Everybody wants to be the sniper. In almost every shooter I've ever played, as soon as the game starts people scramble to find the sniper rifle, and then try to find the sneakiest hiding place they can in order to rain down fire upon their unsuspecting enemies. Snipers are the epitome of the cool loner. They lay in wait for the perfect moment to make their move, a perfect shot right between the eyes. One shot, one kill.
Sniper Elite is the perfect game for anyone who automatically grabs the sniper rifle. It might be a bit too much for some people though. Sniper Elite is a lot more realistic than most first person shooters with a sniper rifle.
You play as an American soldier deployed in Berlin and disguised as a German soldier. At the end of World War II you are on an undercover mission to insure that the Russian military does not get a hold of Germany's nuclear secrets. It's supposed to be based on actual events. This really intrigued me, as this was the first time I'd ever heard of anything like that.
Sniper Elite is not an action game. It's not a first person shooter. It's more of a stealth and waiting game. You have a meter that tells you how well you are concealed, and using this you do your best to stay hidden while belly crawling through the city. You come equipped with a pair of binoculars, which can be useful for finding enemies. They are still ridiculously difficult to see, though. If you get lucky and catch one of them changing position, you'll see him. Most of the time I didn't get lucky, and would only find them after they'd fired off a couple of rounds in my general direction. As you can probably guess, I died. A lot. Seriously. Fortunately the load time is extremely fast. If it hadn't been, I'm sure I would have quit, because I was constantly reloading the level because of a botched shot or someone getting the drop on me.
There is a surprising amount of strategy in Sniper Elite. As one soldier all on your own, with little in the way of heavy weaponry, you have to look at things a little differently. Tanks are a huge problem. German Tanks during World War II were incredibly tough, with the rear armor usually being the only vulnerable spot. A sniper rifle or a machine gun isn't going to do anything to it. You can take care of it if you're sneaky enough, though. Belly crawl up behind it and plant a bundle of TNT on it, sneak off, and line up your shot. That's more than enough to take care of it. The enemy AI is also really good. Enemies dive for cover, rescue fallen friends, sneak up behind you and generally make life difficult.
One of my favorite missions was an assassination, simply because of how many different things were involved in it. It was awesome seeing everything work out exactly as I had planned. The half hour of preparation was completely worth seeing everything fall perfectly in place. I waited in my perfectly selected hiding place. When the two contacts showed up to the meeting, I waited until they were right next to each other. One shot dropped the first guy, another dropped his companion. A third shot detonated the TNT next to the truck full of soldiers, just as they were jumping out to investigate the sound of gunfire. As I surveyed the area, looking for other enemies, an explosion sounded behind me. A soldier had set off the trip-wire grenade I had placed behind me to prevent anyone from getting the drop on me while my attention was focused elsewhere. And with that, my mission was complete and I disappeared into the rubble of the city. It was perfect.
Sniper Elite earns every bit of its Mature rating. One of the coolest features of the game is also one of the most difficult to watch. When you make a particularly good shot, the camera will zoom away from you and follow the bullet along its path to the enemy, showing you close up the grisly impact of the bullet. Now, I play a lot of violent games, but sometimes this was a bit much for me. These aren't the perfect stylized sniper shots you see in the movies. No, these are gross impacts with sprays of blood and shouts of pain. And while most of the shots are no doubt fatal, many of them are by no means quick. I hit a guy in the jaw one time. Now I may be thinking about it a little too hard, but that is not a good way to go.
Making that perfect shot is by no means an easy task either. Depending on the difficulty level, there are a number of factors that can affect the quality of your shot. Long distance shots are affected by bullet drop. As a bullet travels through the air, it drops because of gravity so you have to compensate for that. Your sight shakes with your heartbeat, but you can get it to stand still momentarily by holding your breath. The level and direction of the wind can also throw off your shot. All of these things need to be taken into account when you're preparing the perfect shot.
Sniper Elite is a good game, and a lot of fun, but to play it right you have to have a lot of patience. I mean A Lot of patience. I would tend to get frustrated and just run through levels firing off bullets from my machine gun. This is not the way the game was meant to be played, and really detracted from the whole experience, but sometimes I just couldn't take it any more. I don't have the time or patience to spend ten minutes waiting for a good shot to arise, but the game was much more rewarding when I did take that extra time.
So, if you have the patience and a steady hand, give Sniper Elite a chance. See if you can earn your right to that rifle you scramble for.
I’ve always loved video games. I don’t know why, but they’ve always fascinated me. When I was younger, if I visited someone who had an Atari, that was all I wanted to do. It was a glorious day when I finally got my very own Nintendo.
I like a wide variety of games. I’m great at action and rpg games. I tend to be too much of a perfectionist with first person shooters and stealth games. I’ll spend 20 minutes in a level, only to reset it the first time a guard sees me. Platformers aren’t really my thing, I think the technology has better things to offer than that now. And I don’t do sports games.
I love games with a good story. I’ll play for hours just trying to get to the next plot twist. In a perfect world, I’d be writing my own video games someday
