45 people found this review helpful
4 people found this review funny
Not Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 7.5 hrs on record (6.4 hrs at review time)
Posted: 1 Jan, 2020 @ 4:00am

While the game looks decently polished on the surface, there's a myriad of issues below the surface that will grind gameplay to a halt consistently. Here's a few that I've encountered:

- There's no info available about the game. Seriously. With other games you have wikis, subreddits, guides and other resources if you need answers to trivial questions like "where do heavy soldiers take damage", but with this game there's absolutely nothing. Your only methods of getting any info are to either have a friend that knows about the game, or ask on the Steam discussion board and hope someone answers.

- To make the previous point even worse, the game doesn't explain anything but the bare bones of the mechanics. It will show you how to climb ledges with a 20 second segment and never mention it again. It will "teach" you about special ammo types by simply giving you the ammo, letting you shoot at targets and guess what the ammo does. It will straight up not tell you anything about the drone, which will probably confuse the hell out of you when you try to use it ingame and have it break instantly every time, only to hear from a friend that it's because there's indestructable jammer towers all over the place that aren't marked out or mentioned anywhere.

- The game is called "Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts" yet the mechanics actively discourage a sniper playstyle. The aforementioned jammer towers prevent you from gathering intel from afar using the drone, so it's very likely that you wont spot a soldier sitting behind a wall or building who will then get alerted. The guards rarely if ever walk out of sight of eachother without being lured away by rocks thrown by the player. And all of the side objective sniping targets require you to go loot the body after the kill. Why make a sniping game that forces you not to snipe? The most egregious discouragement is that one of the gadgets is an automated sniper turret, which you can simply mark targets for and it will shoot them for you. Indeed, why bother doing that one titular thing the game sets out to do, when you can simply let a 100% accurate AI turret do it for you?

- The only way to save the game is with checkpoints, which are rare and can't be revisited, which can lead to lost progress. My tally is 1,5 hours of lost progress out of the 6 hours I've played so far.

- The game may or may not arbitrarily randomize the enemies every time you load to a checkpoint. It doesn't matter if it's because you shut the game off, or if you died.

- The game makes a big deal about exfiltrating out of the mission after each objective is completed, but won't actually let you change the mission or your loadout unless you give up all of your progress in the mission. The game saves separately from the exfiltrations as well, so they serve absolutely no purpose.
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12 Comments
4Horsemen 29 Jan, 2020 @ 1:27am 
good review
you should be able to post your problems here and get help. But there is a reason why nobody allows for comments anymore cause so many people think they have the right to say something but have nothing to say.
Arly 27 Jan, 2020 @ 10:48pm 
Despite the replies to this review being negative, this review makes alot of good points and clearly gotten a heaping score of helpful votes. If I'd read this early I probably wouldn't have even bothered with this game in the first place. I came across this because I was looking for information about why my drones kept exploding, because the thing that tells you about towers is out of the way. Many of the other bits I noticed (no save/load button, infrequent autochecks, loaded autochecks breaking AI, exfil not exiting the mission) and shrugged off, but compounded with other issues grew to become irritating. But the thing to break me was the inability to skip cutscenes, which play every mission no matter how many times you've seen it. Googling "how to stop cutscenes" gave me more results than anything else, which is telling.
False Neutral 25 Jan, 2020 @ 10:26am 
So, the game :

Might or might not be good.

Offers a variety of playstyles and gadgets.

...and some players :

Actively refuse to read the journal which explains everything from jammers to enemy marking in decent detail.

Have no idea how climbing works because... The outstretched hand is not enough of a visual clue. Or has trouble with actually climbing?

Can't be bothered to use binoculars and lay in wait to mark everyone and learn the patrol routes or just upgrade the mask for autotagging and go rambo.

Have trouble resisting the temptation of a cheat-like gadget and blames the game for it.

Hate that the game punishes them for failing.

Are incapable of spending ten seconds to avail themselves of changed enemy locations.

Couldn't grasp the concept of mutually exclusive challenges and cutting the mission short to cash them in.

