| Author | Review |
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Chimaera36
235,435
TA Score for this game: 1,608
Posted on 05 May 12 at 16:58, Edited on 06 May 12 at 14:10 |
This review has 29 positive votes and 2 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
Sniper Elite V2 Review by Chimaera36:
The remake/sequel of the last-generation Sniper Elite, Sniper Elite V2 promises more long-range, cinematic Nazi head-shots. But is it worth your time?
Background:
Like the first Sniper Elite, you play an American OSS (Office of Strategic Services) sniper dropped into Berlin at the tail end of WW2 to stop (read: kill) a number of German officers/scientists before they can defect/surrender to the Soviet Union. This game focuses on rocket scientists, as the Allies/America want to prevent the Soviets from jumpstarting their rocketry program (this is somewhat based on the real life Operation Paperclip, where American task groups raced to key German research facilities at the end of the war to nab German scientists before the Soviets could. It mostly succeeded too, as one of the scientists later designed the Saturn V moon rocket for NASA). Along the way, a suitable evil plot is discovered that only you and your ability to deliver 500m+ headshots can foil.
Gameplay:
Gameplay is fairly standard for a 3rd person shooter. You carry your rifle, SMG, pistol (one silenced one) and some grenades. You also have trip/landmines which you can use to kill any Germans/Russians that might be sneaking up on your position. Most missions will consist of your moving to a vantage point, sniping a target and then exfiltrating. This will often consist of you being under fire from a number of enemies, who you can then kill with your array of weapons. You will be fighting standard German/Russian troops with rifles/SMG's, who will aggressively move towards you from cover to cover and attempt to either smoke you out with grenades or rush your position (coming up the stairs if you are in a building, etc). There will be some vehicle enemies that you can destroy by shooting their gas tanks. Finally, there will be enemy snipers (often revealed by scope glare), that will mainly be in hidden positions.
There are three difficulty settings (and a custom one where you can mix and match conditions), and as you go higher, the enemies get more aggressive, have more health/do more damage (to the point where enemy snipers kill you in two hits) and bullet physics (drop, windage) become more relevant.
Visuals:
The relatively budget nature of this title shows here, with some obviously dated textures and sparse character models. But they are more than functional (and will not take away from the experience), and convey the blasted ruin that is 1945 Berlin in good fashion. The star of the show of course is the x-ray killcam. This activates when you score a long-range scoped sniper kill on a German/Russian target. The camera follows the bullet and time slows down. You are then treated to a slow-mo xray of the target and the path (and damage) the bullet takes/inflicts. This can range from shattering their teeth and spinal base as the bullet passes through their head, to wrecking their eye/heart/lung/kidney/testes, to shattering pretty much any other bone in their body. It is suitable gruesome and very well done (in a macabre sense). You can control the frequency at which it occurs from the options menu, if it is not to your tastes.
Sounds:
The game comes complete with some fairly generic music, and the voice acting is decent (but not great). The rifle sounds are well done - you feel the crack of the shot as it leaves your rifle in slow-mo to shatter some poor German's head, but is otherwise generic. One interesting mechanic continued from the first game is the ability to mask your shots by timing them to exploding artillery/bombs, church bells, loudspeakers etc. This allows you to pick off enemies one by one.
Achievements:
The achievements for this game are fairly trivial, and you will unlock about half over the course of a playthrough. There is the standard achievement for completing the game on the hardest difficulty ("Sniper Elite"), which is only difficult until you master bullet drop and get past a few annoying areas where enemy snipers kill you very fast. There are a number of miscallaneous level-specific achievements that are simple if played on the easiest difficulty and guides are followed. There are a couple of collectible achievements (again, use guides). Finally, there are some co-op achievements that are easily boostable (since I did them legit in less than 6h with randoms, a boosting session with communication should be able to do them much faster). It took me less than 48h on and off to 1000G this game, as a reference.
DLC:
Thee was launch day DLC (kill Hitler), but no achievements were added and it was a fairly boring mission. There may be achievement-related DLC in the future, but if the sales of the game are lackluster, I can see the developer just moving on.
Replayability:
The levels are fairly linear, so replayability is not infinite like it might be in some open-world games, but you can replay missions to improve your score, try to stay stealthed longer, etc. It is the kind of game you might revisit every few months to get some more xray killcan shots. It can be disturbingly addicting  .
Value:
As stated before, this is a more budget title than most retail releases (excluding the regular dumps of movie-related shovelware, etc). The publisher realizes this, however, and (at launch) the game retails in the $40-50 price range rather than the $60-70. This is a nice change from usual practice (IMO). You will likely be able to pick this up in a bargain bin in the near future.
Final Word(s):
It is a fun budget title that gives you a good 12-16h of content. It can be picked up for considerably less than most new releases. If you like sniper games, this should be right up your alley. You can 1000G the game in about 48-72h of on-off playing.
My (subjective) score: 7.0/10.0
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