Video Game / Sniper: Ghost Warrior

Sniper: Ghost Warrior is a 2010 First-Person Shooter from City Interactive, following a US Marine special operations unit attempting to bring down the Latin American dictatorship of Isla Trueno, a tropical island located in Central America with dense jungles and many Aztec ruins.

The game follows the protagonist Gunnery Sergeant Tyler Wells, a Marine Scout Sniper in his mission to kill General Manuel Vasquez, the island's dictator. The gameplay is separeted into sniper sections (Alpha Nine) and assault sections (Delta Three). Alpha Nine sections are largely stealth based and have semi-realistic sniper mechanics including bullet drop and wind adjustment; with Sgt. Wells being aided occasionally by his spotter, Sgt. O'Neil. Delta Three sections are traditional combat sections with two AI companions and health packs around the map. Sergeant Tylor Wells' individual codename is Razor Six Four and Command's is Mother 2. Enemies in the game speak Spanish, complaining about the "Francotiradores" (snipers) and complimenting General Vasquez's girlfriend, especially her legs.

The game later received an expansion pack entitled Second Strike, depicting the sniper team being sent to a neighboring Latin American country to hunt down the remnants Isla Trueno's former regime, and Vasquez's . This expansion is solely focused on sniping and stealth, excluding the assault sections.

Despite the title, Sniper: Path of Vengeance is not a part of this series.

Further games in this series:

• Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 (2013) made using the Crysis 2 version of CryEngine, following the further adventures of Cole Anderson.
• Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 (2017), this time a Far Cry style open-world sandbox game, as well as the first game by City Interactive with a AAA level budget. The player takes the role of Marine sniper Jon North, who is sent to Georgia to help battle Georgian Separatists while also attempting to discover the fate of his kidnapped brother, and ends up stumbling into an international conspiracy fueled by mad science.
• Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts is set in the harsh terrain of newly-independent Siberia, where new sniper "The Seeker" is contracted to snipe the leaders.
• Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 is set in the Fictional Middle Eastern Country of Kuamar, where the leaders are plotting war on their neighbours, and harbouring people who threaten international stability.

Compare and contrast Sniper Elite, an earlier more well known third person sniper game with many of the same sniping mechanics, only Bloodier and Gorier aside from being set in World War II and having a zombie spinoff.

Distinct tropes of this game:

