Sniper Elite 4: PS4 Review
Platform: PS4
Released by GDE, Developed by Rebellion Games
Set in 1943, most of Sniper Elite 4 is fairly on target.
Essentially, mixing in Hitman's assassination and the MO of prior Sniper Elite Games, the latest iteration's quite the tense blast of gaming.
A third person tactical shooter, the game's MO is very simple in its campaign front. You're dropped into a map area, have a list of objectives to achieve and need to survive being found and taken out.
Set in Italy, the game follows a familiar route to anyone who's ever been involved in war gaming - fight your way out and do what's necessary to survive.
But equally on a par with this, are the stealth elements of the game.
There's nothing to beat the well planned execution of your target (much like Hitman) and putting this into the war elements of Sniper Elite 4 adds a lot. That said, there's still plenty to revel in when you're discovered and have to fight your way out.
And perhaps in this way, Sniper Elite is more a shooting game, than a tactical and literal reading of its title.
While emptying your lung steadies your gun as you look down the sights at your intended Nazi victim, the steadying thrill of the bullet being fired in its direction and hitting is quite the burst of adrenaline.
However, there are moments when the X Ray execution of your targets feels a little queasy and almost gun pornographic, given how well put together they are.
As the slow mo bullet leaves the chamber and heads on its way, the bullet time elements of the camera and the game work really well. Sound plays a big part in these recreations as well, as the bullet makes sickening noises as it slices through its victim. Equally, as you use the environment around your targets to dispose of them (explosives being detonated, missiles being fired at, trucks exploding), there's a distinct feeling there are many inventive ways to off people.
But perhaps a little once too often, the game revels in its X Ray vision, and ultimately, there are times when it feels like it needs to be turned off (which it can).
Progression and medals are all there for the taking as well, but the game's core ideas about sniping are more down to the user's preference of playing.
Stealth can be used but equally running amok when discovered also works. Though it makes scouring the bodies for bounty a trifle harder as troops swarm around you like flies, searching for you and gradually pin-pointing your last location.
Meanwhile, Sniper Elite's multiplayer is an exercise in patience.
Certainly games where you have to take out the opposition, any move is deadly and any shot can signal your downfall.
Over different maps and scattered through different locations, it's a waiting game to see who'll be chicken first as you take out the opposition.
There's no slow-mo style execution scenes here, but there's plenty of tension and a degree of jubiliation getting it right and taking someone down.
Servers seem to hold up well with the game and certainly the few sessions that were jumped into, there were no issues either from the trash talking or the simply playing the game. Occasionally, the game spawned near where being ignominiously killed, signalling to your rivals where you were, but for the most part, Sniper Elite's online world is certainly worth diving into.
For now, Sniper Elite 4 feels like a fairly disposable, undeniably thrilling and fun shooter - that just happens to have a sniper weapon as an option to achieve your aims.
