User Reviews (1 - 11 of 20)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Snipe!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 30 / 31
Date: November 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

True to it's name, this game is a fun sniper-based shooter. You start in 3rd person view following behind your character, you use your binoculars to spot the target, and then switch to the sniper rifle scope. You have to control your breathing, stance, adjust for wind correction, bullet drop, etc.-- everything is considered. You have a variety of tools, weapons, etc. to help you as well. (Place TNT down and then snipe it at a distance to destroy tanks for instance)

It is VERY satisfying to sight in on a sniper at long range and have it end in a great headshot.

Mostly you'll use stealth & sniping skills, but every once n' a while the enemy will close in on you for close-quarters combat.
Also note that this game is rated M.

Blood, sweat and a few tears...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 17
Date: December 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It's been 6 days since I entered Berlin. 6 days of looking down the scope of a Gehwehr 43, or just recently a Russian Tokarev SVT 40. I've blown up tanks, set traps, taken many an enemy out and still I'm a long way from going home. As I wipe the sweat off my brow before looking down the scope again, let me tell you about the world I've entered; The world of Sniper Elite.

On starting the game, I realised they drop you right in it from the start. Berlin, early 1945. The Germans are in retreat, the city in tatters. It's a race between the American's and the USSR to find the plans that Germany have for creating their own nuclear weapon. This is basically the start of the cold war. You are a lone sniper operating for the O.S.S (the precursor to the C.I.A), Your job is to stop anyone who gets in your way and to make sure the Russians don't end up with the plans.

It's almost overwhelming at the start of the game, and while it's the rule of the game, it's good to have a look around the place and get used to moving, changing stances, etc. Make good use of cover, the binocular view and the scope view before moving about, because in the wasteland that has become Berlin, you'll need your wits about you.

Bomb craters will open up as you're walking down the street with a huge explosion, the crack of bullets and the whine of projectiles whizzing past your ears are but a few of the ambient details in this game. You'll also be speaking fluent German or Russian as well, depending on how close you get to the enemy. One standout scene for me is the first level just as you move off, an aircraft trailing smoke and burning flies over head and crashes behind you somewhere in the city.

The shooting part of the game is extraordinary. I've never played a game where I have to take the distance or gravity or the wind into account.

In the guide book that comes with it, aptly named the "survival handbook" there are 3 rifles you can use. Each comes with a couple of tables to work out how to adjust the crosshairs to make a perfect shot. The target is 1.5 milldots high, so aim 3 mildots above his head and shoot. All going well, you've just got a cut scene of a bullet entering the body of an enemy.

The enemy don't just stand there and let you shoot them either. Though sometimes you have to wonder what they are thinking. You've taken a shot and wounded someone, they run off but they run somewhere in the open and stop. That's not something that happens every time however, some get down right devious, I've had them sneak around behind me, or jump out from behind walls and take me out.

Another well thought out part of the game is the fact that if the enemy do get too close you've got close range weapons, (machine guns, silenced pistols, panzershreks, etc) to help take them out. They are going to get close and often. One thing I've taken to doing is to place a trip wire grenade across the doorway of the room I'm in, so that while I'm sniping, if someone sneaks up on me as they invariably do, then I've got some protection. Makes for great fun watching them thrown into a wall. You'll find your weapon of choice being the Sniper rifle however, which is what this game is all about.

The 3 different guns have 3 different scopes on them. the Gehwehr only has a 2x scope, so when you finally get used to it, you appreciate the 4x scope that the SVT has. The Mosin Nagant is a difficult rifle to get the hang of, especially seeing as the scope allows you to see up someone's nose from quite a distance away. Because the Nagant has such a great range, it's a difficult gun to master compared to the other guns in the game due to a greater degree of wind and gravity becoming involved. There is at least one opportunity for a 1000 yard/meter shot with the Mosin Nagant.

The levels are mixes of "Get to this point and kill everyone you meet" to "be sneaky and you'll survive" to "take this bloke out, or else he'll get everyone onto you" or, "protect the bloke running from lots of Germans" which makes for a varied time. The going is slow, but it's very enjoyable. Especially when you've taken the time to adjust your shot to take someone out from a great distance and it's worked out.

There is great ambience in each level and some levels you actually use the sound of explosions to mask the sound of your shot, that way, others aren't aware of their comrade being taken out, nor where your position is. If you've only wounded a soldier, another soldier can actually try and revive him, or carry him to safety. I shot one man trying this and was surprised when he blew up, I'd shot a grenade on his tunic.

If you find yourself up against a tank , try shooting at it's fuel cap on the side, it'll put a fiery end to the bane of all infantry. It's honestly a game where they've thought about almost everything and included lots of detail.

