Sniper Elite V2 (2012 Video Game) User Reviews

I am happy to say V2 builds on the highlights of its predecessor with the addition of a new 'X-Ray Kill Cam'

[LloydBayer · 8/10 · 15 February 2014]

Ask any army general and you will be told that a well placed sniper is the army's deadliest weapon, capable of changing the direction of the war at the cost of just a few accurately fired shots. Relating that viewpoint to the world of digital gaming, ask any avid FPS (first person shooter) gamer and they will tell you that a sniper rifle is THE Holy Grail. Easier said than done; A real sniper will tell you that it's not as simple as aligning the cross-hair of a rifle scope on a target's head and expecting 100% accuracy with every shot. Back in 2005, developers Rebellion and Ubisoft proved just that and broke new ground in the way gamers handled a high powered sniper rifle. Using real world physics, Sniper Elite on PlayStation 2 revolutionized FPS gaming by making the gamer calculate where the bullet will hit, before squeezing down on the trigger.

On starting up the game, I was expecting Sniper Elite V2 to be the highly anticipated sequel, with V2 indicating part 2. However, it turns out that this game is more of an altered re-make of the 2005 version, but developed for the PS3/Xbox 360 graphics engines. The single player campaign and built-in story takes us back to the last days of World War II, or specifically, "The Battle of Berlin". American OSS officer Karl Fairburne is inserted into Berlin to track and eliminate Nazi scientists assigned to the V2 Rocket Program – Germany's last ditch attempt at winning the war by using long range ballistic missiles aimed at allied targets within Europe.

Gameplay

Having played the original game and loved its very realistic sniping mechanism, I am happy to say V2 builds on the highlights of its predecessor with the addition of a new 'X-Ray Kill Cam' mechanism. Bringing back two of the original game's selling points – Bullet Cam and Ballistics Trajectory, the X-Ray Kill Cam adds that much more eye-candy in rewarding the player with a perfectly timed kill shot. Let me explain; Call it an FPS gamer's wet dream, Bullet Cam tracks the path of a bullet from the moment it exits the rifle's muzzle till it enters the enemy's body and the blood splatter it creates on impact, all in spectacular slow motion. X-Ray Kill Cam does all this with exceptional detail, and then some. Not only do you see the bullet spin during its flight path, you get to see the gory details as it enters the body and pierce vital organs or shatter skull and bones before it makes a bloody and gaping exit wound. Now imagine two enemy soldiers patrolling an area, or marching in formation where one soldier is a few meters directly behind the other. Line up your rifle, fire, and watch what one bullet does to two enemies. Phenomenal!

Now all this is really sweet with the game's difficulty levels set low. But if you are up for a real challenge, try playing the game with increased difficulty levels that benefit from real world physics, including the Bullet Trajectory mechanism. For an accurate hit, the player now has to compensate for 'bullet drop' or the downward gravitational pull on a bullet, while also gauging for wind strength and direction, and the shooter's heart and breathing rate. In other words, a steadily poised shot is near impossible if the shooter has a BPM (blood pressure monitor) over 60 counts.

Conclusion

If you prefer running and gunning, the Call of Duty franchise is always a superior option. But like a real sniper, if you like the thrill of a hunt equipped with skills of stealth, patience and a calculating mind, nothing currently out there beats the game mechanics of Sniper Elite V2. Combining third-person perspective for movement and first person perspective when sniping, this game offers the best of both modes. Although the choice of firearms are limited to only three rifles, each varying in muzzle velocity, scope magnification, clip capacity and rate of fire, the player can also choose between one of three sub-machine guns for close quarter combat or when caught up in a sticky situation. There is also the single action Welrod, a suppressed pistol for silent kills along with the much louder grenades for snuffing out multiple enemies.

On the negative side, I found enemy AI to be inconsistent. For instance, enemy snipers will fire at you from almost half a kilometer away but sometimes they will be oblivious to your shooter even as close as 100 meters away. Perhaps this was because I first played the game with the easiest settings. Having turned up the difficulty a couple of notches, I found enemy soldiers will go to the extent of flushing you out of your vantage point once they are alerted of your intrusion. Then again, there is always the option of covering your tracks with strategically placed booby traps comprising of trip-wires, land mines and sticks of dynamite…KABOOM!

a good game.

[merem1 · 7/10 · 15 May 2022]

If you're a fan of the Sniper Elite games. This is definitely a fun ride. A fun game that delivers enough to satisfy. The missions are interesting, the way you have to think about how to attack the enemies. The main character is cool. The X Ray Killcam is awesome when enemies are killed with the Sniper Rifle. There is plenty to enjoy in this. The game is not amazing, but it's pretty good.

