City Interactive – developer of Sniper Ghost Warrior – has announced a new game utilising the Unreal Engine 3 and which will be available for download only on XBLA and PSN. Not much else has been revealed other than there are “aliens” and problems being solved by “the pull of a trigger”. The game will be an “arcade-style first-person shooter”…
Sniper Ghost Warrior was not warmly received by the press for review, not at all. It got a what’s considered low score on Metacritic of an average of 45/100 on the Xbox 360. The highest recorded score was still a seemingly lowish score of 72/100 and the lowest of all being a dismal 25/100. The general report on the game was that it was great in theory but did not deliver. I have not seen much action with the game locally and upon chatting to a local retailer, I was told the game is moving extremely slowly, which does not come as a surprise as I have often seen that the local market is usually affected by review scores.
Upon investigating for my own interest on how it is doing in the mainstream market in the UK, I found that it is doing well despite the uninspiring review scores. Sniper Ghost Warrior for the Xbox 360 was sitting in the top 10? A game that scored in the 40’s? Is the UK market less concerned with reviews? What’s different there? Or is it just a case of they know a good thing when they see it.