Preview - Sniper Elite 3
I’m a big fan of sniper games. I’ve always admired them and love the more softly-softly-catchy-monkey approach to the genre. I love the thrill of finding a great sniping position and just watching your enemies on patrols, taking them out one by one so as not to alert the others in the area. I love sneaking up behind enemies and taking them out silently with either a knife or a pistol, silenced of course and sneaking on my way. I love trying to confuse the enemy by planting traps or shooting explosive containers or vehicles that not only take out a multitude of bad guys, but also create a distraction. What I don’t like is being forced down a corridor with limited shooting positions and very little in the way of cover or alternative routes. This, unfortunately, was the biggest problem in Sniper Elite II and despite some great set pieces, it felt a little unoriginal after the first mission or two.
But with the new generation of consoles comes a new game, a game which promises to eradicate the issues of old and make your sniping experience a lot more fun. And it is.
Sniper Elite III is still set in the operational fronts of WWII. Instead of the grubby and grey pallet of besieged Europe, we’re in the colourful, almost saturated sands of North Africa. And with the sands come deserts, and with the deserts come sandboxes (you see what I did there…?!). This isn’t an open world game, but it’s certainly better than the previous outing and in every level we’ve played so far, we’ve found multiple entries and exits to help us create the game style we want to play.
I won’t go into too much detail, but each level consists of smaller chunks that you have to work through to get to the main objective. Again, without giving too much away, you’re working for the British government and trying to help secure defensive positions in Africa. We start in Tobruk in Libya, a coastal town that’s under siege by the German mechanical infantry. As a sniper it’s your job to support the allies and take out entrenched German anti-air and artillery positions.
The opening level is a good intro to the game proper. It shows you how to utilise the environment, what weapons you have and familiarises you with your protagonist and his load out. And you’ll also have your trusty binoculars with you. But now you can finally tag your targets, up to eight of them if I recall correctly, and the binoculars will also highlight in red where you can hit an enemy vehicle. Hover over the tagged target and you’ll get more detailed information like rank of officer, what weapon they’re carrying and what their state of being is. This is really useful and helpful when you’re planning an attack across a wide sandbox, which you’ll have to start learning to do early in the game for later. The higher the ranking, the sharper their eyesight, the more they’ll recognise changes in the environment and the harder it will be to hide from them. You’re going to have to be extra sneaky. In addition to this they’ll be more heavily guarded with more than one pair of eyes on them. So slow down, watch the patrols and think about how you’re going to take out the targets.
If you do make a silly mistake or take a shot that doesn’t quite make it, then prepare for a swift shift of positions. The AI is much more intelligent and will start flanking you. Unlike the previous games, this AI will hunt you and will change it’s tactics to either defend or get extremely aggressive and call for more foot soldiers for support. And Rebellion were not shy in telling us that they can have a huge number of AI now in the world hunting for you. So if you’re spotted and you’ve not taken out the majority of the guards, soldiers, baddies; then don’t expect to make it out alive. Unless you have a good escape route.
You see, as I’d imagine would be the case in real life, you can’t just sit and camp taking out your targets (unless you’re sitting miles away with a brilliant scope and a silenced weapon). It won’t be long before the enemy starts to figure out where the shots are coming from. And because you’re in the last world war, weapon technology hasn’t advanced far enough for you to have a proper silencer or a scope that will allow you to take a shot over a very long distance. So choose your path wisely and make sure that you try to relocate after every shot you take. Unless you’ve found a killer spot. Again, mind the pun. But your job is to stay UNDETECTED. Otherwise you’re a pretty useless sniper. Take a shot, set a trap, move on. Repeat. And try to isolate your enemies so you can search their bodies and pick up ammo and other weapons and components for the non-crafting crafting element in the game which we’ll talk about a little bit later. And remember, if you leave bodies lying about in patrol paths, you’re going to alert the enemy. So hide them, or just booby trap them so that if someone does come snooping, it takes them out too. Hopefully by that time you’re long gone and any remaining soldiers will go running over to the distraction leaving you free to roam around.
If you’re roaming make sure you’re looking for ammo, health packs and other items that will help you in the world. Ammo is key, you don’t get much, so make sure you use sparingly and always check for more whenever you can. Also, try to check out different routes and look for sniper nests. It’s sometimes worth not going in straight for the kill, but just observing the patterns before you commit to a strategy. Spent the time to tag and watch. It makes the kill so much better. And if you do find a sniper nest clear it, climb it and look for the chalk symbols which denote a ‘Long shot’, a stupidly long and challenging shot which sees you taking out an enemy over 10 kilometres away. I don’t know if it is a kilometre or 10, either way it’s unrealistic but great fun. It’s so unrealistic in fact that your binoculars have to wait for your in-game iris to focus on the distance buildings because they’re so far! But they’re great fun. Even if I didn’t get my slow-mo kill/bullet cam… Speaking of which, that death cam is back and there are more gruesome shots to be taken. There’s a whole new layer of physics as well as a new physical appearance. You can see the bullet piercing the body with layers of muscle now, as well as arteries and veins now also visible, so you can see EXACTLY what disruption you’ve caused to the fleshy mass of dead human your bullet has left behind.
With the addition of upgrading your weapons too, this game has really changed the way Elite works. No more corridors mean better gameplay. And hiding in shrubs and other undergrowth will help you hide, but won’t make you invisible, which is important. Nonetheless there are little gripes. You can’t, say, hide in water. This I find ridiculous. Not all areas within the sandbox are accessible. Again, frustrating. Although you can climb and jump this time, which was one of the most restricting issues of the last games.
Visually, the game looks stunning. We’ve seen it on PS4 and we’ve been promised it looks just as good on the Xbox One. And good news for your last generation guys too. Apparently, other than a few visual things here and there which are to be expected, Rebellion has promised that the game experience will be the same across all platforms. And we’ve not even discussed multiplayer and co-op modes yet. But I think we’ll leave that for the review…