Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 is a game about sniping and open ended (World as well this time) missions that lets you play the way you want. Today we have a look at the demo (Beta) released by CI Games, and point out the pros and the cons of the Beta.
Note: This is not a final review of the game. This is just a Beta and hence we will point out any and all positive & negative aspects that we could find, in the hope that it reaches the developer’s attention and can be improved upon final release.
Performance:
Talking about performance, on a system with:
i5-6500 @ 3.2 GHz
GTX 1070
8 GB DDR4 RAM @ 2133 MHz
7200 RPM HDD
The game ran at an average of 73 fps on Ultra settings 1080p and dropped to around 60 fps for 1440p.
CI Games are boasting a full blown open world along with open ended approach to all missions hence putting it in the same league as Hitman, which is known for giving the player full control of how to complete an objective.
The Beta has only two missions and a small part of the open world which gives an indication of ‘Going out of Beta Testing Area’ when a player does stray too off path.
As for the pros of the game, the game plays great and remains true to what it claims it does- Provides many options on how to complete an objective. The player has access to a number of weapons with different stats along with a survival kit(Sort of).
There is no health bar, and it follows the same trope of modern shooters- regenerating health. The concepts and controls of the game are pretty simple but do not mistake this as a run and gun shooter. Even though it may show on the Steam page that the player can choose to be a warrior, it still would be highly recommended that the player scouts the area thoroughly before makin a move.
One drawback is that you can only take as many hits as about 2-3 humans at max which might make you feel powerless when jumping straight into a fight without thorough scouting. But since the game hands you an AK 47, I am pretty sure you could do with minimal scouting and then proceed to splatter hemoglobin all around the battlefield.
The game has you scouting the area, observe enemy movements and get around the security forces, because enemies can be anywhere, and won’t always appear directly in front of you.
The game looks gorgeous, which is a given considering it’s built on the CryEngine and apart from some of the inconsistencies that we will discuss below, the game will definitely run good at release.
Not much can be talked about other aspects such as the story and the various other gameplay elements, for which the full game will be required.
Coming to the negative aspects, first of all, the game drops frames a lot during the scoping animation. While scoped in or while scoped out, the game has almost no stuttering, but during that scoping animation, the fps drops it breaking the immersion by quite a margin. Another point at which the game drops frames is when you try to access the menu by pressing ‘Esc’ while in-game.
Another jarring aspect of the game is the terrible AI of enemies. It’s almost like they are drunk or are day dreaming. A sighted fallen comrade will take about 10 seconds to react to and like 13th century, when there were no sniper rifles, the AI will start gathering around the dead body to literally become sitting ducks.
For a sniping game that relies heavily on occupying vantage points, I am surprised that the AI is so dumb. For example, I headshotted a guy and I am pretty sure his brains were all over the ground, but the AI comes to the body looks around and goes in the opposite direction!!!!
I mean come on, for a sniping game I would at least expect the AI to have an average idea of where the bullet came from. TheAI will not notice where you are, unless they spot you within their ridiculously small visual cones or you shoot them in the leg and they survive to get shot again.
Another annoying aspect I found was that, when an enemy is killed, there would be a call on the lines of “Casualty” or “Man down”, which will definitely alert you, but you’ll notice that everyone in the area is cool as a cucumber. Yes they are wrong calls and once you scout the area with your sniper, you’ll feel like the guy in class who used to get trapped by other kids for shouting.
As for the overall visual quality, there are a few inconsistencies such as texture pop ins and texture flickering apart from some really jagged surfaces, basically nothing that can’t be ironed out at final release.
Surprisingly the in-game menu doesn’t have options to change any kind of settings. The player always has to navigate to the main menu to change the settings, which is not intuitive. This is definitely something I would like to see in change in the final version.
Overall I think this game has huge potential in spite of feeling like a FarCry-ish sort of game. What do you guys think? Are you excited for the game? Let us know in the comments below.
