Sniper Elite

Tagaziel

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Anyone been playing this godawesome game?

For those who didn't, you're basically an American OSS operative disguised as a German sniper searching for Nazi nuclear weapons data and liquidating NKVD officers.

Though I believe at it's core, it's just an elaborate excuse to portray a German sniper fighting against Russians in bombed Berlin.

The sniping mechanisms are top notch, including not only gravity but also wind, heartbeat, breathing and other factors (those I enumerated can be turned off/on at will).

This game really makes headshots satisfying. Remember Max Payne? There's a similiar bullet-chase camera for headshots here.
 
Dammit, it was "available" at lanparty I went to this weekend. I'm weary of games that have the thing that it's about right in the title, usually that means that that's the only thing you do in the game.
 
Old games are old, I played it back when it came out in 2005, it's a good game, but I wouldn't call the sniping mechanisms top-notch, I have been able to pull off some snipershots that would have been god impossible IRL, and I -do- have real weapon experience with sniping at a friends dads countryhouse.

It's a great game though, but I have played a few 'games' with more realistic ballistic simulations, for example JFK Reloaded.
 
Yeah I have it, quite fun, looks crap but getting a good headshot is so satsfying, loved sneaking around Berlin.
 
Anyone been playing this godawesome game?

For those who didn't, you're basically an American OSS operative disguised as a German sniper searching for Nazi nuclear weapons data and liquidating NKVD officers.

Though I believe at it's core, it's just an elaborate excuse to portray a German sniper fighting against Russians in bombed Berlin.

The sniping mechanisms are top notch, including not only gravity but also wind, heartbeat, breathing and other factors (those I enumerated can be turned off/on at will).

This game really makes headshots satisfying. Remember Max Payne? There's a similiar bullet-chase camera for headshots here.

how is the AI? realisitc ballistics are useless if enemy can magically spot you from a mile or so and quickly pop a bullet into your skull


are the scenarios more like Hitman (find a spot, wait for target to get into view, take out, and escape before you're seen ..or more like Medal of Honor/Call of Duty ..where's it's usually "fend off waves of enemy with a sniper rifle in a tower" setup?
 
CptStern, this is a stealth'em up game, if you try to go haedon you'll get owned, so you pretty much have to stealth, snipe your way through, and no, it's not like ArmA where a guy can hit you in the head with a handgun from 500 meters away.:p
 
It's a great game though, but I have played a few 'games' with more realistic ballistic simulations, for example JFK Reloaded.

The ballistics in JFK are great, the actual shooting etc. models? Not so good.

It's still fantastic to see how your shots affect the surroundings, though.

how is the AI? realisitc ballistics are useless if enemy can magically spot you from a mile or so and quickly pop a bullet into your skull

You'd be often surprised just how good it is. They might not be the best shots (Russians...), but they flank like real soldiers.

Once I had to retry an approach FIVE times because one NKVD byatch kept sneaking up and placing a grenade up me arse.

Addendum: It was fun to give a Russian soldat a wider mouth today.
 
I played it for about a week or two before getting bored. Its amazing to see what people can do though (2km headshot!!!)
 
Fantastic game, gets old fast though.
 
I enjoy it. One of the things I find irksome is that on occasion you need to sneak past someone on patrol. This entails staying at a distance just watching them, untill you are familiar with their route, then sort of following them at a distance untill their route takes them past where you want to go.

Now, this is great, but because the game is well designed, the only way not to get spotted is to properly check out an area from range before you enter it. When sneaking past guards, its impossible to do this, because you have to get off the patrol route and into the new area, before the patoling guard comes back.

I know its realistic, but its rather like being punished for something outside your control.
 
Sniper Elite is one of the worst ****ing games I have ever played
 
This is my impression & review of the game:

Greetings all,

It was because of the intense rain & heavy fog that blanked the surrounding area, that caused it to be such slow going. The incoming heavy artillery did not help matters either. As I progressed from one blasted building to the next, heart racing & constantly on the lookout for that Russian soldier I knew was out there somewhere trailing me like a bloodhound, that I came across the remains of a staircase to the second story of a building that once was most likely a factory.

