Games from the series Sniper: Ghost Warrior from polish Ci games, for all their beauties and a fairly detailed implementation of the work of a sniper, it was not possible to fully reveal their potential. Here is the third part that went into the open world, we criticized. I must say right away – Sniper: Ghost Warrior Contracts It’s also not that she realized her full potential, but she took a clear step forward.
(embed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJqG-bgdXj4 (/ embed)Siberian Cranberries
To a lesser extent, of course, this concerns the plot. Here we again have cranberries, which are spreading, but already familiar to Polish developers. This time the action takes place in an independent Siberian republic, which separated from Russia, but did not get rid of the freaks in power, corrupt officials and criminal authorities. Therefore, the opposition appeared in the form of a semi-underground organization “Siberian Wolves”.
It could be assumed that our sniper works specifically for the “wolves”, because his task is to eliminate the leaders of the Siberian Republic and their associates. However, the curator, who gives us tasks, answers direct questions evasively. The intrigue so plainly does not get development, but it doesn’t matter either – the plot is here for show.
As for cranberries, it was difficult to expect anything else from the Poles. Here, as they say, a difficult case, children's complexes and grievances, and it’s stupid to be offended – it’s better to imagine that all this has nothing to do with Russia and Siberia, and we destroy criminals and corrupt officials of an abstract origin. Well, you must admit, it’s hard to imagine people in power in Russia with the names Nerguy or Ksenik. Or so that we would conduct secret experiments to improve the Siberian genome, and one of the scientists, a pretty blonde named Antanasia (damn it, panov, hire already those who know what children are called in Russia!), Walked around with her almost identical double ( clone?).
Say no to the open world!
More importantly, the missions themselves, wherever they went and whoever we killed, turned out to be very rich and interesting. There is no open world from the third part, but there are only five tasks (plus training). It would seem a regression? No, on the contrary, it is the elaboration of levels and the lack of a stupid "openworld" – one of the main advantages Sniper: Ghost Warrior Contracts.
The "dismemberment" here does not look very realistic.
In addition to the main goals, there are always secondary ones – to lay explosives on an icebreaker, collect information, destroy experimental data, find evidence that children were killed because of the experiments, disable a train carrying missiles that they want to use for provocative attacks on the population, and etc. Plus additional orders to eliminate specific soldiers and officers. Plus tests in the spirit of “Interrogate three enemies”, “Kill five with one explosion”, “Fulfill all contracts in 25 minutes” and so on.
As a result, the entire map on which the mission takes place is strewn with important points. The levels are large – so much so that there are fast moving points that do not work, however, with the alarm raised. Moreover, the saturation is higher here and it is more interesting to explore these territories than in the framework of the open world of the third part.
Everything will come in handy
The thing is that in Sniper: Ghost Warrior Contracts a full-fledged pumping system appeared – and these are four groups of improvements (mask, costume, gadgets, support), three branches each. Not all things are useful there, but many are very necessary. Especially everything related to strengthening armor, using a drone capable of reconnaissance and hacking electronics, as well as improving the mask, which can mark enemies and recognize important points (shelters, gas tanks in vehicles and even mines).
So, to open and upgrade skills you need money and different types of tokens. And they are also spent on the purchase of new weapons and the installation of any body kits – sights, silencers, shops, grenade launchers, and various types of ammunition. All this is not cheap, and the most powerful STURM Precision sniper rifle really pays off for crazy investments. But it would still be nice to pump additional weapons … Because even at an average level of difficulty, it sometimes gets easy. Plus, you need to earn stars for performing special tests – without them you simply will not be allowed to discover the most powerful skills.
Drones are often jammed or destroyed.
Therefore in ContractsAs a rule, such situations as in the third part do not arise, when money is not especially needed and there is no incentive to perform additional tasks / tests. Especially if here you play on an average difficulty level or on the Liquidator.
That bullet whistled …
Of course, you can ignore most gadgets and skills, pump only armor and weapons, try to go the direct path, lie down and try to shoot everyone. The benefit of shooting here is more interesting than in the third part. We need the same corrections for wind and distance, but the ballistics are more honest, and there is no red dot that helped the sight so much before. I would also like to be able to turn off the hint how the bullet will fly taking into account the wind – I personally did not find out how to do this on the Standard and the Liquidator.
But in any case, even if you shoot at all from a rifle with a silencer, soon you will be guaranteed to be spotted anyway, an alarm will be raised and a bunch of enemies will appear directly from the air (but not only). Even ordinary soldiers with assault rifles will start aiming from afar – not to mention the snipers and competitors under the control of AI, who are fulfilling the same contracts and trying to stop you. Here, of course, there are a lot of frankly dishonest things (they are especially fierce at the Liquidator), but one must understand that such work does not happen with impunity.
Creativity
Therefore, even in the power version it is better to use gadgets, leaving signal devices or a sniper turret as a cover. Better yet, be careful and take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the game, as well as numerous workarounds that make it easier to get to goals. There are really enough routes here to talk about non-linearity and high replayability.
Special ammunition allows you to hit enemies through shelters and obstacles.
Example. We need to remove the very scientist who has a double. You can take a position at a height, see the two of them on a helipad and with one accurate shot at a turntable’s rockets kill two birds with one stone plus a bunch of people. But in this case the alarm will be raised, and most importantly, you will not pass the test, giving two stars at once – you need to remove only the real scientist.
Therefore, it is better to first find documents indicating which of them is double and which is the original. And for this, go down the cable and get into the complex. Or get down from the mountain and sneak along the towers, removing enemies one at a time, hiding in containers, shooting or cutting down the camera with the help of the drone, and so on.
The equipment can be turned off even at a distance – using a sniper rifle. IN Contracts there are special types of cartridges, including heavy (ignore the wind), explosive, electromagnetic, armor-piercing, cartridge tags. And armor-piercing perfectly destroy turrets, and EMI ammunition deactivates them. This also makes pure sniper gameplay more diverse.
A camera showing slow motion of a bullet, thank God, can be turned off.
***
Problems new Ghost warrior, as usual with the authors of this series, are mainly in the field of technical implementation. The graphics are prettier, but optimization fails – there are both “friezes” and crashes. Often a hero gets stuck in textures at the most inopportune moment. AI as a whole behaves better than in the previous game, and is quite adequate, but not averse to dulling – for example, it does not notice an ally killed by a number. Yes, and frankly cheating hits from the machine from 150 meters, can not be attributed to the pluses. Scripts sometimes crash. The sounds of the shots are not always convincing, and the heads of the enemies burst when hit, like watermelons. Evacuation points are not well implemented. Well and so on.
But this is all, we believe, is treated with patches. And in general Sniper: Ghost Warrior Contracts – This is the best modern sniper game and certainly the best part of this series. And even cooler, in theory, it will become after the end of December will add multiplayer to it.
Pros: interesting and non-linear missions; well-developed and rich sniper gameplay; full pumping system; many gadgets, body kits, ammunition and weapons; the game is capable of challenging; there is no empty and boring open world, as in the third part; beautiful graphics.
Minuses: frankly Russophobic plot; AI often behaves inappropriately; a lot of technical problems on the release.
