For a month, this was what’s bringing me back to the desk before I actually do the long zzzzz.  Sniper Elite offers a lengthy single-player game full of nerve-wrecking episodes but still with the oh soooo cool rewarding moments.

Gameplay on my first five tries were difficult, but after I got the controls bagged it became easy to do things, the winning moves, the carnage! :)  It will take around 30-minutes to get used to the controls and starting at the rookie level is a must for a lengthier practice kill.  What I just didn’t like was how the mouse was so quick (sometimes too quick) for comfort.

Graphics was awesome, detailed but not too distracting, focused yet not too boring.

Some game blogs rate it at around 7/10, with good points on the following:

1. Lengthy and challenging single-player campaign with some interesting and challenging missions.
2. Realistic bullet physics make long-range shooting challenging and satisfying.
3. Great sound puts you right in the middle of battle.

And of course the bad points:

1. Some textures and characters are reused throughout the game
2. Hit detection is a bit off sometimes
3. Missions can take a long time to complete, so if you don’t have a lot of patience you’ll likely get bored.

Game plot from www.gamespot.com:  Sniper Elite takes place in 1945, at the close of the war. The game focuses on the conflict between Russia and Germany for control of Berlin. The Russian secret service, known as NKVD, is in town to steal the atomic-bomb technology from the German Army. You have to put a stop to that post haste, because nuclear weapon technology in the hands of Stalin’s forces would surely spell big trouble for just about the entire world. You are an American sniper, trained by the OSS to be the best of the best when it comes to covert operations. Disguised as a German soldier, you have to stop the NKVD at all costs. The single-player campaign is quite lengthy. There are 28 missions in a variety of different (but very similar) war-torn settings. The missions are pretty much what you’d expect from a sniper game. You’ll have to assassinate high-ranking officials, steal secret documents, rescue captured allies, and shoot hundreds of guys in the head. The campaign can easily take 12 hours or more to finish. If you complete all the optional objectives and take the time to set up all your shots rather than just blast away recklessly, this game will easily take up as much time as you’re willing to give it. Therein lies the conundrum with this game. If you play it carefully, a single level can take much more than an hour to complete. The stealth is well done here, and the game does a great job of building up the sense of tension that comes from sneaking around and picking off enemies. After a while, though, that tension fades into tedium, and you’ll eventually just be wishing you could move on already.

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