Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 -- open world sniper game feels like Far Cry wannabe

[Kasey Chang]

Decided to start its own topic as I've finished Act 1 and first mission of Act 2, when a new map opened up.

SGW3, the third entry in the SGW franchise, was meant as a AAA title, and it's... ambitious, but ended up feeling somewhat generic.

City Interactive, the developers, developed an interesting backstory, but it managed to put a new spin AND felt derivative at the same time. And the gameplay felt the same as well.

The backstory is you are two brothers, Jon and Robert North. You are Jon, and you joined the marines first. Robert joined up later. You were sent on a special mission, just as you complete it, you were captured by evil merc leader, who knocked you out, but captured your brother and took him away, while leaving you there. Years, later, you are now a deniable operative fighting "separatists" in Republic of Georgia. Armed with tons of support from the Russians, they are committing atrocities against civilians. The locals have a resistance called Rokti Lions and they can use your help. There are also a bunch of war criminals in the area that you can terminate for bounties.

You have a safe house and a vehicle you can drive around in. There are various enemy "outposts" that you can clear for $$$ and XP. You can also capture resources for crafting stuff from bullets to grenades. Not full weapons though. There's also a market where you can buy weapons, but those are unlocked rather slowly. There are campaign main mission, side missions, and "points of interest" all over the map. There are like 5 acts in the game, each of which consists of 4-8 primary mission, and 2-4 side missions. Each map also has dozens of points of interest. It could be as simple as a relic or resources in the area, to one of the bounties, to an outpost you can clear (but no mission), to just bad guys holding civilians that you can save.

You can also find collectibles such as legendary sniper rifles and cultural artifacts all over the map.

So basically once you are given a mission, HOW you accomplish the mission is up to you. The game rewards all three styles of play: ghost, sniper, and warrior. Ghost is basically stabbing people in the back or fade away from detection. Sniper obviously is sniping. And warrior is get in gunfights and kill enemies with your alternate weapon. Depending on how much you do each, you get skill points in each of the areas you can spend to unlock some of the 9 different skills in each style. The skills are divided among three "tiers". Tier 1 skills cost 2 pts, Tier 2 costs 4 pts, and Tier 3 cost 8 pts. And you need to take two skills (out of 3) of the tier to unlock the next tier. It's somewhat confusing as to what activities makes points though.

You can carry three weapons: your sniper rifle (many available, more unlocked later), your secondary weapon (usually an assault rifle, but a bow or a shotgun are avaialble, again, many available), and finally, your backup pistol (many avaible, more unlocked later). None used "real" names or brands, just "sound-alikes". Instead of AR15, it's "Archer 15". And so on. Each weapon is customizable by spending more $$$. Sniper rifle can have more powerful scopes (more zoom power or zoom levels), bipod (for more stability), camo patterns (cosmetics), suppressor (if available), bigger magazine, etc. Secondary rifle can have optional laser or flashlight attachments, suppressor if available, optics if available, bigger magazine if available, and so on. Same for pistols.

Sniper rifles also have bullet choices. Regular, armor piercing, "luring" (makes noise), tagging (helps to tag them).

The open map design was very nice, as the cliffs are often climbable, as are most houses. You have to engage "scout mode" (a lot like Arkham series' "Detective Vision" for Batman) to spot shoe print trails, explosive mines, and climbable cliffs/ledges. This way, you can come at enemies in directions they would never expect. You can drive around usually without attracting attention, and you can drive away from any attention (they may shoot at you, but they will rarely hit you, at least on easy).

Besides the collectible objects mentioned before, there are also resources you can nab, mechanical, electronic, explosive, bullet heads, etc. to help you make things in the workshop (bullets, grenades, med-kits, etc.), which cuts down on your reliance on the market. Market runs on "TG" or "tradeable goods". Apparently, money is no good in the area, yet there's a common unit of trade. (Yeah, right). I ended up frisking EVERY body for more TG, as well as search for EVERY last container with the resources (something your scout mode will help you find, and show on the map).

