Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2
This feels very similar (at least to me) to the Sniper Elite series. Apparently they're by different developers, but I can't really tell the difference. SGWC2 has about half a dozen mission areas, and there are multiple objectives within each one, with additional challenge objectives to do things a certain way (like killing a target by dropping on him instead of sniping). That brings quite a lot of freedom in how you approach things, and gives it some good replayability to do each contract more than once. The game looks and sounds great, and the guns feel pretty good to shoot. The title is misleading - it's much more a stealth FPS, but there are sniping sections.
Pros
- Cool mission briefings
- Didn't take too long to get used to the mechanics. Wind speed and distance play a part in bullet trajectory, and show up in an easy to understand way on the HUD
- Different ammo types (lure enemies, EMP bullets, armour piercing etc)
- Gadgets like the sniping turret to execute simultaneous takedowns
- There's a skill tree you unlock by doing challenges, and you can by gun upgrades with contract money
- Stealth mechanics are generally pretty good
- Big open areas with multiple ways to do objectives
- Challenges add replayability to each contract
- The thing where the camera follows the bullet to someone's head exploding is really cool, although just like Sniper Elite, I turned it off after the first 10 minutes because I'd rather be able to shoot the next person without alerting them, than watch someone's head explode
Cons
- Alt-tabbing is really buggy and sometimes crashes the game
- You can't turn off the head jiggle when moving
- If a turret spots you, but doesn't start to fire - you might as well reload. It keeps a lock on you even if you move away from the area behind other objects
- Sometimes you can't tag an enemy even though you can see them, but the game thinks you can't
Bugs
- Sometimes when you reload a save, soldiers that you killed before reloading are still gone
- Sometimes you're not allowed to loot corpses for the rest of the mission
- If you throw a lure stone from cover, the guards come and investigate you instead of where the stone lands
- Several challenges are bugged so that you can only do them if you go straight to that area after starting the map. I gave up on doing any of them after finding that out.