Platform: PlayStation 3 (also on Xbox 360)

Developer: Rebellion

Publisher: 505 Games

# of Players: 1 – 2

ESRB Rating: M (Mature)

Official Site

Score: A-

The crowded and set in its ways military shooter genre needs games like Sniper Elite V2 and developers like Rebellion just to remind gamers that sometimes, slower pacing and more methodical play can be as exciting or even more so that a constant thrill ride shooter with not much room to catch one’s breath. Here, the game (and aim) is all about taking time to survey, spot and shoot with just enough level and mission variety to keep things moving when they need to. You don’t have to have played the first Sniper Elite back on the PS2, Xbox, PC (or the more recent Wii port from about two years ago) to fully enjoy this game, but if you remember that sleeper and loved it, much of what’s here will feel familiar. An online-only co-op mode seems restrictive (and is, if you don’t use PSN), but it’s seamless and about as good as it gets, while the multiplayer also has a few cool touches that lift the game above the usual run & gunning extravaganzas other shooters deliver.

In the game, you’re an American sniper tasked to eliminate a bunch of German V2 rocket scientists and more than a few enemy troops that come between you and your targets in and around a destroyed Berlin at the close of WWII. Playing solo isn’t the only way to go here, however. The online co-op mode changes things considerably, as adding in a second player makes for an even more compelling experience relying  heavily on communication between each player as sticking together whenever possible. The great visuals, solid (but fairly linear) level design, third-person perspective and high level of tension all make this one of those games that’s worth playing through multiple times just so you see all it has to offer. Yes, there are flaws that keep it from perfection and yes, some concessions have been made to guide casual users through the campaign experience. Sadly, the latter is an inescapable fact of gaming these days, as it’s harder to sell a game that in terms of difficulty is over the head of those used to hand-holding and pop-up hints every time they stop playing for longer than ten seconds.

That said, if you want the game to have less hand-holding, you can turn off all the assistance, crank the challenge level up and have at it on a harder difficulty setting (save for Sniper Elite difficulty, which is unlocked after completing the game once). The save system in the game also (and wisely, I say) goes a long way into keeping you from making the game too easy. Missions are quite lengthy, often clocking in at over an hour or so, and there’s no manual save at all. Checkpoints exist throughout each map, but when you sit down to play this game, it’s NOT going to be for a short time. Rebellion is controlling the storytelling and to a great extent, the pacing and flow of each mission and it works devilishly and deliciously well in a few great maps with multiple objectives. I didn’t mind the lack of a manual save feature at all because it keeps you on your toes by building up suspense constantly and prevents those who want to “cheat” their way through missions using trial and error from doing so. Amusingly enough, the original game featured limited saves for each mission that did the same thing, but in a harsher manner. If you used up all your allotted saves early on in a long mission, you were forced to complete the map or restart to pace your saves out in a smarter manner.

On the easiest setting, you’re given plenty of visual aids to assist you, but Rebellion was smart enough to let some things alone and have each player figure out certain things they can do to get through levels as efficiently as possible. There’s an optional tutorial that walks you through the basics by giving you a map to play the breaks down each move you can do on the controller one by one. While this may seem like overkill to expert players, it’s a smartly designed opening area no matter what your skill level. The key to survival outside making each shot count is pulling off moves and movement as quickly and cleanly as possible. Dropping into a crouch, going prone to crawl, using cover, tossing rocks to draw attention away from your position, laying trip mines and more are all covered in detail, but scanning the environment for hidden enemies in probably the most important skill you’ll learn.

Maps in the game contain placed enemies as well as “hidden” enemies that show up if an alert has been raised. You can spot and shoot enemy snipers before they see you, and yes, taking out patrols in a specific order using distance between soldiers and environmental elements such as smoke from burning debris or the sound of a church bell to mute your shots make certain missions pretty awesome. Still, there are some annoyances with the AI that range from them being a bit too eagle-eyed to cases where it seems that preplanned path finding and reaction routines have some enemies not react quite as you’d expect them to. That said, there’s just something pure and satisfying about ling up that perfect shot, inhaling, steadying your sights and firing a shot that can take out two patrolling soldiers before they know what hit them.