Enemies are pretty generic, but realistic. They are adorned with variable of weapons, and there are multiple types, some more heavily armed than others. Most will be vulnerable to headshots, at least in Act I and Act II. I'd imagine later I'll run into people sporting super-heavy armor. Right now, enemies are pretty nasty. If you got spotted, they'll engage you with mortars (if they have one), else they will send patrols to engage you (but you can ambush them, if you can). And it's NOT easy to avoid snipers, unless you know where to look for them first. (They almost always have elevated positions) You'll also later run into CCTV cameras but if you find the linked security console you can hack them, turn off the attached alarm, and use them to your advantage (use it to spot enemies). Or you can shoot the cameras first.

You carry a drone which acts as your spotter. The drone will tag enemies for you, have multiple zoom levels, be equipped with thermal or night-vis, optional larger battery (for longer flight duration), sound lure (to pull enemy out of position), improved camouflage (make it less detectable), and even hack security servers by flying up to them. But obviously, the other capabilities are revealed later, and needs "TG" to unlock.

Sniping mechanics are improved slightly. You now adjust both elevation and zoom level (if applicable, i.e. scope has adjustable zoom) and there's a wind meter so you know how to adjust the shot (on easy level, there's the computed "red ball" dot to help you aim, not available in higher difficulty levels). Not all shots result in a kill-cam instant replay, but usually it's pretty good, except for the ones that get shot sitting down or kneeling. Somehow they manage to stand up first. (hahaha)

And yes, you do have grenades, regular HE, smoke, stun, and later, a bouncing betty mine. And as a cliche of all stealth games, a rock you can throw to distract or lure enemies. I think I mentioned silencer repair kits, as the silencer effectiveness decreases as you use them. You can carry body armor (which gives you a little more protection). You also have a knife (for takedowns), and night-vis goggles (hi, splinter cell!) as optional accessories you can carry. But you can't carry EVERYTHING. You start with 4 accessory slots, and right now I have silencer repair kit, HE grenades, night-vis goggles, and smoke grenades (in case I need cover).

Actual gameplay mechanics is VERY reminiscent of Far Cry 3 and later games. You travel to a "hot spot" (either an outpost or point of interest), approach slowly, scout it with your drone, identify enemies, kill them from a distance or up close. Your choice. With the main and side missions, complete the specific objective. Else clear the whole place of enemies, or just go in a grab whatever resources and collectibles you find, or both.

The game just threw me a curveball with end of Act I and beginning of Act II, when I was forced to ditch my guns to attend a resistance wedding, only to have it interrupted when the groom was assassinated. With ONLY my pistol, I have to infiltrate the resistance compound morgue, examine the body and 2 other clues, then head back to scene of crime, and find 3 other clues. Someone, a VERY skilled sniper, is targeting the resistance? Could it be Robert, his brother?

Voice acting is very nice. The Americans sound American, and the Europeans sound European. I guess my only objection is even the bad guys spoke English when they should be speaking Georgian.

All in all, the game feels both derivative and innovative at the same time. it's clear developers put a LOT of polish into the game. Yet in way, you feel it doesn't really matter. You can drive around the area (and it turns out there are THREE separate maps you can go to) but the roads didn't have any danger other than driving by a potentially hostile outpost, but they don't chase you. You get over a dozen different sniper rifles, but again, they don't seem to be that different other than the ammo they use and what accessories you can attach to them. Russian weapons have Russian accessories, and Western weapons have NATO type accessories. And scopes have lots of variations... DIfferent zoom powers, fixed or variable... But you'll always gravitate toward the most powerful one, right? Same with secondary weapons and pistols. Lots of variations, but the choices seem to be there just to soak up your TG/$$$.

This is NOT Sniper Elite, and in a way, you can FEEL the developers want to make their game a lot LIKE Sniper Elite. But they ended up making Far Cry Sniper instead. Which is... neither a good thing nor a bad thing. It's a competent game, but not quite AAA.

[Max Peck]

Steam has the Season Pass Edition is on sale until 12 Aug, so you can pick it up with all the DLC for half the price of the base game (which, oddly enough, is not on sale).

[Kasey Chang]

I am going after various points of interest, and there are weird caches all over the place. They have an almost exact clone of FC3 where you climb these "towers" and grab whatever they have inside. Why are there these towers around the map? Never explained. *sigh* The only difference is these towers are made of bricks and are maybe 3 levels high, whereas the Far Cry 3 towers are much taller and there's some blah blah about they unlocking areas.

Just found a cave that you access via a small waterfall, cache of stuff inside.

