Hello everyone and welcome to another gaming review, what I'm going to be talking about today is part of a trilogy called Sniper elite and this is the second in the franchise V2. Where you play as an Elite Marksman, you thought I was going to be ironic didn't you?
In Berlin and you have to stop the Russians from grabbing German scientists to make V2 rockets Ironically.... dammit.
Gameplay and story – Marksman Elite is a third person shooter that was created by Rebellion back around 2012, with what is called Bullet Ballistics which I will get to in a minute as this is a core mechanic in the game. You get to set traps and snipe German soldiers back in WW2 which I guess is a nice change from the games that came out during that year. I dunno why but I get a sense of joy when I look through the scope of a virtual rifle and blow Hans' balls off and make him lose the ability to make any more Hitler youth.
The cinematics are short and sweet and not that many of them, probably the longest of the bunch being the final one, no spoilers, The guy you play as does his own narration which is cool as he has no help from anyone which in some cases have me a little worried, think about it is he really supposed to be there, he could be a loony on a mission no one gave him.
In regards to any extra content as well I might add there isn't any really here, there is one thing on console and on PC which is Kill tally and its just a survival mode so nothing really amazing there, just pick your loadout and let them have it. Only on Pc though there is Newsreel mode as far as I can see it just changes the colour of the screen and nothing else. There is also DLC missions but I will leave them till last.
Controls are fine in the game as you get a tutorial in the beginning so you can get used to it but I would have liked it a little more when using the binoculars that it wouldn't be so awkward as when playing the game I kept swapping to the rifle and the binoculars, maybe they could have just tagged the enemies with the rifle, cutting it out?
The AI in the game isn't too bad either as when you shoot and kill an enemy and you are not in their line of sight they will investigate but i would be careful as later in the game they can cluster up and give you trouble which can lead some bad cheap deaths, so plan out and watch out as you fight Russians and Germans.
Features pros and cons- The main features of the game is the ability to plan out an attack, set traps for enemies and the infamous Kill cam as well as choose your loadout which is what weapons and the amount of items you will have and that consists on 2 grenade types, landmines, dynamite which i found useless and tripwire which i liked a lot. When choosing rifles they have their own pros and cons so you can pick one that best suits your play style, so experiment to find which is best for you.
The Killcam is the main feature of the game and if you don't know what happens is that when you fire your rifle a short cinematic comes up which follows the bullet to its target either two things will happen. you will see the bullet enter and exit normally and thats it or you get an internal x-ray view and you can see the destruction of your enemy. My only problem is that it can happen too often, especially when aiming for the head, i think it would have been best if they only did it when you know that there is a certain organ that would be busted up, like heart, smashing of the skull or even a ball buster.
You also have the binoculars which allow you to scope farther than your normal rifle and it gives you the ability to “tag” enemies which helps you keep an eye on them and their position, as an added feature which i found cool was the fact once you tag an enemy you can see their rank, weapon, distance and also what mood they are in, which is usually either, passive, aggressive, or suspicious. there is even an icon appears on the top right hand side which drowns out noise that allows you to snipe enemies
Graphics and music - There isn't a lot of music in the game, the only real points that you can hear it anyway is if you are seen and a firefight happens, once it's over the music dulls again. Though when It comes to the graphics of the game I decided to stick with the Pc version and before you all get on your high-horse about the master race stuff which kinda makes sense In a Nazi Germany based game, they look a little better and sharper, here is an good example here.
DLC RANT and closing statement!!- As i said before there are a few DLC titles and i'm going to be blunt here, if they were cheaper then not a problem but this is a joke. there are four mission packs though one is not available on console (one weapon pack on the ps3) each pack gives you weapons and one mission, these include:
St Pierre which is just ambushing some soldiers and then taking out General Rodebrecht and leaving the area,
The Neudorf outpost is a single mission again where you have to blow up an Nazi outpost, again the place is expansive and two weapons, but again short
The Landwehr canal which is the PC exclusive DLC and you have to kill three generals and then you leave you the area
Assassinate the Fuhrer is the final mission that i played is the shortest map and the cheapest as he hides all the time. This is the most expensive DLC and the worst. as its very short and not expansive.
You won't miss an awful lot if you don't get the DLC, granted the weapons gives you more variety to play with in the main story it's just sad that the missions that they are stuck with are bad.
Final thoughts, besides the DLC the game is fun but short with only 10 missions not including the prologue, the weapons are fun and to me its replayable, graphically is decent to look at but it's a little dull because as most at what you are looking at is destroyed buildings.
So my verdict for the game is 7/10. Stay safe and see you next time.