Do you like sniping things? How about WWII? Of course you do. What if the two of those things are blended together? Whoa now, don't get too excited! Let me tell you about a little game called Sniper Elite V2 coming out May 2012.
Premise: You are a sniper, in World War 2. Go. No, but in all seriousness it's a demo out on the XBLA so there isn't much setup for you other than you're an American in what I can only assume is France and you're sniping Nazis to get to your target at the end of the demo. The target, of course, is a Nazi scientist that you have to kill. Bada bing bada boom. Easy peasy.
Think Splinter Cell wrapped in Call of Duty 2. You remember that one? The one set in WWII? Yeah, no one remembers that one. The mechanics in this game are fairly simple, cover system, 3rd-person over-the-shoulder camera. You have binoculars to mark targets in the field and a scope on your rifle to zoom.
What I was impressed with was the physics element of the game. Depending on the level of difficulty you choose, the game becomes more and more realistic. The most minimal physics the game throws at you is gravity. You have to compensate for the bullet's drop over time and distance. Hardest difficulty? You have to account for the wind and gravity. I mean, the game comes at you HARD when you fight with those two conditions on.
Something fun is that you can turn the enemy AI down so it's not on the hardest mode, but the physics difficulty up to max so you can have semi-dumb enemies in your physically realistic simulation. But the enemies are hit and miss with their AI anyway. You shoot one guy who is maybe 50 meters away from a group, and they do nothing. You shoot one guy 30m away and they go berserk.
I think what the game devs were trying to do is make sight and sound important. That being said, if I heard a sniper shot within a block radius, I'd duck and cover and start shouting. There is a lot of shelling and gunfire in the background so I suppose the devs are saying that "it's really loud out there and they can't place the sounds," and that would work if it just wasn't based off of distance from the last person shot.
I guess what I'm saying is that the AI is a little sound-depth-deaf. What is fun though is that you can mess with the soldiers by throwing rocks and making them investigate that sound, but not the rife shot that blew one of their comrade's head to pieces.The idea of trying to manipulate the enemies and sneak around them or get them into your line of sight is actually a really genius idea. Unfortunately, the mechanic doesn't really work well in the demo.
Really though you can pretty much avoid the enemies and find a good place to snipe from at all times. It's just a matter of thinking about it. For those of you who are good at shooting and hitting the vitals on your Nazis, you're rewarded with an x-ray slow motion shot of where the bullet exactly goes into the hapless soldier. After the fifteenth time that this happens you begin to get jaded by it but it is still fun to watch.
This is the attempt to make the game feel really action packed when it's more suspenseful than anything. The constant breaks in action to follow the bullet to its home is sometimes tedious but honestly, who doesn't love seeing bones shatter and organs rip apart as a bullet slashes through them? The demo alone becomes a sort of morbid guilty pleasure.
The graphics are close to the new Mortal Kombat but the textures and body physics leave something to be desired. It is a war zone so the color palate isn't too diverse, but after a while the entire map begins to blend together. However those with good eyesight are rewarded by spotting enemies far away or lying down trying to counter-snipe you.
Weapons? Your trusty rifle, a small assault weapon (in the demo a Thompson or the looted MG from the Nazis) and a silenced pistol. You don't get to carry a lot of ammo for anything other than the rifle, so the game really does try to make you snipe than stand up and shoot. Though through your journey you will pick up mines and dynamite and grenades and the like to ambush, which is extremely satisfying to watch as people run over explosives to avoid your gunfire.
Based off the demo, I'm extremely hooked. I will definitely be reviewing the full version of this game. What concerns me most is that I think what I'm seeing in the demo is the whole game. Of course there will be a story and such and there is multiplayer mentioned as well, but I really feel like I've got the single-player down cold. Keep your eyes on the Vault for the full review when it comes out in May!