Mostly an improvement

[TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews · 8/10 · 27 May 2014]

Take on the role of Karl Fairburne(Clarke Hill, determined), an OSS agent in the ruins of Berlin and the cities around it, out to stop the Soviets from getting the V2 rockets. To that end, you will escort/kill officers and the like and steal/retrieve documents. Battles between the two sides rage in the distance, sometimes all around you, dogfights in the skies, when it's rainy rather than sunny, above you. You will be the first soldier of The Cold War, and no one will know what you did. Because that's what we want to struggle for…?

Yes, this is the same plot, still thin and bland, although it is more focused. This is indeed a remake, doing some things better, others worse, and, overall, not changing all that much, outside of aesthetics. Certainly the graphics are much, much better, no longer merely OK for the time, but impressive several years later. Ignoring the occasional block with one texture that distracts and stands out, the atmosphere is good. Smoke, fire, debris, loose bricks that may drop, etc. The setting is less monotone, every area memorable, a handful of them based on real life ones. Storytelling is limited, with decent cutscenes and narration.

This is easier, with regenerating health and checkpoints(no longer encouraged to limit when you save). It maintains the sniping mechanics, such as ballistics, having to take in wind strength and direction, as well as bullet drop. You can blow up explosives(including on the belts of enemies) and destroy vehicles via the fuel cap(thus you don't have to pick up a Panzerfaust, which wouldn't fit) kill several by the projectile passing through them in a row, having timed it just right. There are many solid vantage points, albeit co-op typically offers only one, giving the other person nothing to do, unless there are attackers to hold off that approach from behind or the like. It also doesn't show more than the one guy in the videos, making me postulate that he's suffering from MPD. Completing a level in either of these modes unlocks it for the other. It does only take 6 and a half hours to beat, compared to the 14 of the predecessor.

With your buddy, you can also go scavenging for repair parts for your vehicle in Bombing Run, whilst fighting off patrols. Kill Tally, also in the other two types of gaming here, have you go for the largest count of foes taken out as increasing waves approach. And finally, Overwatch has one guy as agent/spotter, the other a bit away, ready to shoot when both agree it is a good time for it – this is the stealthiest it gets when faced with the often very bad, sometimes reasonable AI. In the campaign, you can go at it like Rambo. These others do offer more challenge. The binoculars let you tag those you fight and places in the environment, for increased communication and coordination. And the former lets you track the target, and if you haven't run until out of breath, you can Empty Lung(that won't last more than a few seconds), it may give you a guide. A small red box that shrinks as you line up the best shot, albeit it is awkwardly not at the center of the crosshairs.

The multiplayer, with its 14 levels(at least with DLC, which, outside of the one where you kill Hitler, which is meh, is worth it) allows you, and everyone else(!) to do nearly anything SP does. You choose the servers yourself, and they can be customized by the many options(most of them in effect outside of MP): headshots only, show players killer, wind strength, aim assist, bullet drop, scope glint(reveals them to those looking towards them), having to zoom out in order to reload, and do so for every bullet, sudden death, bullet trails(these can be "followed" right back to who shot!), one shot kills and No Cross(no getting past the midpoint of the map). Outside of the dynamic CTF, this does end up with the most skilled dominating the others, since everyone has a rifle. It's all TDM and Deathmatch, with slightly altered rules for how you have to earn points. Distance King: the further the shot. Dog Tag Harvest: collect, well, yeah. The original, which unfortunately doesn't support online/LAN anymore, had Assassination: one team out for killing a target, the other team out to protect him, similar to in Assassin's Creed.

You can carry three weapons, the other two being SMG and pistol. Then there are items. All of this can be chosen right before you start playing. You have land mines and dynamite(to be placed where you stand) and tripwire(drag manually!). When you throw, you get a trajectory approximation, letting you choose exactly where to, and you can put it away or move whenever you want. The three you can toss: two types of grenades and rocks, the latter to attract attention. Stealth can also be applied by masking the sound of shooting – artillery fire, a machine, etc. And this now has a visual indicator, so prepare, wait, then pull the trigger. Too often this does force you to reveal yourself and engage in the average-at-best third-person-shooting.