Found a camp site where the residents were all mauled by wolves... Then a wolfpack attacked me. Had to kill multiple wolves. It got loud, but it's at night, and nobody gave a ****. Rescued over a dozen civilians from multiple enemy camps. Even killed another most wanted guy.

Found a "drone challenge" place where you need to use a drone to reach places you couldn't otherwise. Use a drone to get into a circuit panel to bring the elevator back to life. There are other places like this on the map.

Still haven't cleared Mining Town map, but I think I got it 75% cleared, and I can clearly afford all the stuff as I've yet to run out of money (though I didn't buy everything).

[Kasey Chang]

Went to 2nd map and saved a rebel from the Separatists. Tried to take out one of the criminals, but he's hiding in a heavily armed village, and I just happen to run into a juggernaut (super-heavy armored guy) who didn't fall from my head shot. And I got discovered. I kinda realized that the .338, while nice, isn't that deadly to the armored guys. I am switching back to 7.62 NATO, which has optional armor-piercing bullets. I thought I managed to survive until they grenaded me to death. Reload!

[tjg_marantz]

Posts 3 hours apart... Someone is going for it

[Kasey Chang]

Emptied the whole village of hostiles. Phew, alerted them ONCE, but was able to hide and they never found me. Taking out the enemies near the mortars also helps. Turns out they *do* have mortars in the village.

Went through the missile base and killed another war crminal. She kept begging for her life. Had to shut her up with a bullet. *sigh* Killed everyone too, and turns out, enemies don't react well to ambushes. Hide in a corner, where they have to come through, but they may not look in your direction. Triple tap them as they come through. Almost got caught when I used the zipline. Apparently I didn't recon carefully. I zip-lined and landed, and turns out in direct sight of a guard. He was reaching for his radio and I put a bullet through his chest.

Went back to Mining Town to and killed one more criminal hiding in a cabin. That's 50% of all criminals on the map.

Ran into a bug. Killed a bunch of wolves around a cabin, but can't enter the cabin to rescue the guy inside. Apparently the door trigger event didn't trigger properly.

[Kasey Chang]

Did a side mission where I need to stop the Separatists from launching the 4 missiles of the old Soviet base that will destroy the bridges and tunnels into the area. Well, turns out I've been through the base already. Pretty much went in the same way... Snipe the guards off the front wall, scale the side, scale the east building. take out the sniper from behind, snipe everybody else I can reach from top, Zip line down, find my way into the tunnels, and upload virus into the missiles. When I did the third one, I suddenly got a mission change: go to the main computer in the launch center (North building) and hack a self-destruct. Hmmm... Okay. Dealt with the guards in the tunnels, then climbed out and cleared out the bad guys at the entrance, but it seems a couple of them were REALLY hidden (or spawned) but I managed to kill them. Then went upstairs and threw grenades into the control room, then rushed in guns blazing. Then it's a matter of walking out the front door. Never did see another enemy, but they were on the radio chatter.

Did a couple more points of interest, but didn't see anything really good. There were a couple "skid marks off the road" resuilting in a crashed car in the trees, and a couple more wolves, and footsteps, but nothing too interesting. Scanning those traces however, gets you Ghost XP.

The problem here is by default, you'll get a lot more sniper XP than ghost or warrior XP. I guess if you want to you can go in as a ninja... Armed with bows for close-range work and throwing knives, and mines for traps. Or go in with a LMG and heavy armor, and blast enemies that come at you. But it's not as satisfying.

And why does the LMG (looks like a SAW) have a suppressor available, but not the Archer 15 (SCAR-L?) Phooey.

Next mission: sniper cover.

[Kasey Chang]

Did sniper cover, turned out it was pretty easy.

Went into "The Lair", Vasilisk's base. Was supposed to recon the place, but got locked inside the vault after sniping my way in to the former army base. Slowly fought my way out of the lair, found a ladder, climbed up and out... Only to see a gunship land in front of me. WTF? Out came those darn black armored soldiers... And Armazi the super-sniper... turns out... He is Robert, Jon's younger MIA brother. He's apparently been brainwashed and "enhanced" into a supersoldier. And he can free-hand shoot a hawk out of the sky. No aiming. WTF?! And obviously, "join me, think about it". Then he left, in a gunship, escorted by other supersoldiers in advanced black armor suits.

