Sniper Elite 4 - Review
I must say I was really excited to get my hands on Sniper
Elite 4 as I have played the last 3 and thoroughly enjoyed them. The main part
has always been the X-Ray cam, the ability to see you destroy a Nazi spleen
from 386 meters away was always a joyous experience.
In this installment of Sniper Elite the x-ray cam has
remained and somewhat improved. The sounds made when your bullet penetrates
your enemy’s helmet is somewhat therapeutic, and if this happened to be missing
from this game then I don’t think it would be as exciting.
When you begin the first mission and land in the occupied
town with your rifle in hand it’s really evident that a different strategy was
required from the previous games. Playing on the hardest setting it’s essential
that you channel your inner sniper and use the cover to the best of your
ability. The staples have remained so using your binoculars to scope out the
patrolmen and work out tactically how you eliminate them without causing too
much noise or commotion. The beauty of this game is that it takes all the parts
that you enjoy doing in a fully fledged first person shooter and rolls it up
into this. SE4 won’t give you an edge in playing a FPS, but it will help you
hone your skills. The team at Rebellion always do well at making you feel like
a professional sniper. The ease of this game, even when you remove all the
assistants still makes it incredibly enjoyable.
Rather than just channeling you through a narrative with
dramatic long range kills, the game has shifted to more of an open, larger map
style game. This allows you to use the space in a more effective way. Scoping
out the enemies with your binoculars has always the way to identify where
everyone is before calculating a plan of attack. And with the added space comes
more and more cover and also vantage points.
With the added space comes smarter A.I. Enemies naturally
react to the finding of a dead body so it becomes important that when you take
out these Nazi henchmen that you hide the bodies. Using your inventory effectively
to wire the dead bodies with explosives, load up door ways with trip wired
mines and choosing your ammunition wisely has been a skill that eluded me until
this game. To complete these missions in the best way I found that setting
myself up with these tools in my arsenal properly lead to better success and
less running and gunning.
The graphics in Sniper Elite 4 have definitely improved over
the years. Do they give other games out there a run for their money? I’m not
sure if they do, but the X-Ray cam has remained as detailed as ever and what
the team at Rebellion have sacrificed in polishing graphics, they have made up
with bigger and better maps.
All in all I will never get sick of WWII shooters, and will
always continue to play Sniper Elite. There’s always something satisfying about
these games that keeps me interested.
Braden Coad
