Despite “Sniper” being in the game’s title, the primary gameplay loop to SGW3 is very reminiscent of games like Far Cry or various other contemporary open-world games in that it invites the player to tackle missions in whatever play style they prefer: Sniping, stealth or frontal assault. This “play it your way” style is also reflected in the game’s 3 skill trees: “Sniper”, “Ghost” andDespite “Sniper” being in the game’s title, the primary gameplay loop to SGW3 is very reminiscent of games like Far Cry or various other contemporary open-world games in that it invites the player to tackle missions in whatever play style they prefer: Sniping, stealth or frontal assault. This “play it your way” style is also reflected in the game’s 3 skill trees: “Sniper”, “Ghost” and “Warrior”. Sniper is pretty self explanatory: getting kills with your sniper rifle, whether or not you’re holding your breath when you make a kill, kill distance and whether or not it’s a headshot. Ghost is more attributed to stealth: getting kills from in close with your sidearm, performing stealth takedowns and hacking CCTV cameras. Finally, Warrior is based more towards frontal assault: getting kills with your secondary weapon such as assault rifles, shotguns or LMGs.
However, despite the invitation to play the game your way, in my experience, I found the sniping to be the most polish and effective way of playing through the game. There is plenty of catharsis to scouting out the mission area, finding a good vantage point and then sniping enemies from on high. Like the previous Sniper Ghost Warrior titles, you have to factor in things like wind speed and direction, bullet drop off and elevation relative to your target. Click in and hold the left thumbstick to steady your aim and a ringed reticle will show up on your scope telling you where to place your shot. While this does take away from the overall challenge of sniping in this game, you playthoough pretty easily without using it, however, there were a few missions where I’m kind of glad that steady aim option. While not as visceral or detailed as the Sniper Elite series, the close up, bullet time, kill cams are still fun to watch as the bullet blows through an unsuspecting target’s head and he slumps to the ground. You’re pretty much given a silenced sniper rifle from the start, so there’s no need to grind different play styles in order to work up to it. Stealthing and frontal assault styles are both kind of mediocre. Stealth can be undone with inconsistent enemy AI and once you’re spotted, not only does everyone in the area know exactly where you are, but they can also rain down mortar fire that locks in your exact location with deadly accuracy. Firing secondary weapons doesn’t feel as gratifying as the sniping and you can die so quickly in a frontal assault, even on Normal difficulty.
Much like other contemporary open-world games, you can blow off the main story missions for a bit if you want to explore “Points of Interest”, complete Side Ops are take down various High Value Targets across the game’s three main sandbox maps. There are achievements tied to all of them and exploring certain Points of Interest can unlock special guns to use in the game. This is all fine and good and there’s certainly incentive to do these things, but I do wonder if SGW3 would’ve been better off as a more scripted, linear action game. Couple that with the fact that you have to commute to and from the safehouse in order to start your next mission and I started thinking that SGW3 didn’t need to be shoe-horned into an open-world game for the sake of chasing trends. There are a few other questionable mechanics added to this game, such as the ability to hide in lockers or dumpsters, the option of sleeping in a warehouse to pass the time, even though there it seems to have no effect on your physical fitness or combat capabilities and a crafting system even though the game’s economy gives you enough currency to buy everything you need. I also never got much use of equipment such as Bouncing Bettys, Claymores or the Early Warning devices, since there’s never a spot in the game that forces you into a “defend your position” Horde Mode. Ammo types such as tagging or explosive ammo were barely used in my playthrough. You can tag enemies with your drone and I only used the explosive ammo once during the tutorial when the game made me. A lot of these aspects of the game just felt like throwing **** at the wall and seeing what sticks.
Graphics wise, while SGW3 looks good from a distance, upon closer inspection, the various environment textures are of a lower resolution. I liked the lighting in this game, which helped distract me from some of the other graphical shortcomings. However, some of the weather effects like rain and snow are well done.
Overall, Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 is just a really mediocre and forgettable FPS with mechanics that have been featured and done way better, in countless other open-world games. I picked it up on sale for $10 and at that price, I think SGW3 can be a serviceable, bargain bin shooter if you’ve got a weekend to kill and are in between major releases.… Expand
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