• A.K.A.-47: Used extensively by the enemies, together with SVD Dragunov sniper rifles.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Apart from main characters Wells and Anderson, you spend a small amount of time as Wells' spotter O'Neil and local rebel El Tejon.
• A Winner Is You/No Ending: After firing the kill shot on General Vasquez the game goes straight to the credits without any debrief or even depiction of the getaway. The end of Second Strike isn't much better but at least you get a cutscene of your long range shot killing Mendoza's helicopter pilot and the subsequent explosive crash.
• Banana Republic: Isla Trueno, a typical, jungle filled, Latin American, cocaine funded dictatorship near Colombia. Meanwhile the expansion is set in an unnamed neighboring country referred to solely as "one of the Latin American Republics".
• BFG: The Artic Warfare AS50 anti-materiel rifle (AMR). A .50 BMG heavy sniper rifle, it is used in one occasion in tandem with jets flying overhead in order to profit from sound masking.
• Big Bad: General Manuel Vasquez, "The Ruthless Dictator of Isla Trueno"; and his son, Jesus Mendoza, in the expansion. General Vasquez' earlier rule was known as "El Reinado de la Sangre" (The Reign of Blood).
• Blade Enthusiast: Sgt. Wells carries a set of throwing knives. They're handy for stealth segments as they are totally silent, killing its targets with a single hit, aside from being retrievable.
• Boom, Headshot!: Encouraged by a fancy bullet cam effect, albeit not necessary, as any rifle shots to the body tend to be a one-hit kill.
• Bullet Time: The main selling point of the game. Bullet cams are present in both cutscenes and gameplay.
• The Cartel: General Vasquez bridges connections between the Medellín Drug Cartel and the Colombian FARC. Vasquez himself was to Isla Trueno by the cartel in order to run their drug operations on the island. Also, two Latin drug lords (one Mexican, one from the local banana republic appear in the final level of the expansion, as they are trying to organise the cocaine shipments with the Isla Truenan remnants.
• Death from Above: One segment has the sniper and Delta Three marking coca fields for airstrikes.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: The US Marines are Marine special operations forces from MARSOC and Force Recon. Their camouflage is the blue pattern of the Brazilian Air Force.
• Evil Wears Black: Jesus Mendoza dresses all in black, complete with black gloves and a wide-brim black hat, making him look rather like Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• Face–Heel Turn: Undercover CIA agent Mike Rodriguez, who turns on Wells during the mission to capture nuclear warhead plans. It's left unclear whether he was a traitor from before the game began or if he decided to sell out when the mission revealed valuable nuclear weapons schematics, although the latter seems most likely given that Vasquez only survived the first assassination attempt due to an accident.
• Friendly Sniper: Sergeant Wells is a very efficent killer but prone to cheerful banter with his spotter O'Neil and Delta Three.
• Genre Shift: The first two games in the series are pretty standard military fiction within "real-world" plot parameters. The third game is mostly so as well, but introduces genetically engineered super-soldiers as a major plot point about two thirds along the way through the game. The "sci-fi" elements are less unrealistic than in, say, the first Far Cry game (which had a very similar plot turn), as the super-soldiers still behave like more or less human soldiers with somewhat more health and better skill/reflexes. Contracts takes the sci-fi element even further, with the main character - Seeker - having a special mask that serves to justify every HUD element (like the Dynamic Reticle System, and highlighting points of interest), as well as having a suit that absorbs fall damage and regenerates his health.
• Hellish Copter: How Jesus Mendoza is killed in the expansion.
• Hollywood Silencer: Silencers attached to the Mark 23 pistols used by the US operators, and SR-25, PSG-1 and L96 sniper rifles used by Sgt. Tyler Wells. Averted in the third game where, silenced or no, sniper rifles still make a pretty loud noise.
• Instant Knots: Wells and O'Neil both carry grappling hooks for climbing into trees or up the side of buildings.
• Justified Tutorial: The optional tutorial has Sergeant Wells demonstrating various techniques for Delta Three two green operatives.
• La Résistance: A group led by a rebel named El Tejon appears late in the game and rescue Sergeant Wells after he is betrayed by Rodriguez.
• More Dakka: Mounted machine guns.
• Nintendo Hard: This game is a lot harder than a typical first-person shooter, largely because the enemy soldiers will lock-on instantly once the player is spotted, and can hit with pinpoint accuracy from several hundred feet away. Other than the (relatively miserly) regenerating health, the game balance is much closer to tactical shooters like ARMA or Operation Flashpoint.
• No "Arc" in "Archery": Sniper shots have to compensate for both bullet drop and the effect of the wind. On easy and regular difficulties, when holding your breath a red mark marks the probable point of impact.
• One-Hit Polykill: Completely possible with sniper shots and rewarded with the bullet cam effect.
• Regenerating Health: Health regenerates back to 30% on its own, requiring a medkit for more.
• Stealth-Based Mission: Most of the sniper teams levels are to some extent, but particularly enforced on some (generally involving infiltrating a base) where getting spotted results in either a nonstandard game over or alarms that bring more enemies than you can handle.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: in Sniper Ghost Warrior 3, Cole Anderson, the main character from the previous 2 games, shows up near the end of the game as a prisoner of the bad guys, having been tortured to the brink of death. With his wounds too severe to recover from, he has you leave him a pistol so he can die with dignity.
• The End: Eliminating the last target, General Vasquez, results in displaying the sentence "THE END" followed by the credits. No Grand Finale or any cutscene.
• The Remnant: The expansion pack features the sniper team in another country hunting down the remnants of the Isla Trueno dictatorship led by Jesus Mendoza, son of the villain of the main game.
• Too Awesome to Use: Your inventory is reset to full ammo and 3 out of 5 health syringes at the beginning of each level, so there's no real point in trying to save resources for later.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: The all-out combat of the Delta Three missions are a departure from the base game. While the tutorial starts with the use of an assault rifle, the game gives no foreshadowing of this change of pace of the later spotter missions, in which you mark targets for Wells with binoculars or the railshooter section.
• Unflinching Walk: Wells and the Delta Three as they walk away from the destruction of the uranium mine at the end of the penultimate level.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: Averted in the first game, in which you can pick up enemy firearms, although picking up an assault rifle means dropping your sniper rifle, which you need for many segments of the game (although these sniping segments usually have a Dragunov sniper rifle nearby in case you actually did throw away your sniper rifle earlier).