Did a "side mission", destroyed the Lair's armory, infiltrated it, and planted C4 in three places. I am one of those guys who prefer to snipe my way in. I don't do ninja moves... I don't sneak in without anyone the wiser. I leave bodies... LOTS of bodies. Though I make sure they are not discovered. In fact, I cleared the entire base of bad guys. Turns out separatists got their hands on some auto-turrets, and those are nasty. No operator needed.

Only ONE alarm was raised, right at the very end, when it no longer mattered. There were three guards, one heavy, and two regular standing in a row. I did a double kill (one bullet, two kills), but the heavy somehow heard me. When he came back out, I fed him an armor-piercing bullet through his visor. Then went into the vault, killed two guards, hacked the CCTV, and planted the charges.

Oh, and it's now almost Act III. Things are getting tougher. Next mission: Rat Trap. Track down Klosovic with help of local Mossad, so they can find their person of interest. The third map and safehouse has been revealed, and there's even a display board for your "classic sniper rifle collection".

[Kasey Chang]

Turns out you can kill the autoturrets with AP rounds, but since I can only bring about 10 AP rounds I didn't feel the need to spend them on turrets when I can just walk around them. I'd rather save them for the Heavies.

Just did the mission where I empty the base of bad guys so Mossad can interrogate the "mayor". Turns out, some American civil engineers in the area had been kidnapped by the Separatists for purposes unknown, and they are held in/near the dam. Gotta liberate them. BUT... it's obviously a trap of some sort?

Almost to act IV. My "sniper" skill tree is maxed, and not much chance to raising too many points to max out ghost or warrior left. I can stalk the area for more points of interest though, I guess. Analyze traces and start using the assault rifle a bit more.

EDIT: Come to think of it, demining a minefield also gets me ghost XP, I think. And I get to use the explosives and whatnot to make other goodies.

EDIT2: As other reviewers and players have pointed out, the crafting system seems completely superfluous, when you can also BUY the stuff with "trade goods" (in-game currency). And for people who are methodical grabbing every last bit of loot, the stockpile gets a bit too big. And some of the stuff is just flat-out... weird. Turns out you can build your own med-kit with some "biologicals". And how do you get biologicals? Kill deer or wolf, and "loot" their bodies (like you loot bad guys you killed). (Huh?)

[Kasey Chang]

Just got into ACT IV, and let's just say, things are really f***ed.

Spoiler:

Robert's been brain-washed into super-sniper Armazi.

Turns out, the scientist Mossad agent Rachel was hunting for, Flostov, *is* the bad guy. And now, Rachel was been captured, and will be brain-washed. And it is likely Robert's wife, Milla, had been captured, tortured, and killed, to destroy Robert's mind. Now, I have to take down Flostov AND Armazi/Robert, and rescue Rachel.

Almost all weapons have been unlocked. This one base killed me about 8 times, as none of my approaches worked properly, I keep screwing up one way or another. In fact, once, I killed everyone, only to "fall" to my death when I can't slide down a cliff properly. IDIOT! FINALLY got it right, and that concludes Act III.

I can choose to go to a side mission, instead of advancing on Act IV mission 1.

EDIT: Dang, that side mission was hard as ****. Basically, I have to cover an assault team. Except they got discovered, and I had to shoot enemies BEFORE they arrive at the target building. And let's just say, bullet flight time can be tricky, so moving shots are a bit of PITA. Fortunately, there is a point where they have to climb stairs, and that's when they have no lateral movement, making shooting MUCH easier. Just have to time bullet's arrival (lead them vertically, not horizontally) Took about 10 tries before finally getting it.

There are like 4 missions in Act IV, and about 10 side missions. Seem to recall they are multi-parters. Killed all but two of the most-wanted. Got 60% of the POI in Village map, but only 20% of the dam map (92-98% of the mining camp map)

[Kasey Chang]

New "discovery"... If your drone has a "hacking" module, you can use it to hack the autoturrets. No AP rounds required.

Oh, and the super-heavy enemies with the LMG? Turns out they are wearing an armored "hockey mask". if you shoot them from BEHIND you can kill them with one shot to the head. Else, if you shoot their mask off first, then they are as vulnerable to a headshot as any other guy.