As I slowly reached the top of the stairs, another soldier that I had not seen, stepped out from the doorway at the top of the stairs. As I raised my P-38 silenced pistol, the Russian soldier noticed me & with an oath, also raised his own weapon. At a distance of only a few feet, my smaller & lighter weapon raised up a split second faster than did his & with a gentle squeeze of the trigger, & a spray of blood, I sent yet another so-called ally to an early grave. As I bent low to begin searching the body for anything useful, I am rewarded with a few rounds and a grenade. A split second later, bullets pepper the wall above my head and then a few rounds thunk into me. As I drop into a prone position & scramble into the hallway at the top of the stairs, more bullets thunk into the wall just moments after I dropped to the ground. A split second longer & I would have been dead. As it was, the few rounds that hit me just seconds before did a huge amount of damage to my right side. The blood on the ground next to me is testament to that.

I half run, half crawl down the hallway and come to another staircase. With little thought to what or who is below, I stagger down and with a quick look around, I head across the road to some buildings across the street. Half-way across the street, rounds tear into the wall of the building just in front of me. With a last desperate effort, I manage to make it inside the building. To my right is a window that looks out into the town square & a group of 3 Russian soldiers, who alerted by their comrade in the building I just left, turn toward me & open fire. Once again i'm prone eating dirt as yet more bullets pepper the wall above me. At the back of the room i'm in, is a doorway leading out into what looks like a courtyard. Either death or salvation lies that way. To stay where i'm at, is a deathwish, as the 3 soldiers are running toward the side of the building to the door I just entered.

I jump up and then run like crazy into the courtyard, weaving back & forth, praying that my back isn't a moving target. Ahead of me is a blown up vehicle of some sort & I run toward it, knowing that it will be where i'll make my last stand. As I dive behind it, more bullets thunk into the wreck and ricochet off. In one fluid movement I pull out my 1 and only grenade, pull the pin, stand up and let fly. I'll admit the throw was pure luck, for the grenade bounced off the door jam of the building I just left and rolled inside. A second later I hear a muffled explosion and then silence. Silence can be extremely loud let me tell you. By now I have my rifle out & i'm scoped in, covering the doorway, waiting to shoot whatever comes through it. After the smoke clears a few seconds later, I see a foot... and it's not moving.

I slowly leave my cover behind the blasted wreck & walk towards the door with the unmoving foot. My caution was not needed, for my lucky toss caught all 3 of the enemy soldiers inside the room and in such a confined space, my grenade fragged them all. Yes! What a rush of adrenaline I felt then. Then out of knowhere I hear an MP40 open fire. As I drop to my knee, I zoom in & fire once. I am then greeted to the Bullet Cam which follows just behind and to the side of the round I just fired, above the 3 dead bodies, out the window and across the street up to the second story and finally into the second story window I follow the bullet. At the last second the camera view switches to just behind the bullet & a split second after that I see it plow into the right eye of the one remaining soldier that first stalked me.



"Elite Sniper" by Namco and Rebellion, won't win any awards for it's graphical content, that much is obvious just by looking at the screen shots, let alone actually playing the game and thus seeing what the games engine has to offer first hand. However, as I have stated in the past, "Graphics Alone Does Not A Game Make." Sniper Elite is actually a whole lot of fun to play & is very much worth giving a try.Before playing Sniper Elite, I went online & read a few reviews of what others thought about the game. Normally I try not to do this, so as to not give myself an un-bias opinion, but since the games graphics looked to be somewhat on the bargain side, I wanted to get a little pre-game info. I love B-Rated movies, the cheesier the better, but I don't feel the same about games I play on the PC.

The main story of the game is a little hard to follow at times as you progress through each mission. The game itself takes place near the end of the Second World War, buring the year 1945. (I know what you are thinking, not another WW2 themed shooter. Well read on. ) You are an American Sniper sent in to stop the Russian forces from stealing info on Germany's Nuclear weapons program. At the beginning of each mission, you are given a short audio briefing & shown a map with your main objectives. You are also sometimes given an optional objective, such as disabling a convoy or taking out an enemy Tank or even sweeping a part of town of all enemy forces present. It didn't take long for me to get lost playing the game. That is, lost in the good sense. Several hours would pass before I realized that I had completed only the first couple missions. Loading & reloading saved games, trying to set up that perfect shot, took up a good chunk of time. Time that was fun & so sadly passed rather quickly.

