I want to start with two things. First I have not played the first three games in this series but I wanted to give them a shot because second I love a good stealth game, and I have been looking for a really good one for a while, and it seemed like sneaking around was an integral part of this title.
The Basics
You are a sniper in taking on the Nazi’s in Italy during World War II. You’ll be given a main objective and several side quests as you journey across eight levels. Every time you enter a level you can choose to complete your tasks in any order and way you desire. You have a couple of guns in your arsenal of course but the overall pool of weapons in the end was surprisingly limited.
In addition to firearms you also have a the standard rocks to throw and tanks to explode to help you take out your foes. Sniper Elite 4 does allow you to try and stay sneaky using these things however by using them to set up straps for your enemies. You can plant explosives on vehicles and bodies, or shoot out strategic items at the right time and such, but sadly it just wasn’t very satisfying for me when I did it.
I think that’s because with a title like Sniper Elite 4 what I wanted was to just be sneaky and shoot. Trouble is it seems it is almost impossible to use your sniper rifle on a regular basis in this game without alerting everyone to your position. Now there are noises that happen that you can use to hide the sound of your rifle, but honestly timing with that does not work like it should, and the combination of it not working and the need to wait when you are already waiting for the right time to take the shot is not enjoyable at all.
That brings me to the number of different difficulties available; you can go from an easy cadet all the way up to the masochistic “authentic”. I call it that because on authentic you need to worry about wind speed, the direction it’s blowing, scope drift and more, to be honest after playing for a while and then reading what happens on that setting, I didn’t even try that out.
On the Plus Side
- Realistic x-ray kill animations are interesting
- Big levels with multiple ways to deal with enemies
The Negatives
- Timing with sound cover can get irritating
- Limited weapon variety
- Story was meh
Maps are big, there is a lot of stuff to do, but the AI is weird and for a sniping game I did not use my sniper rifle very much. Honestly, this is one of the few titles that I have not actually finished… I had more fun sniping enemies in the Far Cry games than I did in this one.