Sniper Elite 4
I'd never really paid attention to this series, simply because the title is so uninspired. Fickle, I know - but glad I dived in to this one. It's some good mindless fun and not at all what I was expecting. I'd also always assumed that this was sniping and nothing else - but it's actually a mission based action game, where you happen to have a sniper rifle, but also pistols, MGs and grenades. It's a pretty decent, if slightly dated third person shooter.
Pros
- Quite pretty, but has a slightly dated texture look about it
- Widescreen support
- Big maps with lots of side objectives
- Encourages you to keep moving about because enemies hone in on your location
- When you make an accurate shot, the camera slows down and follows the bullet. It always seems to get a really good angle for the explosion / headshot and makes it look awesome
- Environmental things like gunfire and planes flying overhead encourage you to wait to take shots so the sound is masked. It's a great subtle way to encourage you to slow down and think.
Cons
- No story. Like, at all. You call a radio operator at the start of each mission and she gives you two objectives with zero context
- If you shoot something explosive like a truck or an oil barrel with a suppressed weapon, it would make more sense for the NPCs to be drawn to the explosion, not where the shot came from
- The dialogue swings between non-existent and awful
- Animations and movement are a bit wonky
- Can't climb small houses
- Can't jump
- Corpses don't show up on the map once you kill them, so I don't know which ones are carrying useful information or where they are
- You gain XP and rank up, but the unlocks for this are a total afterthought. Like choosing either "slightly more stamina" or "recover stamina slightly faster"
- All the guns are pretty much the same. All skins are behind a DLC apart from one per weapon for mastery
- No character development or even an introduction. If this were a film, you'd be credited as "Sniper guy #3"