A feature that plays a rather huge part of making this game so much fun is the Bullet Cam. If you get either a Head shot or hit a moving target at long range with your rifle, you get a treated to the Bullet Cam view. This view zooms in and follows the bullet you just fired as it flies across the map toward your target. If you get the Bullet Cam, you know your shot was deadly. Once it hits a target, you see some minor disfiguring upon your target. If your target was close to a wall or other object, you'll see blood & other "matter" splatter against it's surface. Not too graphical, but a nice addition none-the-less. The same if you hit a target from above, you'll see blood on the ground. As in real life, a high caliber rifle shell will penatrate as well as exit a soft target, such as that of a human body. So if you set up your shot just right & control your breathing, you might get a double kill, the Bullet Cam shows all of this. My favorite double kill was when I hit a target 175m away across the map & up on top of a huge building during one of the earlier missions. I got a lucky head shot, that went through the enemy soldiers head and nailed the guy behind him in the groin. Both dropped dead and the second guy fell from the roof before the Bullet Cam ended. I had a S-E-G on my face for several minutes after that. What also makes long range kills so much fun and thus getting the Bullet Cam, is the fact that gravity & your bullet interact with each other in a major way. The father away the target, the more you have to lead & elevate your shot. Very satisfying.

You are not stuck using a sniper rifle by any means. The game has a few other weapons you can use as well. For instance you have a silenced pistol which is great to use on targets you sneak up on, this way you don't alert other enemies to your position. Some missions require stealth over going in guns blazing. You also get to use Panzershreks, MP40's, a couple differnt sniper rifles, a PPSH & an MG42. Your accuracy depends on your stance. Stand = no accuracy with the MG42 & minimal for the other weapons, Kneel = slightly better overall for all weapons (The MP40 has horrible accuracy in any position) Prone = best position, though it takes a few seconds to get there. Also when you switch to different weapons, the animations are very well done, your silenced pistol for instance has a holster on your lover back, when he pulls it out, it just dosen't just "jump" to his hand, he actually pulls it out. The same for the other weapons. Funny & rather unrealistic when you see your char running around with an MG42, Sniper Rifle & a pistol strapped to his back. Otherwise ,very nice. You also get to use hand grenades (Which are deadly) TNT, Timed TNT, (You can shoot the TXT from afar to set it off) Med packs, Bandages, Trip Lines With Grenades for ambushes, & a Rock to throw to distract an enemy soldier. After you make the kill, you can search the bodies for weapons, ammo or health. You can also pick up bodies and move them, again the animations to do this are very well done, Takes time to pick up and dump bodies, which makes you look before you pickup or drop. I have died more than once ingame trying to get rid of a body. But if you leave a body where you killed him, the enemy will be alerted if they see the body which makes the game harder. If the enemy you shot is knocked down, but not killed, his comrade will attempt to pick him up and carry him to safety.

The games audio is well done, with ambient war time sounds of gun fire and explosions in the distance, with the odd cry of the wounded. Sadly very little in the game is destructable, with the exception of mission critical objects, such as Tanks & Convoys. There are limited amounts of Glass which break as you shoot them. After all, the game does take place for the most part in cities that have been bombed, little would be left intact, such as glass. You can shoot through the glass in vehicles to kill the drivers, which is nice. As with the audio stated above, you'll hear incomming artillary & from time to time it'll land near you, though that is seldom & seems to cause you no damage.

The games graphics are it's biggest drawbacks. The games engine is far from being cutting edge, with shadows almost completely missing. However, it does a good enough job with the weather effects, not to mention the weapons fire & other lighting effects such as spotlights or exhaust from Tanks and the water effects from it raining. The random plane that is on fire and crashes in the city after being shot down from AA can be worth watching, as it disappears behind a building only to explode into a fireball with smoke afterwards. If you happen to be where the plane crashes, the effects on the ground are a little disappointing sadly. More detail could have gone into the crashes, but again, the games engine is severely limiting with what it can do. So in light of this, with every setting maxed out to the max my monitor will allow, the game runs extremely smooth on my older hardware.

As you complete a mission objective, you'll often see a small cinematic, which are actually pretty decently rendered. Kinda funny how a games engine can render a good cinematic, but the actual game visuals themselves are of lesser quality.

Bottom line, Sniper Elite is a very fun game, worth playing. It does have it's tense moments and the single player part is rather lengthly, which is very nice since most games seem to have pretty visuals, but a short story. There is also a MP and a LAN option. However, there are several other online games that might be worth playing over this one. Then again, when this game came out, 2 years ago, it's biggest rival would have been BF42/DC & BF2.

Final Score: 3/5 Stars

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-MRG
 
My friend had it for a while and we were playing it trying to do the Saving Private Ryan thing where you shoot through the enemy scope and kill there brains.
 
And yet again MRG comes with one of his infamous rants.. I mean reviews.

Some things never change!:p
 
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