This is the paragraph where I add the "but". It's only a small one, but I think it would have been better to include a pre game level where you are at Westpoint, still training to become a soldier, that way the player can learn all the moves before being thrown in the deep end. It also needed a firing range so you could test out the rates of bullet drop and distance. The only other thing is that in split screen multiplayer, it's hard to see the milldots on the scope, which makes working out a shot quite difficult. Multiplayer needed a bigger scope view. This game may convince me to go online and see how well I'd go against others.

In a nutshell, I'd have to say this war game is up there with call of duty and battlefield 1942. It's tense, makes you think and is an absolute blast. I haven't been able to stop playing it since I got it a very long 6 days ago.

Paul M

A fresh take on action/stealth and World War II

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 24 / 25
Date: December 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Every year there's comes a sleeper hit that somehow seems to get overlooked by the gaming public. In 2003 it was Freedom Fighters. In 2004 it was Ubi Soft's Beyond Good & Evil. This year that award goes to Namco/Rebellion's Sniper Elite. With a fresh, new take on the World War II shooter, Sniper Elite looks to bring some new ideas to the action-shooter genre while creating a new one in the process.

In the waning days of World War II a lone sniper trained by the OSS has crossed into Berlin ahead of the allied push. His mission; to prevent the Soviets from obtaining the technology to build an atom bomb and giving them the upper hand in the arms race.

The first thing you notice about Sniper Elite are it's graphics. While not as advanced as games like God of War they portray Berlin as being a desolate, ravaged city torn apart by war. There's alot of very dull colors which gives the landscapes a very bleak and forboding look to them. It really gives the player a sensation that this is a city that has been abandoned. The environments are pretty large. There are several ways to approach your objective and sniping points are laid out through the cityscapes. There's also lots of cover. Burnt out vehicles and bunkers dot the streets. And you'll need it as you do your best to stay alive.

In Sniper Elite your best weapon isn't a gun. It's your brain. This is what can be called a "thinking man's stealth game". You have to constantly pay attention to your surroundings and plan out every move very methodically. What's the best route to your objective? That depends on the situation. How many guards? Thier patrol routes? Even the wind plays a factor. You also have a variety of other tools at your disposal. Such as grenades, time bombs, and trip wire mines which can be quite useful. The empty lung technique that was featured in Splinter Cell has found it's way into this game and is a welcome feature. The gameplay and controls are pretty easy to get a grasp on. The only complaint I have is that your movments aren't very fluid at times and slow stalking movment is difficult. You spend most of the game crawling which can be quite time consuming. I'd like to see more conventional stealth in future games (ala Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid) so that you don't have to spend most of the time on the ground. Moving is a key part of succss. If you stay in one place too long or fire too many shots from one location the A.I. is advanced enough that it will eventually seek you out and come down on your position. Sniper Elite also features online gameplay with 4 vs. 4 deathmatch modes. There are different deathmatch skins as well as customizable profiles. The only major complaint is that the memory card space is 1.4 megabytes. This takes up quite a bit of room and you almost need a second card to store the game on.

Sniper Elite is one of those games that might not be great but it more than satisfies you. It brings quite a few original ideas to the World War II shooter genre while feeling familiar at the same time. With other games like SOCOM 3 being released at the same time, I'd hate to think that this game might be overlooked like Freedom Fighters was. Sniper Elite is definitley the sleeper hit of 2005 and is well worth checking out.

The Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: February 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is fun. You get to kuill people like any other shooter but on this, wind, gravity, lung capacity apply. You can even shoot somone on the head and if far enough a little cutscene will pop up showing the bullett peirce the enemy. You can even leave these nasty bulet hole things in the enemy, if they are shot on the head. Miollions of ways and paths to beat a level. You can even get a souldier wounded by shooting his arm, then he will run to cover holding his arm and not shooting you. Or bably wound them, they fall to the ground screaming, if there is another guy nearby he will help the wounded guy and bring him to cover. So cool/fun. You even search th bodys of people you just killed to get stuff.

Has a few flaws, but overall superb

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: June 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Good points:

1. Lots of missions. 28 in all so the replay factor is great. The missions are surprisingly varied too, considering your trapped in bombed out Berlin the entire game. Obviously a lot of thought went into the missions by the designers. I appreciate that.

2. Four levels of difficulty. The highest level is very challenging. Even the 2nd highest level is tough.

3. Great focus on sniping and strategy. This is not a run and gun game for your 9 year old. It is slow moving, you have to think and plan your way through the objectives. Kids probably won't care much for this game.

4. There are many moments in the game when fast action is required. It isn't all belly-crawling through rubble by any means (although I admit there is a lot of belly-crawling).

5. MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL is that you can save your progress at any point in the game up to 7 times per mission. This keeps the frustration factor low. I hate those games with long missions where you get killed near the end and you have to start all over from the beginning over and over again. Some games increase difficulty levels by simply decreasing the number of saves per mission. Not in Sniper Elite. Difficulty is increased by better AI(artifical intelligence) in each level.

Flaws:

1. Your movements inside buildings, especially going up and down stairs are jerky and glitchy.

2. Berlin is completely deserted except for soldiers. There are no civilians at all. Any human you see is a target, except for a very few German resistance forces on a couple missions.

3. Completely unrealistic arsenal that you carry around. What sniper carries a pistol, an MG-42 (which actually weigh about 25 pounds), 10 hand grenades, 7 trip wire grenades, 4 bundles of TNT, 3 timebombs, a binoculars, and a sniper rifle with hundreds of rounds of ammunition? No way.

4. Blurry graphics. Things get clear when looking through the binoculars and rifle scope though.

I like video games and this is my favorite so far.

Smart Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: October 19, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have say I love this game. I am not a fan of Rambo type games and with the exception of 1 of the missions, brain beats braun. The AI is pretty well done. Your opponents will circle back on you.

The shooting is very well done. The rifles feel real. I have found that gravity is a bit exaggerated though. At 100 yards with a 7.62 round,I would not have to compensate at all. I shoot HP rifle and I found it difficult to gauge distances in the game. That is my only real complaint.

The setting of the game is very well done. You "feel" alone. Taking the time to mask the sound of your shots and finding positions to remain undetected is rewarded in the game.

One las thing, I played this game non stop for four months. It is with out a doubt my favorite.

somewhat realistic, but still lame.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 7
Date: October 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

First of all the graphics on Sniper Elite were very disapointing. The graphics for the buildings and landscape were decent but the tanks and people made me feel like I was playing PS1.

There isn't much plot if any. I'm not even sure what side I am fighting for. As far as gameplay goes it's basicly; crawl around for 20 minutes on the ground until you get to a decent sniping position, kill 2 people, than crawl around for another 20 minutes. And if you make a mistake and someone sneaks up behind you and tosses grenade in your lap you have to start all over again.

The only good thing I can say about this game is that it has some good online gameplay potential, but since I don't have the proper adapter or whatever you need to play PS2 online, I can't say.

worth the time and money

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: November 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

being an army sniper i originally bought this game with some skepticism, but after playing the first mission...i was amazed at this game (and hooked). the plot is very interesting and there are plenty of missions to keep you working. the graphics arent what they could be and judging range is a task you have to get use to. i was disappointed however in the fact that you cant jump! whats up with that? you could jump in medal of honor! i was pleasantly suprised with the extent of detail in real life characteristics of sniper employment. throughout the game you'll find yourself constantly adjusting for wind, range, elevation, concealment, fatigue, and the surrounding environment to make each shot count. you also have a variety of sniper rifles and secondary weapons you'll use during each mission so dont worry about having to run around with just a bolt action or semiauto sniper rifle. there are a choice of difficulty settings which are nice to get use to gameplay. a really cool trick to this game is bullet time. when you make a long range one shot one kill the camera follows the bullets flight to the target (my spotter got a real kick out of that). its a third person shooter which was a big change for me being a die hard first person shooter fan (but the instant you engage a target with the sniper rifle it goes to first person). with a (very)larger screen you'll be able to enjoy 2 player mode (due to the split screen). i'm pretty sure everyone in my squad has borrowed this game... some of which had a hard time returning it. other than not being able to jump i wasnt disappointed at all with this game the graphics could be better but its a video game for petes sake. i highly suggest renting any game before buying it if you havent played it, but take my word that this game is no waste. i'm hoping there will be a sequel.

Old world war style

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: November 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The game was pretty interesting at first although I would have preferred a modern day theme. I was expecting a strictly sniping game but quickly found out that there were levels in which the game resembled a scene out of true crime in which the object became just to shoot your way through a town involving little to ni sniping. Also hiding and blending into the terrain is a bit unrealistic with the provided 1998 style graphics. Overall, I would save my money.

Deep Behind Enemy Lines

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: January 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I looked all over for this game and finaly found it at a local retailer, sorry Amazon, but you didn't have it and the USED price was too high, for me.

Anyway on to the reveiw, this game is as close as your ever gonna get to being behind Enemy lines with no one but you to CYA. Not only do you have to contend with regular troops but you have to deal with snipers, blowing newpapers, rats, dead ends that lead no where.

The wildest thing I've come accross so far in the game is as your leaving the engagement area on one level your way is blocked by a truck with Russian guards. Seems our Rusky Friends don't want anyone to find out what they are doing.

After you've taken out the troops take a few minuites to look around...these guys were loading paintings onto a stolen Nazi truck.

How very very realistic!

Review Page: 1 2 Next 

Actions