Sniper Elite V2 Remastered

2012 was the year when the Avengers first assembled, Gotye sang about Somebody That I Used to Know, and we were spared an apocalyptic hellscape when the Mayan calendar turned out to be wrong. 2012 was also the year that gave us Sniper Elite V2, a game that I initially dismissed. I figured that since sniping was my least favorite part of most shooters and the World War II setting was so played out, it stood to reason that I wouldn't have much fun with the Rebellion sequel. Boy was I wrong, because I ended up loving both Sniper Elite 3 and 4. They not only taught me how to be a better sniper, but also that I shouldn't be so quick to write-off a game. Now Sniper Elite V2 Remastered is here to give recent converts like me a chance to experience Karl Fairburne's earlier missions. But as cathartic as it is to shoot down Nazis, there's no question that this game feels like a big step backwards.

It's the final days of World War II, but there's no time to celebrate, because Karl Fairburne has a job to do. He's sent to Berlin in an effort to track down and kill the key individuals involved with the development the V2 ballistic missile. But things get complicated as Karl runs out of leads and realizes that he's the only American in the region and stuck in the middle between the Nazis and the Russians. It's going to take a lot of luck (and a whole bunch of shooting people in the head) to get out of this one alive.

Sniper Elite V2 is split into about a dozen large stages where we're dropped into a location and asked to survive. A lot of the action takes place in the bomb out city, where you'll have to infiltrate a museum, church, factory and more. You'll need to sneak past soldiers and tanks in an effort to research the intel and snipe targets without being noticed. If the game is good at anything, it's making you feel like you're the only guy left and the rest of the world is against you.

It's important to remember that this is not a run 'n gun action game, at least in theory. You run around and snap to cover like a Gears of War sequel, but you won't stand a chance if you rush in with a machine gun. The goal is to sneak your way into situations where you can rely almost entirely on the sniper rifle, only switching to your handgun when needed.

As somebody who has always been a little iffy on sniping, this is the kind of thing that should frustrate me. But much like the more recent Sniper Elite games, Rebellion has done a good job of getting me into the long-range combat. It's a testament to how easy to gameplay is that I looked forward to not only sniping enemies from afar, but also close up. The sniper rifle is alarmingly effective in surprise scuffles, and I really appreciate that this franchise doesn't try to be a strict simulator. This is a developer who has always understood that balance, and the gunplay is as fun as ever in this remastered port.

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Speaking of which, the stages look great on the new hardware. Sniper Elite V2 Remastered features all of the original missions, along with the infamous "Assassinate the Fuhrer" downloadable content. This new edition also offers a photo mode and a whole bunch of different playable characters, including seven characters from the Zombie Army series. And let's not forget about the addition to the multiplayer and co-op modes, which promises 16 player action and a nice variety of competitive goals.

All that is well and good, but I have to admit that I came away from Sniper Elite V2 Remastered a bit disappointed. For as satisfying as the gameplay is, it's the miserable level designs that ultimately let this game down. Part of the problem is that we spend a little too much time in the bombed-out city and in dark and gloomy indoor sections. The levels start to blur together after a while, which was never a problem in the two most recent Sniper Elite games. They would send you into wildly different settings where every level felt completely different. Here it feels like every level is just a way to get us bogged down in similar looking corridor fights.

And that's the other major problem with Sniper Elite V2 -- it often feels more like a broken third-person shooter than a game about sniping. One of the reasons why I enjoyed Sniper Elite 3 and 4 so much is because they allowed me to play around in these large, open levels. I could hunt my prey, and if I accidentally missed a shot and gave away my location, I could easily evade detection and go to a completely different part of the level. And it wasn't just the open environments, but also the verticality of these games. These are stages that I still remember years later.

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But I can't say the same thing about Sniper Elite V2. The levels aren't designed for me to hunt my prey; they are mostly linear and straight-forward. Don't get me wrong, there are usually multiple paths to take, but they always seem to play out the same way. The lackluster designs lead to linear stages where all the enemies are bottled up in one location and there's only one way to go. The game feels confined, and it's not just because a large portion of the action takes place in narrow corridors. The game is at its worst every time it tries to be a run 'n gun shooters, and there's far too much of that in Sniper Elite V2.

The question I kept asking myself is whether or not I would have been won over by this game back in 2012. I suspect the answer is no. Most of the things I ended up loving about the franchise are absent in this game, and in their place are samey environments with frustrating run 'n gun sections. The game nails the sniping elements, but the disappointing level designs made me feel like I was trapped in a maze. The fun of being a sniper is hunting down the bad guys and finding different vantage points, and none of that is on display in Sniper Elite V2 Remastered. It's more interested in boring corridor fights.