Everybody has the instincts of a sniper when you add in an X-ray kill cam that shows off where you hit them.
What The Officials Say
Sniper Elite V2 is a tactical shooter video game developed by Rebellion Developments and published by 505 Games for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and laterWii U consoles and a developer self-published version for Microsoft Windows. It is a sequel/remake of Rebellion’s 2005 game Sniper Elite that takes place in the same timeframe and location—the Battle of Berlin in April–May 1945—but with an altered narrative. The game’s story follows an American Office of Strategic Services officer who must capture or eliminate the scientists involved in the German V-2 rocket program while the Red Army invades.
Source: Wikipedia
What I Say
Sniper Elite V2 is a game I’ve had on my list to try for a while now so when I saw it going cheap I had to try it. For the purpose of this review, I’m referring to the PC version.
The plot is a nice concise idea if a little bit Americanised. You have to kill or capture a list of German scientists before the Russians can get them. Personally I thought the Russians were our friends in WWII but maybe the Americans thought otherwise and didn’t want to be surprised. Either way, the game sets both the Nazi’s and Russians as it’s ‘evil people’. Russians are less likely and you don’t have to kill them, but it doesn’t seem to mind if you do. It’s a very casual game like that.
The sniping itself is thankfully rather good. Which is is good considering it’s a sniper game. The game contains bulletdrop, rifle sway, wind, distance and the chance an enemy will duck, all to try and provide you with a challenge, and it damn well would be a near impossible challenge if it didn’t also provide a little help. When you steady the sniper by pressing ‘E’ the rifle steadies and the sight zooms in slightly to give you the best possible shot. Not only this, but a red diamond appears showing where the shot will hit. The diamond starts off big and shrinks as you focus more. It’s a really nice system meaning that if you’re in a hurry you can fire when the diamond is big and get a mildly accurate shot, or if you have the time you can wait until it’s smaller and get a very precise shot.
There’s also a sound aspect of the sniping. The rifles are all WWII era and very loud so normally, as soon as you make a shot, you’ve alerted everybody within hearing distance. However, thankfully you will occasionally find a way to cause sounds to mask your shots. For example, in one level there is a regular announcement on a very loud PA system which kindly masks your shots. However, what adds challenge to this is that you’ll need to wait for the right time to shoot which can be a problem if somebody finds a body.
Something I really enjoyed about the game is it’s X-Ray killcam. If you make a particularly good shot with the sniper it will show you the shot. The camera follows the bullet as it leaves the gun and flies across the air to the target where it will show you it entering, what bones / organs / sensitive body parts it hits and smashes. Normally, you’d expect this to get old very quickly, but it amazingly doesn’t. You start marvelling at your shots and trying to do trick shots. Can you get a shot through a snipers own rifle scope and into his eye? Can you line three guys up and headshot all three at once? Can you shoot Hitler in his one remaining testicle? The answer to all three is yes, but they all require skill and luck.
The game isn’t silky smooth though. I’ve noticed quite a few instances of where things just don’t quite work as they should. For example on one occasion I found myself shooting people through a wall because it didn’t quite show me as shooting through the window I thought I had been. The shots all worked, but all you ever saw of me on the killcam was a gun sticking through a wall. I’ve also noticed cases of where guards walk up stairs but are somehow a step ahead of themselves and just kind of float above each of the stairs.
The game is worth buying. If you see it cheap, it’s a nice purchase and will certainly see you through to the next game in a few months time.
DailyGilson 