Well the game surely feels like FC but it’s a completely different IP. This a sniping game with a strong emphasis on tactics. This game is not forgiving and I like had a blast with the open beta
Loads of people say that it’s similar to FC and I agree. It does feel like FC a bit but for me it’s more like military style Hitman. The hide out and the voice of this lady brought back the memories of Hitman 2 SA
You know ? I Think better is use proven solutions than forcing new solution in short time. It’s a low budget game, so better is to use this solutions and put there a good storyline with amazing shooting mechanics . And I think they do this right now 🙂
@morethanzero666:disqus I totally agree, I remember many low budget games which become classical hits! Let’s hope this is another one 🙂
Oh yeah that’s very true! Every game is going to have some similar aspects to what have been already seen. Look at Horizo Zero Dawn. I had a chance to play it and it seams like a game made from the best aspects of other games and it all works very well
Oh yeah you really have to plan all your moves ahead. I thought that it will be a regular FPS with advanced sniping but thankfully I was wrong 🙂
Haha yeah, thankfully you were. I think that there are very little games like SGW 3 at the moment and I am glad that CI Games is going to release it so soon!
Indeed, moreover, i would say that SGW3 might be most interesting FPS of 2017, mainly due to open world and amazing AI
Oh yeah and moreover I was hoping that SE 4would be a cool game. Unfortunately I was wrong. So SGW 3 is all that’s left fore me this year
I agree, you need to think your every move over. If you just jump among the enemies you have no chances to survive. AI is very good.
That’s right, also the drone was a must have – when planing all your moves. I thought I wouldn’t use it so often but it was very helpful
I’m not sure if ‘helpful’ is right word here. I think it’s necessary. I don’t know if I’d acomplish those missions without usin’ it.
good reconnaisance is a basic point of being sniper, and drone is perfect for this task. big point for CIGames for this idea
Sure. It is a fresh idea. I love it, but even when u use drone, game is a challenge.
I don’t like when people say that’s similar to FC like it’ something bad. Ilove FC and I’ll surely love SGW3 🙂
exactly, CryEngine has a huge power, and for me it’s a big advantege. the same engine didnt mean that SGW3 will be similar to FC
Actually, we can see a difference, because SGW2 was on the same engine. And if I may be honest, I don’t care about similarities to FC. FC wasn’t a sniper game.
They put serious money in SGW3, much more than in SGW2 and now you can see what this serious became 🙂 I wish I played full version already.
to be honest, bigger budget didn’t mean that game will be better, free of bugs etc, etc, but after playing beta I’m sure that CIG will earn much more than they invested 😉
Cry engine is one of the best engines now. Game looks great, so CIG made good choice. This engine provided great graphics.
I liked the open beta tests a lot! The drone proved to be very useful for me. This is the ultimate tool for recon. I think that they still have to work on the optimization tho
Agreed. But not much tbh… The game runs pretty smoothly for the most part.
‘I think this game has huge potential in spite of feeling like a FarCry-ish sort of game’ – this sentence says everything about this game. I can’t wait to play full version.
well, yes, but I think that SGW3 will be definitely much more interesting than FC, because FC was boring after few hours
When I playd CoD it was o easy I felt like I had some undeserved sense of acomplishment after every mission 🙂 In SGW3 things are going completely differet way. W have to fight very hard to stay alive.
totally agree, but you have to remember that CoD was tottaly diffrent kind of FPS, CoD was typical shoot&run, SGW3 is more like combination of Assasin’s Creed and ArmA2
Very good beta! I’m very surprised with enemies AI, and idea of open world makes me very curious about full version! Good job CIG, can’t wait for april!
I agree with you, AI is very good and I’m impressed how small issues had this Ope Beta version. They have totally enough time to fix everything.
I can’t find link, but I saw some article about one scene from the beginning of SGW3. There’s a little dirty talk and some chick in underwear and they wrote it’s softporno :)))))) Did you read it?
Great Beta Tests. I can’t wait for full version of the game. I liked warrior mode, but ghost mode was amazing. Sneaking and killing was great.
Great ? I should certainly pronounce, impressed with your web site.
I had no trouble navigating through all the tabs as well as related info ended up being truly simple to
do to access. I recently found what I hoped for before you know it in the least.
Quite unusual. Is likely to appreciate it for those who add forums or anything, web site theme .
a tones way for your customer to communicate.
Nice task.
Thanks