An international weapons dealer has managed to get ahold of biological weaponry. Unsurprisingly, he plans to sell it to someone. It is up to you to fire the shot heard round the world and end a potentially deadly international crisis.
1. Gameplay
I have a relative familiarity with the concept of the “Sniper” franchise. The player takes control of a sniper and goes through levels trying to be the sneakiest angel of death ever. It’s not really about killing everyone as much as it’s about completing objectives without being found. Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 is the first Sniper game that I’ve completed. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. This game is an unfortunate casualty of the war against Call of Duty. Shooter games now, no matter what the original design, are trying to play to a wider audience. Some games do it well, the rest are like Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2. The game is ridiculously easy and clearly watered down for an allegedly unintelligent, easily-bored audience. Unfortunately not only does it completely fail to captivate the action-oriented market but it misses its own niche audience entirely. So now instead of having a perfect, hardcore, dedicated, smaller audience, this game has nothing to draw in any audience. The mechanics are all the same as the previous games in the franchise. The player has to take into account bullet drop, wind speed, and movement of targets while making as many quick, clean shots as he can. If he gets caught, things go south extremely quickly. Normally this would mean finding the right target to hit so that bodies don’t get discovered by enemies, but the game holds your hand through the entire campaign. Your spotter is basically a step-by-step tutorial guide of how to complete every shot in this game. It almost never forces the player to make a real decision, which meant that I could practically sleepwalk through this entire game as long as I was able to take the directional cues from the spotter. This game is fun if you pick it up on a budget, but I wouldn’t pay much more than $15 for it even if I had a significant source of disposable income.
This game was surprisingly short. It is comprised of three acts that take around 6 hours to complete at most. The linear setup meant that there were no options for approach and no optional outcomes, which means that the campaign has almost zero replayability. While there is a multiplayer mode for this game, there wasn’t a single person playing it when I went online.
Most of the time this game was ridiculously easy. During almost every mission, the spotter will tell you who to kill in what order. This removes all of the challenge, since there’s no need to worry about getting caught if you listen to your spotter’s direction. There were some sections when the player is supposed to run away from groups of enemies, but most of the time it’s easier to kill them all and casually walk out rather than try to avoid the gunfire. This is far easier than I expected and not in a good way. 2. Parental Notices
Since this is a game where the player is a sniper, violence is an obvious factor. However, unlike the other games in this franchise that I have played, the amount of violence was surprisingly low. The player will only use either a sniper rifle, a silenced pistol, or a knife to kill enemies. Sniper rounds will result in some blood from enemies. The last killshot on a group of targets will go into a sort of slow-motion bullet cam that highlights the final kill. Blood in these shots is much more noticeable, but still not graphic. There is never any gore anywhere in this game. The player can also use his knife to silently kill enemies at close range. These will result in blood as well, but it isn’t much worse than when the player uses his sniper. And that's really it. The game never does anything much different than this. The player will only have these three weapons available. While there will be some extremely unique ways of killing enemies, such as by shooting their grenades, this is so rare and usually difficult to pull off that it isn't even really a factor. It's a stark contrast to the usual arsenal of weapons that shooters make available to the player.
Sexuality is not a factor in this game.
The player can pick up and use medkits in the game. However, the game is designed so that if the player performs all of the chapters perfectly he will never need a medkit. I went through the entire game without ever using a single kit.
Gambling is not a factor in this game. 3. Other Factors
Some extremely dedicated PC gamers have created minor visual mods to enhance the visual effects of the game. However, none of these mods add additional content or change the current content in a way that would affect the maturity rating. As a result, mods are not a factor in this game.
There are some levels with religious artifacts and symbols included in the design. However, these are not openly discussed.
One of the enemies is accused of violating international law. This has to do with the conflict in Bosnia in the 90's, but it isn't explained in much detail. The guy is described as distributing weapons and executing civilians. If the story had included this character more prominently, the anti-law rating would have increased significantly. However, this character and his actions are a side element to the overall plot and removed very quickly.
This game does have multiplayer capabilities, but when I tried to go online there was no one else playing. As a result, the online community is not a factor in this game.
Most of the time the player will say on firm ground moving slowly and carefully. However, the game does try to throw in some “Call of Duty” moments. The most obvious of these is the section in which the player parachutes into Bosnia straight into the middle of a forest.
Magic is not a factor in this game.
Weapons of Mass Destruction The player is trying to retrieve biological weapons that have been captured by an arms dealer. The dirty bomb is never used, though. Execution
Execution comes into play a couple of times but is most obvious in the Bosnia flashback section. Here the player can see numerous civilians being executed and dumped into mass graves. However, this is the only chapter where events like this take place.
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