You still don't have much of a training ground, and learning it all in the heat of battle is frustrating. Movement is smoother, and you can now vault/climb. You get stuck where you shouldn't, and the same button picks up the empty-ish gun of the dead body as searching it, without even having one be done by holding it down. If you're seen by one, everyone knows where you are. Except for maybe the next bit, where they will somehow have missed all the loud, chaotic combat. When seen, there is an indicator: from where, how suspicious, and whether they may attack.

There is a lot of bloody, disturbing, gory, brutal violence, in this, particularly in the X-Ray kill-cam. I recommend this to fans of sniping. 8/10

One of the best games ever!!

[JBTV1991 · 10/10 · 13 September 2022]

Perched atop the bombed out husk of a building, I scan the razor wire fence line and nearby rubble far below for movement through the scope of my M1903 Springfield. Taking aim at a pair of Nazis chatting amidst the din of distant gunfire, I hold my breath, line-up my shot, and pull the trigger. The bullet spins through the air, hanging just for a second in the light, before it erupts through my target's eyeball in slow-motion and sprays blood, brains, and shattered cranium out the backside of his head -- all in gruesome X-Ray vision that provides a sickly intimate view of the grisly noggin slurry as it makes its grand exit.

By the time my victim's body crumples to the ground and his comrade draws his gun, another bullet rockets out of my chamber. Only instead of connecting with meat and bone, this one falls slightly short of its mark, entirely by accident, and hits a live grenade attached to his belt. A lucky shot. One that sends body parts flying in a ball of flame. Amazing. It's incredible moments like this that show off Sniper Elite V2's real magic, elevating the act of pumping bullets into foes into an art form.

Taking place at the end of the second World War, this third-person shooter puts you once again in the battle-hardened shoes of US sniper Karl Faireborne as you venture deep behind enemy lines into Berlin. Your mission is to take down or co-opt key scientific personnel to cripple the German V2 rocket program before crucial intel falls into the hands of the Russians. But to be honest, I care precious little about the specifics of why and who once I slink through a stage and find a good vantage point to start popping off shots. The raw essence of what it is to be a sniper is captured here marvelously, and it's this focus that keeps the setting and gameplay from falling into familiar WWII shooter genre ruts.

V2's lengthy campaign delivers a satisfying trek through a well-designed medley of war-torn cityscapes ripe with tactical opportunities for assassination and covert sneakery. Setting charges to blow up bridges, rescuing prisoners, igniting armored tanks from afar, and sabotaging your foes round out a rotating array of objectives that bolster the more straightforward assassination-focused missions. There are still a decent number of all-out firefights that have you hustling on-foot and frantically spraying SMG fire into soldiers charging at you, but relying too heavily on such tactics gets you killed more often that not. This is a sniping game after all, and I appreciate that the fact you're toting a high caliber scoped rifle isn't merely an afterthought.

You're just one dude against heavily armed forces. Getting caught out in the open with your pants down can be disastrous, since it only takes a few blasts of enemy gunfire to wipe you out. The same goes for being surprised by your foes in close-quarters. Limited ammo reserves, limited health, and the sluggish lag time when changing weapons all but ensures speedy death for the unwary. In any other shooter these would be faults, but they're a perfectly appropriate fit in V2. You're a specialist trained for stealth and long-distance precision, not an infantry grunt. As such, sneaking up to choke enemies from behind, using your silenced pistol for close range headshots, and masking the sound of your gunfire by timing it to coincide with loud background noises, and dragging dead bodies around to use as bait are all smart tactics at your disposal when you're not busting skulls open from afar. However, pitching caution out the window at times can be fun too, and V2's new checkpoint system and automatic health regeneration makes experimenting with risky moves less punishing than the original.

In sharp contrast to the vulnerability you experience battling on the ground and in the open, V2 makes you feel like a death-dealing God every time you look down the barrel of the sniper scope. Fatal shots to the head, heart, lungs, groin produce spectacular and graphic death sequences that follow your bullet's trajectory from different camera angles as it zips across the battlefield in slow motion towards your target. When it finally connects, the awesome X-Ray kill-cam shows the brutal effects your bullet unleashes on your foe's internal organs and bone structure. It's gruesome to be sure, but V2 dishes out the most satisfying sniping I've ever encountered in a game.

The realistic shot physics are a cool touch, and they can be toggled up or down to affect the challenge level dramatically. Shots get trickier to make as you add in other factors to deal with, like wind speed, gravity, distance, and the shakiness from breathing, and it feels even more rewarding to land them accurately this way. Regardless of your settings, if your shots are poorly aimed and hit non-vital areas, it takes several bullets to fell your foe. At times, the aggressive AI can make it very tough to line up proper aim when you're under intense fire, and it gets a lot more overwhelming further along in the game and on higher difficulty settings. Yet at other moments foes occasionally stand around and let themselves be slaughtered. Fortunately, the challenge is often a brisk one, and that's mostly a good thing.

