Sniper Ghost Warrior Video Game Review

Sniper Ghost Warrior In the video game industry, there are big names, and there are not-so-big names. Companies like Activision, Ubisoft and EA get most of the attention, and rightly so; they tend to produce more top titles than others. This makes it rather difficult for the smaller guys, who seem to subsist on the peripheries and pick up the crumbs. Then again, when an industry is this large, the crumbs are substantial.

And then every now and then, one of the smaller names will score a win with a game that, while not necessarily brilliant, stands out in their catalogue as much better than their stock-in-trade. Sniper Ghost Warrior is such a game for publishers City Interactive, who seem to be making a run at hitting the big time with some of the upcoming titles they have announced. Sniper Ghost Warrior is, for all intents and purposes, a first-person shooter.

But where other first person shooters have allowed sniping – a complete pain when you go up against a practiced camper – none have really made it their focus. In fact, when you look at a game like Sniper, you realise that many of the other first-person shooters out there could be described (in terms of weapons) as rather unfocused.

In a “normal” first person shooter, you can pick up a sniper rifle and let some unfortunate pixilated soul have it from the other side of the map. It’s great fun, but the realism of the situation is, well, not very realistic. Anyone who knows a bit about weapons – and sniping – will be able to tell you that long distance shooting is a tricky affair.

Bullets aren’t magical things that just keep going… they are subject to the same forces that everything else is, including gravity, wind, time and the rotation of the earth. Firing a bullet over a long distance brings these ideas and calculations into play – the longer the distance, the greater the effects.

 

Sniper Ghost Warrior goes a long way into exploring these ideas, purely because it is what one could call a specialised first-person shooter. It’s all about stealth, and getting clean kills over long distances. And to this end, the game focuses on some ideas that might be a little different, and takes an approach that is more pedantic and a bit more realistic than the average FPS title.

For example, a player will need to make many long range shots in the game. It assists the player by indicating where a bullet will end up, factoring in gravity, wind speed and the like. Using the scope, the player will see a small mark, indicating that the bullet won’t go to the centre of the crosshairs, but rather to this amended aiming point.

 

This degree of help is great, but the game doesn’t take other factors into account when assisting the player in this way. Target speed and bullet travel time are pretty much ignored, so the player will need to apply some smarts to the situation. This is both a blessing and a curse.

Moving targets will need to be lead, with the player firing a round at where they believe the target is going to be when the bullet arrives, rather than at a guided position. It’s tricky, and makes those perfect shots frustratingly difficult to get right.

Then again, in the real world, aiming calculations wouldn’t take target movement into account either, so it’s pretty realistic… Aside from long distance shooting, the game will demand that the player infiltrates areas, using stealth preferably, and some ‘normal’ FPS combat will also be encountered.

 

Sniper Ghost Warrior is not a perfect game, but it certainly is fun and offers the player a different kind of challenge. A few missteps in the execution of the game could probably have been avoided, but even a moderately patient player will be able to get past the quibbles and enjoy what is ultimately a challenging and rather different gaming experience.

The graphics are decent, the missions are long and generally complex, and the multiplayer is quite different to what one might expect from a firstperson shooter. On the whole, while Sniper Ghost Warrior may not rock your world, it certainly provides a breath of freshness in the FPS genre… and will, at very least, show you how tricky sniping can really be.

Verdict: Though not a perfect game, Sniper: Ghost Warrior introduces a new kind of challenge for FPS fans Developer: City Interactive Publisher: City Interactive Distributor: Apex Interactive Platform: PC Xbox 360 PS3

Brink Game Review

Brink Video Game is set in the futuristic Ark, a city designed to be an experimental, floating Utopia. But when the polar icecaps melted, people flooded to the city – even though its creators did their best to hide it. Now, tensions flare; the city has not heard anything from the outside world for twenty years. One faction believes that peace needs to be maintained so that the Ark – and consequently mankind – survives. The other side is a faction of rebels who want to break free of the confines of the city and search for the other humans they believe still inhabit the earth.

It’s a good idea, and one that would lend itself to a fantastic single player campaign, as well as some awesome multiplayer action. But this game focuses more on the multiplayer – sections that could be considered single player are extremely forgettable – and yet manages to not really go anywhere significant while doing so.