[Kasey Chang]

Not sure what's going on with the rifles, but it appears the more advanced rifles somehow have more penetration power. I'm getting heatshot kills on the heavies with AP rounds, and sometimes, even regular rounds. And now, with the .338 Magnum Lapua firing sniper rifles at long range, I'm getting major head wounds (let's just say the game models bits of skull flying out, which is cool, until you realize it's doing that even for folks wearing helmets, oops!) I wasn't getting that with the earlier .338 rifles.

I've just taken out all of the "Most Wanted" folks, full 100% kill rate. I've also unlocked all the hand guns. I have a couple secondary and primary weapons left to unlock. Just did a "point of interest" and picked up the Soviet .50 cal (or their equivalent).

Right now, I'm using a .338 magnum lapua shooting bolt-action sniper rifle, with extended mag, giving me 60 regular, 10 AP, and 5 explosive rounds for special applications. My secondary weapon is a suppressed AK-47 w/ drum magazine w/ a collimator sight. Drum mag has a 75 round capacity, and not having to reload helps in firefights, not that I plan to get in a prolonged one. I have access to other weapons, but decided this weapon combo lets me carry the most rounds, and thus stay out longer.

Secondary missions are 2./3rd done. There are some secondary missions in the final map "Dam", but I think it's time to do another primary mission... Attempt to locate "Black Widow" (the local resistance leader, may be targeted by 23 Society for "conversion").

[Kasey Chang]

Finished all missions. I'm 95% complete with the game, I've got all the historic rifles, and missing just 1 or 2 collectible arts, and maybe 4 more special camo patterns. I didn't get all the achievements like death from above or below, as I don't like to play things Splinter Cell style instead of sniper style. And I'm a little disappointed at the ending where they basically pulled a "Spock move". But it's not too bad. I think I'll save the DLC missions for next week.

[Kasey Chang]

Finished "Escape of Lydia" DLC, which is only 2 missions. Playing as Lydia, you shoot your way into a village, interrogate an officer surrounded by Georgian forces to get a colonel's schedule. That colone's father, the general, try to force Lydia and Lydia tossed him through a window. Colonel decided to chase her down and any one helping her claiming to be putting down an insurrection. Lydia had to shoot her way through the village, get the intel from the officer in first mission. Then in the second mission, shoot her way up a hill to sniper spot, then with a single shot, kill the colonel and ending the feud.

Working through "The Sabotage DLC". Here, you play as Robert North, aka Armazi, being brainwashed into helping the separatists. Georgian forces are the ones committing atrocities against the Separatist "rebels" and must be terminated with prejudice. The game was simplified somewhat, and difficulty turned up. For the first mission, you just have a targeting scope that doesn't even zoom. And there is no more skill tree. The few Westerners helping the Georgian forces are "ruthless mercenaries". It's like a fun-house mirror version of "reality".

Just rescued Inna from Georgian general Leonidze, but it's clear someone is pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Just did a secondary mission where I took out no less than three outposts (18 kills) and put C-4 to comm and rocket trucks. This DLC takes place on a subset of one of the maps. I don't think there are too many missions.

I took out two of the "mercenaries". I've learned to be a bit more devious. I shoot someone then plant a bouncing betty mine near the body. When other soldiers come to investigate the body, they get blown up too. I also lay mines around the corners of the house, then shoot someone. When they investigate the house, they get blown up.

Just captured a sniper rifle, which I haven't unlocked but as long as I don't drop it, I can use. Added a better scope with selectable zoom (previously it's a fixed 8x) I think I'll keep using this for a while.

Not sure how many real missions are there in this DLC, but it can't be more than 8.

[Kasey Chang]

Woohoo. Just killed General Leonidze and rescued Davit of the twins. Now I am Armazi, wearing the helmet and the suit.

Now, I need to get rid of the file Georgian Intelligence has on Robert North, then kill all of Leonidze's lieutenants. That's only 2 missions left.

Did 21 kills this mission. That's probably a record. Maybe one more mission hunting down a "most wanted".

[Kasey Chang]

Finished the last mission. Turns out in the DLC, there were 5 "main" missions, 2 side missions, and 3 most wanted, but only two require going after (3rd is a part of side mission 2)

The final mission is a bit of a doozy. After taking out the guards around General Leonidze's funeral procession, his loyal troops launches an assault on your position, and you have to do an "Alamo" defense... Hold your position against incoming attack and/or snipers until you kill 30 enemies. Then they break and run. As you are wearing the skull Armazi mask, the legend of Armazi is reborn.

