Game Over: Sniper Elite V2

It may be true that Sniper Elite 4 is going to come out soon, but I felt that I couldn’t even look at it until I had caught up with the series. As I didn’t own the original, I decided to sit down with the sequel: Sniper Elite V2. I’ve never been very good at stealth games, so it’s not something I thought I’d enjoy, much less finish.

You control American sniper Karl Fairburne as he engages Nazis across 11 levels, whilst Berlin is besieged by Soviet forces in the closing days of World War II. His mission is to track down and kill the men behind the V2 rocket project, and in the process stop the Soviets from using those very rockets themselves. There’s also DLC which lets you kill Hitler, but I don’t own that…

One of the very cool features that the Sniper Elite series boasts of is the bullet cam. Certain shots will make the camera track the bullet in slow motion, showing you exactly where it hits the enemy soldier. Certain ones qualify for an X-Ray, showing exactly which organs, bones or muscles the hot metal tears through. It’s certainly graphic, and definitely awesome.

There are three sniper rifles that you get to use, as well as a variety of automatic rifles and semi-automatic handguns. You also get to use mines, trip-wires and two kinds of grenades -- though ammo for those is a little more sparse than the various bullets are. The mines and trip-wires allow you to create traps for enemies trying to flank you, so long as you remember to use them, and find a good place to do so...

Try as I might, I couldn’t quite get the hang of sneaking somewhere undetected. Certain levels have loud noises that hide the noise of your rifle, yet I would invariably mistime it, despite the visual cue, and end up having to blast a ton of enemies. Of course, there are many set pieces across the levels where you have to do just that, but within the first few minutes of the mission is not one of them…

In all, the game took me around five hours to complete. This, of course, doesn’t include gathering all of the 100 gold bars and some odd bottles of wine, and honestly may have been a little rushed. I’m not one for collectables, so I probably won’t go back for those, but damn if I don’t want to get some more X-Ray shots. All of mine were from the chest up -- apart from some lucky shots that hit grenades hanging around someone’s waist -- but I’ve seen some footage of shots hitting… below the belt, so to speak. I’m tempted to get the Hitler DLC just to see how accurate it is…

One annoying thing - easily jumpable walls you can't get over...

Despite the short playtime, I did really enjoy playing. I’m not one to play games set during the World Wars, as I’m a firm believer that there’s only so many times you can kill a Nazi before you’re personally responsible for every Axis casualty from 1939 to 1945. However, Sniper Elite V2 was a refreshing take -- mainly due to the fact that Fairburne is specifically a sniper, rather than a one-man army. I look forward to playing Sniper Elite III, and Sniper Elite 4.