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No-Nonsense Handler tacks it onto your to-do list with all the gravitas of a request that you pick up a carton of milk on the way home. There is kind of a twist, in that there's one last surprise target you need to ornamental fountain after the main lady, but Mr. I guess I was expecting a twist, like "The big leader gets in a giant robot suit or some kind of fortified bunker, at least, and isn't just standing around in a courtyard looking like she's waiting to complain to the gardener about some neglected leylandii", or maybe "The no-nonsense voice in your head could be lying about your targets" you only have his word that they're evil, and the worst you ever see them do is neglect to close the Venetian blinds before you make everyone else in the room forever paranoid of distant shrubbery. You do all that, then the very no-nonsense voice in your head says, "Well done!", then you go home. The plot, right, is that you're a lone sniper in a nondescript Middle Eastern oil nation with a new government that I guess didn't import enough Simpsons DVDs, and therefore, the Western powers want ousted you proceed to oust it by tracking down a bunch of key power brokers and turning all their heads into very short-lived, highly pressurized ornamental fountains, concluding with the big leader herself. It's been a while since I've seen a game so utterly milquetoast in all its attributes. I covered it in my compilation review of games I couldn't think of any interesting things to say about, but now the sequel's getting its own review not because it's any less mediocre, you understand, but because it's now so mediocre that the mediocrity's come back around to being interesting. Sniper (HRUUH) Ghost Warrior (HRUUH) Contracts 1 was an improvement in that it was a game like reading a slightly interesting magazine in a doctor's waiting room, as opposed to being like the ensuing botched colonoscopy. I reviewed Sniper (HRUUH) Ghost Warrior 3, and it was godawful, like watching a Jason Bourne film where the costume department accidentally ordered everything two sizes too small and Jason Bourne spends every action scene in a dustbin, growling with generic intensity about how his jockstrap pinches. Without the "sniper" part, what would you assume " Ghost Warrior" was? I'm leaning towards either "poorly-translated martial arts film" or "an air freshener marketed towards men aged 18 to 35". There's still something about the title " Sniper (HRUUH) Ghost Warrior (HRUUH) Contracts" that irks me, all dry heaves aside I always find it laughable when anyone refers to themselves as a "warrior" if they've never even had one battle-axe lesson, or, indeed, if they collapse like an ineptly-folded cootie catcher the moment they get into a direct fight with someone less than two hundred yards away. This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviews Sniper: Ghost Warrior Contracts 2.
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