I didn't know I had to hold position at first. I shot like 7, then decided to vacate the spot and hide and keep ambushing. But I got "you are leaving mission area" and I couldn't get back as I jumped off a ledge. I reloaded checkpoint. This time, I hid near an edge and keep shooting at soldiers with my AK47/drum magazine in short bursts Killed like 20+, used up all 225 rounds. Then had to use the sniper rifle to kill the rest. Total kill count for the mission is 40. And that's the final mission in "The Sabotage" DLC.

There were a couple more points of interest, but they're too tedious. One's an 'extreme navigation (i.e. climbing path search) challenge. I thought I saw the path, but it's too far to jump somehow. I tried three times, fell off the mountain three times (almost killed myself 3 times), decided it's not worth trying again. Another is driving a drone through a tight tunnel blocked by pulsing electrical discharges. Time it wrong, your drone's destroyed. As the path is long and single mistake means retry from start, I gave up after about 15 attempts. Too frustrating.

That's pretty much the whole game. Time to play something else. I think I may install Battletech 3025 Extended Commander's Edition mod for Battletech. They incorporated a couple different mods that features more pilot quirks, morale during battle, and the fatigue (so you need to keep a larger roster of mechwarriors), as well as "Galaxy at War" mod which means more battles and more opportunities for mercs. Or go do more WRC racing.

[Kasey Chang]

The game rewards you planning your attack in advance, rather than just shoot your way through.

In Sabotage's 2nd side mission, I need to get back into the Monastery, kill the intelligence officer, then grab all photos of the old Robert North. The monastery has at least one mortar. What I did was I used a nearby tower to snipe at all the enemies patrolling the exterior. Once they are all down, I sneak into the monastery, and placed multiple mines around the mortar AND on the path they had to run toward the mortar. Then from a different angle, I shoot at them. They go down. One goes for the mortar... kaboom! Did it again, same result.

Tried to setup a different ambush, but the enemies never rushed me. I guess they need to be able to guess where I am to rush me.

[Kasey Chang]

Overall impressions, or post-mortem

SGW3 seems to have split personalities and change in scope within the game design during the development process. Influences from Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Far Cry 3 are obvious, but not always welcomed. The scoring structure puts too much emphasis on sniping. In fact, to fill out the other two skill trees, you have to DELIBERATELY force yourself to play the other two ways, and use a lot more effort too. For example, a secondary weapon kill is worth 25 warrior XP while a Headshot is worth extra 25 warrior XP. But A sniper headshot is worth double that, even more if you did it from beyond 200m. So you have to kill twice or thrice as many enemies in ghost or warrior mode to match the XP you get if you just do it in sniper mode. Why would people play any other way, except for the achievements?

The bases and outposts are repopulated every day, so you can kill them again and again to rack up XP if you want to. I guess it's fine if you're looking to hone your achievements, many of which are not that easy to do, like death from below (ledge kill) or death from above (drop on enemy), which obviously only happens if you are VERY close to the enemy, i.e. going ghost style. Small outposts only have 5-6 enemies. Larger bases usually have about 12 or so. So to rack up the additional achievements like "luring", "tagging", and so on, it will take many encounters. In fact, I played through the entire game without using either special bullets.

Other items in the game seems to serve no purpose. Decoy traps that doesn't actually do damage? Anti-vehicle mines when there are no vehicles to worry about? Gas mines that are non-lethal? 50-cal sniper rifles that cannot be supressed? In fact, in the Sabotage DLC, there's a 23Society special 50-cal sniper rifle that has TONS of ammo (but only shows up in the last two missions) and can only be used by Armazi.

Many of the pistols and shotguns and sniper rifles seems to serve no purpose except to force the players to spend their TG. There is no "give and take" with the weapons. One weapon isn't appreciably better in some area than a different weapon. And having dozens of different camo patterns is just... hideous.

And the infamous superfluous crafting system... Why would anyone craft anything when everything can be BOUGHT with TG? And some stuff can't be crafted, like thermal vision goggles and so on.

Some of the stuff is interesting, like free climbing, secret places, drone challenge, and so on, but some are just frustratingly difficult.

And the story... It's both good and cliche at the same time.

[Isgrimnur]

And having dozens of different camo patterns is just... hideous.

You shut your mouth!