Up close and personal, your silenced pistol works great and you have a Thompson sub-machine gun (with very limited ammo) for times when you need to get out of a jam. However, it would have been nice to have a combat knife here and some moves to go with it, as fist to face action is a wee bit stiff. Granted, the game works best when you’re not going mano y mano with a pack of pissed off Nazis, but something more fluid and stealthy/stabby would have been cool. You still have to hide any bodies if you kill and enemy in an area where a passing patrol will spot them, so at least that element is in and works just fine.

As noted in my preview, those x-ray and bullet-cam kills here aren’t for the squeamish, as the game often slows the shot down before zooming to a view of your bullet smashing into someone’s body in gruesome detail. That said, the rather realistic use of gore isn’t glorified at all in my opinion. For me, it’s better to present as realistic a depiction as possible of what a skilled sniper can do. Granted, like nearly every other modern shooter out there, you can soak up a wee bit too much damage and Rebellion also went with a regenerating health system, a major sticking point for some gamers. I preferred the original game’s system where you could only choose a set number of healing items to carry before setting out on a mission, but again, the casual gamers out there still need to be served. I’d imagine someone with the PC version of the game will whip up a more accurate simulation mod that adds carry weight and a more simulation like approach to the gameplay at some point, but I’d like to see a patch that tweaks the game a bit across every difficulty to allow more or less realism in some areas.

Visually, Rebellion’s proprietary engine is quite lovely and runs well overall. The game goes for realism throughout in terms of the blasted out ruins, some gorgeous lighting and smoke effects, weather and such all delivering the goods. Cinematic cut-scenes break into the game at just the right moments and as they all use the game engine, the flow isn’t broken by CG that doesn’t match the rest of the graphics. The GUI is very well done and can be tailored to be more or less intrusive. Just start with the default setting and play with it until you get what you want. As for level design, sure, too many doors are permanently shut and yes, other than some shortcuts that allow you to bypass enemy troops or find a different way through a mission, the otherwise huge and visually varied maps are a wee bit straightforward. Then again, making this a completely open-world experience would make for a much tougher game for some players, so there’s that to consider.

Sound design and music are solid and I loved that the game relies heavily on paying attention to what your ears as well as your eyes are telling you. If you’re failing missions because you’re trying to play this like a Call of Duty game or something similar, it’s not going to be that fault of the game at all. The score adds the perfect amount of dramatic touch and never intrudes on the action (feel free to turn it off for maximum effect) and overall, the voice acting is great stuff, although more dialog from patrolling soldiers would have been better. If you’re spotted or have troops searching for you, expect to hear the same quotes repeated over and over until things get back to normal or you’re discovered.

As for multiplayer, all of the modes are co-op focused and fun to play. Overwatch was the most fun for my tastes, as it’s all communication and elimination focused. One player is a spotter, fixing in on targets, yet also on the move to complete objectives while the second player is camped out sniping away at enemies as they appear on the map or taking out those hiding away in buildings the other player is headed into. Bombing run has one player gathering parts to repair a broken vehicle as the other player kills off targets before they can get to his buddy. There’s also Kill Tally, which is more or less your basic “survival” mode against increasingly tougher waves of enemy soldiers. This will be the go to mode for a lot of gamers, I think. but I say absolutely try all three and see what makes each mode work. By the way, if you happened to pre-order the game, that “Kill the Fuhrer” map is also great stuff (albeit shorter than most of the standard missions in the campaign), as it’s fun to play and while nowhere near historically accurate, makes for an interesting “What if?” scenario many have fantasized about for any number of reasons.

Overall, Rebellion and 505 have a hit here and yes, it’s worth picking up just to assure we see a follow up that fixes the things that could have been better while making the already great stuff even greater. Granted, that new-generation of consoles is right around the corner, so my money is on a sequel that beefs up the visuals as well as gameplay to what fans of this series want to see and play: a sniping simulation that keeps pulling no punches and making each shot it takes count. Sniper Elite V2 is definitely a step in the right direction, so yes, let’s have another and sooner than it took between the last two, of course…