---

All in all, maybe this shouldn't be the top review for the game but rather one with valid criticism?
BlackRabbit 25 Jan, 2020 @ 7:25am 
I have Steam games category called "MILITARY-REALISTIC" and the other "MILITARY-ACTION". Sniper Ghost warrior 1 has it's deserved place in the first one, and before playing this one I put it into "Realistic" thinking it was going to be the same... well, I had to take it out:

1. You own a mask (yes a mask) that AUTO REGENERATES YOUR HEALTH and gives some Predator skills. ♥♥♥♥ that. I loved the Sniper in the soviet war styled game that was the previous one.
2. You way you see the wind direction... ♥♥♥♥ that.
3. Weapon sounds... ♥♥♥♥ that.
4. My god the way you're dressed... ♥♥♥♥ that.
5. You seee the enemies in your hud... ♥♥♥♥ that.
6. And last but not least: this super technological idea of the mask, and the weapons, and the idiot talking to you giving you objectives... ♥♥♥♥ that.
MessiahKid 25 Jan, 2020 @ 7:17am 
Exfiltration is a forced checkpoint ONLY for your mission progress, not the point where you stand, and serve to help you check off your progress. As someone whom has only played this on the harder difficulty (contractor I think). This game is so much easier in terms of mechanics and gameplay smoothness compared to them your whining is unappreciated by the fan-community. Give the game a fair whack as a slowpaced sniper game and accept there are going to be setbacks and you cannot complete all challenges in one run as it is a physical impossibility. Eliminating all guards without use of a sniper drone or raising the alarm takes time and tries to get right.
MessiahKid 25 Jan, 2020 @ 7:13am 
Sienihemmo, the game is made after 3 other games in the series that explain the rather mediocre climbing mechanic I.E run at wall with obvious ledges strutting out of it, jump at it, then press w to climb up or s to climb down. OPEN WORLD MECHANIC means there are fifty-odd different ways to get to the same point. The bullets are explained in simple detail in both text and voice overs to not confuse you. HEAVY soldiers are really easy to kill, aim for the neck or head (not actually explained but pretty easy to guess, 1 shot kills to a stronger sniper than the starter). JAMMERS are military grade tech, you cant just shoot it like an old-school medal of honor game and expect it to stop working, there is however a lit up panel you can just shoot to make it stop working, and there is a reason to have these not mentioned after mission 2, your contractors don't know they exist and therefore cannot tell you (you are supposed to be a fucking professional hitman for fuck sake!)
duckcity 25 Jan, 2020 @ 4:26am 
you're clearly not very good at this game and got mad about it so you posted a negative review.

"where do heavy soldiers take damage" ????? really lol wtf
ZellsWrath 23 Jan, 2020 @ 6:01pm 
i hope this is a troll post. if not, then maybe you should not be playing games. games are meant to be fun and part of that fun is working it out. when you get stuck on something and then after a bit work it out, that feeling u get is what gaming is all about and the point. you think game is bad cos of info out side of said game is not there!! maybe just look at a youtuber play it if you dont like to play for your self. maybe im on my own on this as i been playing games before there was an internet, but i dont see how you mark down a game cos you could not find info to help you play said game online. this is not a def of game or me having ago at you Sienihemmo. this is how you feel about it and that is ok, i just dont understand it.
Sienihemmo 1 Jan, 2020 @ 10:43am 
(3/3) It makes no sense that you leave an area for 3 minutes to go visit a checkpoint, and whether you load the game or not decides how you need to approach a return trip. If you don't load, you're fine and you can just sprint through. If you do load, you need to approach the entire area like it has soldiers in it again, because it might. Games get around this dilemma by always either having the enemy locations saved and stay the same, or respawn/randomize the enemies on every visit to the location regardless of loads. An example of the former would be Hitman. An example of the latter would be Ghost Recon Wildlands.

Mixing them together is bad game design, and makes me think that the current system in the game is because of the developers inability to make a proper save system, not because of any conscious design decision on their part.
Sienihemmo 1 Jan, 2020 @ 10:43am 
(2/3) Also, there are literally only 7 community guides for the game, 5 of which aren't even in english. The 2 english ones are an achievement guide and a a guide on getting chain kills.

I didn't say randomization was bad, but it should occur when you start the mission and not on each load. It's annoying that you literally can't stop playing if you're in a good situation, because when you load back in the game might randomize enemies back into routes or areas you've already cleared. Because the game decided that a continuous play session is more important than sleeping, going to work, eating dinner or taking care of a child. And yes, that's called lost progress if you need to spend time clearing out routes you already cleared earlier.