[Kasey Chang]

I'm achievement hunting in SGW3 and Iv'e just got one more: all artifacts.

I can probably grind a couple more like "tag with tagging bullets" and "lure with luring bullets". Interrogations and stealth kills are doable.

Death from above is kinda doable. Vehicle kill? Seems I have to go run over some deer.

I just did the 500m w/ 10x scope, but the achievement didn't take.

Not sure how I'd get the "triple kill" and "point blank" though.

EDIT: Consulting the video guides and I think I have an idea on death from below and death from above, as well as triple kill.

EDIT2: Game insists I'm missing 3 POIs, even though the maps are clear of any POIs. I am missing 3 camo patterns (they're still locked), so I guess I didn't discover them. One on one map, and two in the other. Guess I have to consult a guide again.

[Kasey Chang]

Apparently I didn't get a headshot with 500m kill w/ 10x scope, which is why the achievement didn't take. Redid it and got the marksman achievement.

Getting stealth kills is NOT easy. Enemies do patrol, and catching one off guard and isolated enough so you can stab him in the back is not a simple task. Luring and tagging are different matters. Seems you are supposed to shoot a tagging round at a house where you suspect enemies may be so you can tag them before you approach. Luring round can be used to pull enemies out of cover. But it's kinda tedious. Death from Above or Death from Below are again, extremely circumstantial. I think I'm pretty much done with this game.

EDIT: Got triple kill (3 kills with one bullet). Had to line them up perfectly, which is really rare.

I don't think I really want to hunt the rest. Too much "work".

[Kasey Chang]

Tried to get stealth kill, interrogation, luring, and scanning achievements. It's TEDIOUS. There are only so many enemies you *can* sneak up on. The rest are either covered by another enemy, or are paranoid that they snap their head back and forth on a swivel. In an outpost with like 14 enemies you can sneak up on maybe half. So getting these achievements is very time consuming, as I have to force myself to play the ninja way: get up behind the enemy and knife him.

Although the best kill so far... I was hiding in a bush when I noticed this guy was walking straight for me. I got ready, and hit "take down" when he got close. One can imagine his surprise when a guy emerged out of a tree and stuck a combat knife in his neck in an eyeblink.

The game also did not show all the "points of interest" on the map. I am missing 3-4 of them, but it seems they are the kind that I have to encounter them myself. But I don't even know where to look!

[Kasey Chang]

I found one of the missing POIs. It was in the basement of a location I've been to. Stupid me. That leaves TWO missing POIs.

I got the stealth kill achievement. Now, just need the luring and scanning achivements, then the death from above / below achievements.

[Kasey Chang]

Seems one of the POI is bugged. There's a clue about a car swerved off the road with a bullet hole. There's a sniper on top of a nearby tower. I nailed the sniper. There's a question mark, showing POI, but as I've already cleared this before, I can't clear it. Phooey.

EDIT: Confirmed, that POI is bugged. Uninstall. I'm done.

[Smoove_B]

I only have an hour into this and I was thinking, "This reminds me so much of Far Cry with all the crafting and point of interest unlocks..." and sure enough, Kasey already said it best at the end of last year.

The AI feels brain-dead.I snipe someone, they go into alert and then after a few moments they go back to being completely obvious. I had a a stack of bodies in one spot (they all came over to investigate the first target) and I subsequently ventilated them all. The other crazy thing was that I was doing it at a logging camp. All the workers continued to chainsaw and inspect wood piles while I'm blowing tomato-sized holes in the heads of their solider supervisors. Talk about ice-water in their veins - I came running in after all the soldiers were dead and they didn't even blink. I had to admire that dedication to forestry.

Either way, it's mostly mindless and beautiful to look it (thanks CryEngine). It's entertaining enough for now but I'm guessing at some point over the next ~5 hours I'll wander off.

[Kasey Chang]

Wait until you tackle a camp with mortars... and they spot you.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, that's happened and it's not fun. So I fix that by strategically sniping them all first.

I have put ~26 hours in so far and I'm near the end. Apparently I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would have when I started. I think it's all the "set pieces" you encounter while walking around. Random event or locations where you see/find interesting things. As a person that plays games to explore, this one delivers that over and over again.

[Kasey Chang]

It's more fun if you can sneak in and plant some mines on the path to the mortars.

AND you can escape by running laterally really really fas away from the target zone.