Publisher: City Interactive
Developer: City Interactive
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, Intel Pentium IV 3.2 GHz or compatible CPU, 1 GB RAM (2 GB Vista/Win 7), 256 MB DirectX 9 (or later) compatible graphics card with Shader Model 3.0 support, 6.5 GB hard-drive space, DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card
Genre: Shooter
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

The thrill of the hunt is buried in the animal part of our brains. Originally we did it to survive, plus we needed to keep our cave girlfriends busy over a hot cooking pot so that they didn’t move in with the muscular guy in the loincloth two caves up the hill. These days, if we hunt people and we don’t wear a uniform, we’re usually called serial killers or hitmen. But if we slip on the camouflage and do it for our country, we’re called Special Ops soldiers. Developer City Interactive’s Sniper: Ghost Warrior gives us the opportunity to get it on with the world’s most dangerous game.

You play Gunnery Sgt. Tyler Wells, a Marine Corps sniper who has been deployed to the jungles of the fictional Isla Trueno. You and your spotter have been tasked with tracking down and assassinating Trueno’s dictator, Gen. Manuel Vasquez, for reasons unknown to you (it’s above your pay grade, apparently). You move silent and deadly through the underbrush to a perfect sniping perch and you get the green light to take the shot—but Vasquez somehow survives, triggering a game of cat and mouse between you, your comrades in arms, and the General’s army.

Once Sniper is installed (you must have a Steam account to play), you create a profile that becomes your gateway to online multiplayer; make sure that you respond in the affirmative when you’re asked if this is an Internet account, or you won’t be able to sign in to the multiplayer lobby. Those who are new to the sniper genre should make sure to complete the included tutorial (it’s skippable for all of you Delta Force vets), which teaches you how to use the various indicators on your sniper scope and how to hide yourself so as not to be seen by the enemy. When you’re ready, the hunt for Gen. Vasquez begins. A series of computer-generated waypoints keeps you heading in the right direction, and red arrows on your minimap show you where the enemies are and which direction they’re facing. As the story progresses, you play as several other characters in the story (you even get to play the spotter in one memorable scenario), so you won’t always be hiding in the weeds with a sniper rifle.

Unlike most shooters, Sniper‘s story seems to have taken priority over the technical aspects of the game. The plot moves along nicely, even though you spend lots of time crawling through the jungle trying to stay invisible, and there are a couple of mildly interesting plot twists along the road. But there are a few graphical tricks up the developer’s sleeves, one of which is Bullet Cam. When you line up and let fly a perfect headshot, you get a slow-motion cinematic that follows the bullet all the way to the cranium of your unfortunate victim. Sound effects are excellent; there are times when you depend upon the sounds around you to make tactical decisions that can save your life. But there’s one feature in Sniper that might be more valuable than any other: the quicksave. You can save your game whenever you want, as many times as you want. Use it wisely; the quicksave is most definitely your friend. Multiplayer includes Internet or LAN play, with three modes (deathmatch, team deathmatch, and VIP, in which one player is the VIP and is the only player who can score), six maps from the single-player mode and a maximum of 12 players per match.

Surprisingly, it’s the graphics that almost make Sniper go all FUBAR. There are clipping issues galore, with your hands sometimes passing straight through supposedly solid objects, and dead bodies and their weapons suspended in mid-air. In a strange twist of graphical fate, you can shoot through walls from 100 meters away, but you can’t shoot through foliage placed right in front of you. You can’t squirm under fences and other obstructions that are obviously high enough for you to do so, unless the developer wants you to go that way. Also, the minimap doesn’t show all of the hostiles in your area, so don’t think that you’ve cleared the scene just because you don’t see any red arrows on the map. Sniper also suffers from dumb AI disease; some enemies don’t react when their comrade’s head is ventilated while standing right next to them. But while they might not be very bright, many of them are dead-eye shots; they can one-shot-one-kill you just as much as you can them. Enemy conversations are recorded in Spanish, which is a nice nod to realism, but there are only a few separate discussions that are repeated throughout the game. A curious sound glitch allows some enemies to carry on their conversations even after they’re killed. And the final level of the game is far too simple and uninvolving, totally unworthy of what has gone on before it.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior tries its best to give us a chance to see how real Special Forces snipers do their jobs, pitting themselves against both the enemies and the elements in an occupation that demands precision above all else. But a lack of attention to graphical detail and a host of other little annoyances almost ruin a fairly gripping story that you want to see through to the end, despite its technical problems. It’s a rare triumph of substance over style, but it could’ve been so much more.

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