getting noticed by enemies, you don't get any indication as to what direction the enemy whose taking notice is. Strangely enough, there are indicators, but only for when you're getting shot.
 * 14) The multiplayer is standard fair and is pretty much just like Sniper Elite 's multiplayer but with maps not accommodating the fact that this is a game about snipers since they're so small.
 * 15) The characters are one-dimensional and forgettable since they're nothing more than generic soldiers.
 * 16) The animation is pretty wonky due to how some of the characters, coming across as floaty. This is more noticeable in the cutscenes.
 * 17) The enemies have limited voice lines since they repeat the same three pieces of dialogue when talking to one another.
 * 18) Anti-Climatic Ending: After firing the kill shot on General Vasquez the game goes straight to the credits without any debrief or even depiction of the getaway all you get is "THE END" in white text on a black screen. This also happens in the "Unfinished Business" expansion.
 * 19) The two expansions "Unfinished Business" and "Challenge" (AKA "The Last Hunt") are nothing special with the former just being more of the same with you having you hunt and kill the son of General Vasquez and the latter has you kill a supporter of his, but without a HUD.
 * 20) False Advertising: The PS3 release of the game advertises that there are some exclusive content that cannot be found on the Xbox 360 or PC versions of the game, like the capture the flag mode and additional maps for multiplayer, the "Unfinished Business" & "The Last Hunt"/"Challenge",  but those can be actually be bought as separate DLC on other platforms.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Decent voice acting especially the enemy troops.
 * 2) The bullet cam is decent and is nice to see the bullet strike enemies.
 * 3) Decent soundtrack.

Reception
Sniper: Ghost Warrior received "mixed or average" and "generally unfavorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Most critics praised the game's visuals, sniper cams, but criticizing the game's difficulty due to the AI and the game's design and running-and-gunning scenarios.

The PlayStation 3 version is considered worse with some stating that it looks and runs worse, and fails to address the hyper-linear level design that doomed the original release to the bargain bin.