E3 Hands On – Sniper 2: Ghost Warrior

During our trek to E3, I took the opportunity to look at a few upcoming games from City Interactive.  One in particular, is Sniper 2: Ghost Warrior, CI’s latest shooter in the Sniper franchise due to release on August 21 of this year.

Built on the Crytek 3 engine, Sniper 2: Ghost Warrior is a game that revolves around Captain Cole “Sandman” Anderson; an ex-Marine Corps Delta Force trained sniper and current private security consultant.  The mission that Anderson was tasked with during the demo was fairly straightforward: infiltrate an enemy stronghold and survey a target partaking in illegal activities.  When done, extract with the photos.

After parachuting into a dense forest and meeting up with your spotter, you infiltrate the border of the enemy base, sneaking up on a pair of unsuspecting soldiers that are repairing a tank.  Your spotter will call out the distance, wind direction, and wind speed to you, however, an indicator on your reticule will appear to let you know approximately where the bullet will land so that you won’t have to do the math in your head.  Once lined up, you hold your breath, and squeeze the trigger.  One enemy down.  The second one repairing the tank won’t even hear what happened as long as you did your job correctly.

As you pass the tank, the forest gives way to a clearing with a train yard and a series of buildings.  Your quarry is somewhere in here.  You’ll sneak past a number of guards as you make your way through the facility.  Suddenly, two patrols on opposite sides of a train begin making their way towards your position.  You and your spotter crawl beneath the cars and wait for them to pass by, however, one lone guard stays behind at his post. and your zealous spotter jumps him from behind and slits his throat.  Finally, you make your way to an old, run-down observation tower where you both scan the area and figure out a way to clear a path to your target.

This is where your special skill set comes into play.  As you bear down on your first victim, a guard standing watch on top of a building to the far right, you line up your shot using the reticule to account for wind, distance, and bullet drop.  You center up on center mass, squeeze the trigger, and move on to your next target.

The game may not be on par with current FPS titles such as Modern Warfare 3 or Battlefield 3 from a technical standpoint, but the game does a good job of building tension and maintaining it through every shot; looking and sounding quite sharp in the process.  While the version I played is still an alpha, it has a great deal of potential to be an entertaining title.  Sniper 2: Ghost Warrior promises to take place in many locations around the world including the Himalayas, Philippines, and Sarajevo.  The publisher also promises continued support of the game through DLC to include content packs and new plot elements.

Gameplay is fairly intuitive as well.  City Interactive has done a good job of keeping the controls simple, to allow the player to concentrate on the world around them and the objectives they need to complete, rather than tacking on new functions.  Sniper 2: Ghost Warrior is a game where you’ll rely on stealth, rather than brute force, to complete your objectives.  While in some instances, an open gun battle may be avoidable, it’s ideal to take your opponents quietly as to not arouse the suspicion of the other enemy troops.

While we only got a peek into the world of Sniper 2: Ghost Warrior, the indications are that there’s something far larger going on, and this August, we’ll be able to take a deeper look into the game and see what it is.