Rebellion, 505 Games
It’s been roughly seven years since the original Sniper Elite hit store shelves, and since then fans have been patiently awaiting more. Well, its official ‘reboot’ isn’t quite here yet, but you can finally get yourself a little sample of it. The official demo for Sniper Elite V2 is available now on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. It features just one small mission to give you a taste of the full game, but there’s nothing that’s stopping you from playing it to your heart’s content. There’s no restrictions on difficulty either, so you can choose the easy difficulty if you just want to fly through and see what there is or dare to take on the sniper elite difficulty which requires you to account for bullet drop and wind while maintaining a low heart rate. You even have the option of putting together a custom difficulty level should you choose.
Immediately after loading the demo up, there’s no mistake to what you’re playing. The main menu itself is fairly interesting and stands out from other games. It’s a freeze frame of a close-quarters fight between our protagonist and a couple German soldiers. It’s very scenic, and sets the over-anxious, exciting mood you’re going to be feeling throughout most of the game. After you select your difficulty, you launch right into the middle of the game. It may be the same old familiar face of Karl Fairburne you’re controlling and the same old familiar Battle of Berlin setting you’re used to crawling around, however this game is anything but the old familiar original game it draws heavy inspiration from. Things have changed and it’s for the better.
The first thing that stands out is the graphic. The game has gotten one heck of a facelift. The newly rendered environments are breathtaking and very detail oriented. Beautiful textures and plenty of unique items are present. Instead of bland, empty environments, there are little samplings of life around every corner. From fireplaces to communication radios, it’s obvious that the team’s first priority was detail and precision.
This precision shines through while playing Sniper Elite V2. Obviously there’s the constant calculation for environmental effects, however that’s nothing new. What’s shocking is the how precisely the environments were created. There is one portion of the game where a floor has fallen through in a building. Some of the floorboards are lying against a wall near a window. What’s so astounding is that you could shoot in between the two boards, indicating that the hit boxes on even the smallest items were very carefully hand crafted.
Although the weapons and equipment didn't receive an upgrade, the shooting certainly has. The most exciting new feature is the x-ray camera. Occasionally, when you manage to land the perfect headshot, the camera goes into a slow-mo and shows, in graphic detail, the bullet's trajectory as it passes through the enemy. It's exhilarating and used so sparingly it never becomes annoying. The majority of the slow-mo just shows a close-up while the bullet is passing through the enemy, but doesn't actually use the x-ray vision and show bones shattering and organs exploding.
While waiting for the demo below, you may notice the usual "the final product may be different from this demo" disclaimer, but if there's one thing we can hope for, it's that the disclaimer isn't a sign that the final product will change. As of right now, this re-imagination seems to be everything that a fan could wish for in a follow-up to Sniper Elite. Sniper Elite V2 is a perfect blend of the old and the new, and certainly looks like it will be one of the premier shooters this year. Unfortunately, though, this is the only part of it that you can get your hands on until the game officially releases on May 1, 2012.
Anthony Ortale writes news and reviews on behalf of Examiner.com. He does so much gaming in his spare time, it’s practically a full time job! If you like what you read here, please subscribe to his articles! You can also follow Tony on Twitter, or become a fan on Facebook! If you ever have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to email Tony any time at ortale.anthony@gmail.com, he would love to hear from you