Sniping with a pal co-operatively through the main campaign is an enjoyable way to play, since you can revive one another and trade off spotting duties, though V2 has several other multiplayer options worth scoping out too. Battling waves of enemies in the survival-style Kill Tally is standard fare, while Bombing Run changes things up a bit by tasking you with recovering parts to rebuild your escape vehicle before the whole area is blown to bits. However, Overwatch is where multiplayer really gets cool. This mode has one player handle sniping duties from a distant perch while the other runs around at ground-level calling out enemy locations and pushing forward to reach checkpoints. These missions require careful collaborative teamwork, and they're a ton of fun.

Verdict V2's gratuitous X-Ray kill-cam adds a macabre elegance to every perfectly-timed shot you make that gives your careful handiwork an appealing artistic flair. While the ground combat and close-up encounters aren't as tight as you'd expect from a common shooter, the sniper gameplay is front-and-center here, and it's delivered with top-notch class and authenticity. Even if you think you've had your fill of the WWII genre, this ballsy tactical shooter could definitely change your mind, and blow other peoples' wide open.

While it has it's good sides, the bad mostly outweigths the good and there is so much better games to spent you money at.

[sygtnok · 5/10 · 3 January 2015]

A average, maybe even decent game and with the little amount of sniper games available, it might be worth it. But for me, the bad definitely outweighed the good and I often got tired of it or dropped it for a while out of frustration, not at least with the terrible autosave system. If you buy it cheap on sale (personally I got it for free in a short promotion offer on steam), it isn't a waste, but the money could be used so much better and for an older (and short) game it is quite expensive.

The good:

• Quite good sniper mechanics including wind and bullet drop (meaning that you often have to fire a bit over and to the left of the target to hit it, which is realistic). - Kill cam shows you the bullet penetrating your target in x-ray. - You can hit grenades in enemy belts and make them explode. - Graphics are quite good.

The bad: - The third person looks provide you with a hell of a camera angle, often meaning that you can't see an enemy if he's right in front of you and you are standing close to a wall. - No real training possibilities meaning you need to practice shooting on the go. This is a problem in a sniper games as it means that you will newer really master how to hit a far away target precisely where you want to, that is, to calibrate the wind and bullet drop. At least not until you are almost finished with the game anyway. - The autosave is very bad and means some place that you might need to play through half an hour of combat again if you die. Also, to me it seems like some places, the enemies kept coming closer and closer every time I restarted at checkpoint giving me very little time to react and therefore dying a lot of times. - There is a general lack of genuine good sniping positions. Most positions are of the kind where you would be dead in five minutes in real life. In real life, a good sniping position is NOT sitting behind a small box in the middle of the road, but a place where you can fire without being spotted and then move to another good sniping position before you fire again. This is more or less impossible in this game. - While stealth is a possibility, most parts of the game more or less enforce you to chose between rambo or rambo-ligth approaches. A real sniper doesn't stand in one position blasting down 15 enemy soldiers firing in on him or assaulting a compound with a submachine gun killing off 50 soldiers. - There should be a more realistic game mode whit less help for when you want a challenge. In this you should be able to set off your own landmines and trip-mines if you don't pay attention to where you put them and there shouldn't be bullet lines to help you spot where people are shooting at you from. - The plot is bad and extremely right-wing USA coldwar hawkish. You fight to liberate nazi war criminals as long at they will help the USA build weapons or kill them if they want to do the same for the USSR. You don't assist in winning the war, on the contrary you actually delays the advance of the Red Army thereby prolonging the war and the suffering of both soldiers and civilians in the war zone or living in areas still under nazi control. Actually, you even kills lots of allied soldiers of the red army. - There are a few bucks in the game, but when they happen, they are major. Like a wagon full of German soldiers not moving at all while I stand right next to it killing them one by one. - There is no real aiming with other weapons than the sniper riffle, no real use of iron-sight but instead a cross point with a large spread of bullets, even at very close range .... like 1 meter. - The game is too split up in "zones". Meaning that you can't really lure most enemies away from the small area they start in. It would be cool if you could fire at them, luring them to follow you into a building which you had filled with traps offering you a more realistic way of taking out a lot of enemies and making landmines and the like much much more practical usable in this game.

Also, the game is quite short, which can be both a good and a bad thing in my opinion.