Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 Review – Even Ugly Sniping is Fun

Developed By: CI Games

Published By: CI Games

Platforms: PS4 (Reviewed), Xbox One, PC

Release Date: April 25th, 2017

The current generation of consoles has been defined by gorgeous experiences, especially in the open world. Grand Theft Auto V, Far Cry 4, Doom, and Uncharted 4 are all games that have combined amazing visuals with truly entertaining gameplay to create those “water cooler” moments where you just hang out with your friends talking in excited tones. Well, another challenger in Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 has entered the fray, but is this slow-mo murder fest worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as these Game of the Year contenders?  

Created by Polish developer CI Games, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 tasks you with taking a Marine sniper named Jonathan North to the nation of Georgia, stopping along the way to infiltrate a weapons facility on the Russian-Ukranian border. The purpose of his mission is twofold: stop the separatist soldiers from completing a villainous plan and locate North’s missing brother, Robert. Two years ago, Robert was captured by a Russian gangster named Vasilisk, leaving Jon to search in vain and murder any soldier with a possible connection to the incident. Of course, there are many other elements in play, as you discover over 26 story missions and 16 side missions. Jon can’t simply sneak into Georgia and murder every separatist along the way. No, he has to liberate the villages and outposts, rescue hostages, and snipe his way through a list of “Most Wanted” terrorists. Hell, he even has to attend a wedding while dressed as a alcohol delivery man, which is one of the better missions.

He’s a fan of Russian Roulette

Helping North on this quest are an Israeli Mossad agent named Raquel, a JSOC handler named Frank Simms, and a former Georgian special forces sniper named Lydia. All three side characters are utterly dislikeable at the best of times, but they do help you out by discovering alternate pathways into restricted areas and occasionally lending a hand on the more critical missions. The rest of the time, however, the three characters are constantly flooding your earpiece with useless arguments and generally being a pain. This gets very irritating, especially considering that their conversations are played through the Dualshock’s built-in speaker. The worst part is that Lydia, Simms, and Raquel take away from the simple enjoyment that can be found from sneaking around and shooting up outposts.

Just cruising around

If you haven’t previously played the Sniper: Ghost Warrior series, there is a very easy way to describe the experience: Far Cry with slow motion sniping. You see, North gets to explore three separate open world environments via buggy or zipline, taking over outposts and killing animals, but he is a far cry (insert drum beat here) from the protagonists of the Ubisoft series when it actually comes to the fighting. Those bullet sponges can take tons of damage but still murder of hundreds of enemies before dying. North, on the other hand, is an amazing sniper that can dispose of enemies at more than 500 meters, but he can be taken down in very short order by regular automatic weapons. He is much better suited to sneaking around mountain tops, using his drone to find targets/crafting components, and picking off enemies with high-powered rifles.

He died awkwardly

And speaking of sniping, be prepared to watch .50 caliber bullets flying across the map in slow motion literally hundreds of times as you complete 26 main story missions and 16 side ops. You see, Sniper: Ghost Warrior is very similar to the Sniper Elite series in that slow motion kills are the main attraction, but the two franchises couldn’t be more different when it comes to actually showing off the bullet’s impact. Sniper Elite shows an X-Ray breakdown of the body, highlighting ruptured testicles and other damage while Sniper: Ghost Warrior just shows a bullet going through a subject’s head and neck area. Although you can make the characters explode in entertaining fashion with the correct ammunition, but that takes a little bit of experimentation with the craftable ammunition.

Oops

The weird part is that every slow motion kill plays out the exact same way. The baddie will be facing a certain direction, usually away from North and his rifle, but they will make a point to turn around at the exact second that the bullet appears so it will travel through an eyeball or the neck. They also do so while displaying a goofy expression on the face.

These slow motion kills are entertaining every time, but they do serve as a strange reminder that CI Games has developed one of the prettiest/ugliest games around. The lighting effects and outdoor environments may be very beautiful, especially on a 4K TV, but the characters, animals, and blood splatter look pretty awful. It’s very jarring to walk across a picturesque snowy mountain and stare into the face…snout of a ridiculously ugly wolf. Even the cows look fairly terrible, whether they are alive or dead.

The victim of a Hit and Run

Thankfully, the gameplay actually makes up for the ugly animations and characters. The sniping is truly enjoyable, as is sneaking around trying to interrogate or take down enemies with a sharp knife. If discovered, you can rely on an array of shotguns or automatic rifles to take out the multiple enemies. These secondary weapons aren’t the best, at least until you unlock the Source 12 shotgun. That thing is downright ridiculous, and it can rip through even the most heavily-armored enemies in a matter of seconds.

Given that this is a “sniper” game, you would think that using automatic weapons and shotguns would have a negative impact, but it actually pays off to mix up play styles. Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 is built upon three different pillars of play known as Sniper, Ghost, and Warrior. Each pillar comes complete with its own skill tree and awards XP for actions like tagging enemies, analyzing footprints, and blowing up trucks. Every action you do provides a reward that can be used to upgrade the drone, earn extra health, or show vision cones.

Despite the fact that Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 is full of ugly and irritating characters, it’s actually a more entertaining game than I originally expected. Granted, the occasional crashes were frustrating, and getting motion sickness from certain animations made me take more breaks than normal. However, I still truly enjoyed roaming around the open world and taking over outposts using various methods to unlock more weapons and gear. Plus, going through the list of Most Wanted terrorists and “checking them off” was a really fun side activity between the more serious missions. I just wish that the loading screens were shorter than 5-10 minutes when switching between the open worlds and certain cutscenes.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 isn’t a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination, but you can still derive some goofy enjoyment out of the experience. Maybe just wait until it’s on sale before jumping in