So I picked Sniper Elite V2 up on Steam sale. I thought I'd post up my impressions.
For £10, I have to say the game + DLC was good value really. Still though, I'm finding it to be one of those "wasted potential" games that prove highly irritating at times.
Set in WWII, SEV2 places you in the boots of a US black ops sniper deep behind enemy lines. You are assigned at the beginning a mission to assassinate 5 Nazi scientists who founded the V2 rocket programme before they can defect to Russia and prove a future threat.
First up, I have to echo a point made in Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation review (see here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/5745-Sniper-Elite-V2 ) - what is up with picking on the Russians in games lately?!
It's like the Cold War never ended or something. Every single war-time American made game in the last 2 years seems to feature Russia as the baddies. In this game, it's revealed that Russia is planning to launch nerve agent filled V2 Rockets at major European cities and pass it off as a desperation attack by the Nazis.
While it makes for a "plot twist", I think it's a bit lame considering that Russia was aligned against the Reich in the period the game is set, Stalin or not. It's not even clarified why Russia would want to do such a thing, because presumably the only way they would profit would be in a full scale invasion afterwards (hardly subtle).
The protagonist doesn't seem to show much love for the Russians either, referring to them constantly as "Reds", "Ivans" and even at one point "crafty Red bastards".This seems a rather odd McCarthy-esque 1950-60's attitude.
Historical inaccuracy and demonisation of Russia aside, much debate has gone on over the game's "X-Ray Killcam", namely a cutscene that triggers upon a good shot that shows the bullet impact its target in slow motion, shattering bones and damaging internal organs.
Frankly, it was taken off of Mortal Kombat which did pretty much an identical thing earlier, and I think really the developers only added it for the "shock factor".
Personally, I think the game isn't particularly violent in the grand scheme of things - a game like Gears of War is easily worse. It's true that the x-ray deaths can be very graphic (I shot one unfortunate soldier in the back - the bullet severed his spine, went through his lungs and then yanked off 3 of his fingers upon exit), but actual evidence of violence on the character model is non-existent.
Look at the soldier above after his death, and he has no signs of missing fingers or huge gory holes in his back - he just has one tiny red entrance and exit wound on his chest, like any other "PG game". The game also doesn't feature much in way of blood decals, so really the X-Ray system is just a detailed gimmick to highlight specific kills.
You could argue it's a little tasteless (as is the "KILL HITLER" DLC imo) since the game depicts a real conflict, but at the same time I think if one approaches the game in a mature fashion the x-ray kills if anything simply make the player a little uncomfortable. And perhaps it's good that's the case, because in a way it gives your enemies a human depth you don't see in other games.
It's easy to pull the trigger on someone in Battlefield 3, you don't even see the impact your bullet makes at long range. But sending a rifle round through the eye socket of an unfortunate German lookout, you feel like an amoral instrument of death. You're killing people, and the details are not pleasant.
In terms of gameplay, the team nailed the feeling of sniping spot on. On the hardest difficulty you must control your breathing, the distance of a shot and any weather effects such as wind on the bullet. You feel disconnected and far from your targets, like a hunter, which completely contrasts with the jarringly personal zoom of the killcam.
Landing a successful shot feels like a satisfying reward of patience and skill. There's just one glaring problem - the game hardly ever gives you a chance to just use your freaking rifle. Almost always you're forced down one linear path full of cramped corridors and bunkers that are completely inappropriate for you to use your rifle in, forcing you to use a pistol or SMG (which feel far less fun to use, thanks to the dev team really focussing on optimising the rifles primarily).
Combat also takes place at silly close ranges sometimes, ususally withing 50-200m. If you build a whole game around allowing us to SNIPE THINGS, why do we have to fight within bloody running distance constantly?
Enemy snipers seem to be implemented in a highly annoying manner, at least on the hardest "Sniper Elite" difficulty. These guys apparently possess the vision of a hawk, the sonic ears of a bat and have railguns with auto-targeting. They never miss if you're in the open, even if you're sprinting at full pace and have a huge distance from them.
Similarly, inch around a corner that seems out of their sight radius and they'll INSTANTLY shoot at you, spinning on the spot to do so. You have binoculars, but you can't even use those to spot them because they will immediately shoot at you the second you look around the corner. It feels very stupid at times, because you practically have to find them via death trial-and-error - you can forget cunningly exposing them or looking round corners with mirrors, Private Ryan style.
So it's a flawed game that offers excellent sniping mechanics, but sadly forces the player to only break out the rifle when it suits the game. There are also irritations with difficulty and the ability of the enemy to detect the player near instantaneously.
Overall, I'd give it:
***
3/5.
