505 games and Rebellion studios have been working on a reboot of their original title Sniper Elite (2005) which was a 3rd person sniper game available on PC and XBOX.  The title of the reboot is appropriately titled “Sniper Elite V2” (SEV2) emphasising the fact that this is not a brand new development, but a “re-do”.  Copies of the original Sniper Elite still sell brand new in most retail stores and is available as a digital copy via Steam, the long drawn out success and fame has inspired the original studio to re-release with brand spanking new graphics, redesigned levels, new soundtrack and much more.    

SEV2 , places you in the role of US OSS agent Karl Fairburne, an elite sniper during the near-end of World War II.  You as the player must familiarise yourself with substantial amounts of patience and stealth as you sneak your way throughout numerous locations of Berlin in an attempt to perform reconnaissance on the German V-2 rocket program before it falls in the hands of Stalin’s Red Army.  

Let me run you through a typical Sniper Elite (2005) moment (seen as this will pretty much be the same in V2 but presumably better).  You’ve been running for about 150 meters through war-torn streets, you can hear a battle in the distance.  Bombs exploding, machine guns chewing through ammunition.  You come to a corner in the street, not knowing what is around the corner.  Taking precautions, you go prone and creep around to have a look….



There’s two German soldiers in the distance.  You take aim through your scope, noticing a flag near the enemies you see it’s still; this tells you there is no wind.  You make adjustments in height for your trajectory to fall and hit your target.  Taking a moment to cleverly realise if you shoot one soldier, the other will hear and could run for reinforcements.  With this in mind you take note of the bombs going off in the distant, you notice they are quite constant.  You wait to time your shot with the next bomb, all of the sudden the bombs stop.  Every second that goes by you become more and more paranoid; nervous.  Then suddenly you hear a bomb whistling through the air followed by a large BANG, the moment you hear the explosion your fire your shot.  The shot was perfect, enabling the kill shot effect which gives you a slow motion look at your trajectory as it travels over 100 meters before smashing through the soldiers skull.  You calmly aim your second shot and take out the other soldier.  

Its moments like these that make you slow down and think about the consequences and make you plan your strategy well.  



SEV2 will make you take into account gravity, wind, timing, stealth, strategy, enemy alertness and movement.  This title returns with a new “kill cam”, much like the one described but supposedly more detail and instead of a 100% gruesome ending, they give you a detailed 3d X-Ray, showing the bullet entry, exit and everything in between.  This will be a clever way of getting around ratings for certain countries. 

Got friends?  Great because Sniper Elite V2 has quite a few multiplayer modes to keep you and your friends busy for quite some time.  
SEV2 has just been released on PS3, 360 and PC.  I actually started typing this article in Word a couple of days before it’s release.  



 

I just found this game yesterday when my cousin got the demo. It cool how if you got a long distance you get to see where you hit the enemy and get an x-ray too

Honestly I am just liking how more games like this are coming out, where you cannot just "run-and-gun" through the campaign without great difficulty.  Add in the bullet physics and the fact that is uses the x-ray feature (always fun in a game like this) in order to show what occurs and work around the ratings to avoid cutting things out.  Cannot wait to grab a copy of this myself.

Hanyouhire : I'm with you on that one, im getting sick of run and gun style games... I need games that make me think aswell as including action/stealth. 

It sounds a lot like enemy at the gates.

thenumberone : Apart from its timeline/setting and the fact that it has sniping in it, it has nothing to do with Enemy at the Gates. 

I didnt mean like that.
In enemy at the gates you have the 2 snipers skirting around trying to get each other, set in ww2, ruined city, and the shooting at the exact point of the explosion. I know it isnt based off it

gtwalq : Three words my friend:  Metal.  Gear.  Solid.  THAT is tactical stealth at its finest in my opinion.  I honestly like games where you have very few supplies and need to either find more on sight or use the properly or in creative ways to conserve them.  Add in how you can actually beat the game with only fighting the "boss" characters and is it really any surprise that people are STILL playing this series?

thenumberone : Ah sorry didnt mean it like that, I know where your coming from and wasnt having a go at you lol

Hanyouhire : I've played a few MGS games, theyre ok but I dont like the setting in most of them.. the boss fights are too arcade style for me aswell.