<strong>H</strong>ype is a scary monster. The problem it poses is that, if it gets out of control, it ruins the game that it’s about. Not directly, of course; rather, the hype machine creates massive expectation that, if the game doesn’t live up to them, results in disappointed users – and a lowered impression of the final product.

Brink is an excellent example of the hype machine in action. Over many months (and a delay or two) we were promised a gaming experience that would literally blow our minds. But the end result is a somewhat pedestrian shooter that tries to be original, but falls short in a number of ways.

Brink is, for all intents and purposes, a team-based, objective-focussed shooter. It allows the player to create a character, get some weapons, and get into the action relatively quickly. But here’s one of the problems. The makers promised us a highly customisable experience.

And yes, the player can customise their character and weapons, but it’s rather limited. Faces are, for example, all premade templates… even a few tweaks would have made things better, but the player can only select a premade face, without the luxury of modification. Clothing is the same – there are numerous outfits, but other than mixing and matching elements like pants and shirts, the player’s only real choice is in a limited colour palette.

This comes in with weapons as well, although the player has a little more to work with – and a little more effect on the game itself. Guns can be upgraded with various classes of equipment, and unlocking an item once makes it available for all guns in the player’s arsenal. These upgrades have both positive and negative effects on the weapons’ performance.

In the game, players can use one of four different classes, which can be switched mid-game at certain capturable command points. Each of these classes have their strengths and weaknesses, and have powers which affect the other players in the team – a nice touch. This emphasises a little co-operation between the players, which is never a bad thing.

The player’s character can also be upgraded, in terms of skills, which are either general, or specific to one of the classes on offer.

The game will, in each mission, give the player numerous objectives that need to be filled… these range from capturing points through to escorting important characters or sabotaging objects. Movement through the levels is made easy by allowing a sort of free-movement system, but doesn’t do it better than other games that use a similar concept.

When all is said and done, Brink is a fun shooter, but it’s pretty unremarkable. It certainly does not deliver on the lofty promises made by the publishers, and will likely leave the player wanting. It does very little – if anything – to rise above its peers, and with graphics that are a bit lackluster – even though they are distinctive – and a general feel that is nothing more than mediocre, many people will find the game more than a little disappointing. Die-hard shooter fans may well enjoy Brink, but the title really offers very little to distinguish it from the hordes of other, similar products on the market… many of which do things just a bit better than Brink does. The success of this title, with its extremely heavy reliance on the multiplayer experience, will rely on the community that grows up around it. But whether it has enough on offer to foster that kind of growth is another question entirely.

<strong>Verdict:</strong>

A shooter that is really rather nondescript… may do well, but it might not offer enough to attract the scores of users to keep it alive.

<strong>Developer: Splash Damage</strong>

<strong>Publisher: Bethesda</strong>

<strong>Distributor: Nu Metro</strong>

<strong>Platform:</strong>

PC

PS3

Xbox 360

LA Noire Video Game Review

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L.A. Noire Summary

La Noire is an open world Game made by Rockstar Games and takes place in Los Angeles in the 40′s. You play Phelps a police officer who climbs the ranks from patrolman through traffic, vice and arson by collecting clues and solving crimes.

The Game is very addicting if you like Games like GTA and although repetitive at times there are a lot of crimes to solve and places to explore which makes this Game entertaining.

The storyline and missions are based on real situations and what makes the game play unique is how it allows you to use your intuition and analyze the suspects body language, eye movements and crime scenes to solve the case.

L.A. Noire Screenshots

When I first got the Game I spent almost 6 hours playing it straight. There was a few quirks in the Game but nothing major that I would give it a bad rating. The vehicle movements and the driving are the same as GTA which in my opinion is one of the best Games when it comes to driving. While you are searching for clues it uses vibration and chimes to indicate objects you can examine and when you find clues you can open use your notebook to perform your investigations and write down clues for examination later when trying to solve the cases.

There are several ways to upgrade your character, when you interrogate suspects and witnesses you will gain intuition points if you get them to talk and give up the information.

If you fail to get useful information because you ask the wrong questions and read their body language wrong then the task of solving the case is much more difficult.