I am deep in German territory. My target is a Nazi general. "A bullet can change the course of war," says the narrator.
The general leaves a ship and rolls in my direction. His rhythm is steady. Am I taking the hit? No, I'm waiting. He stops at a guard post. Now? Not yet. The general is getting closer and closer to the steeple of the church in which I am hiding. He asks his escort to stay behind, while he relieves himself in an alley.
This is my chance. He's so close, and almost completely still. I aim, place my finger on the trigger and…immediately start drifting to the right.
I refocus my VR tracker, and now I can't aim low enough. Now too left. Now right. As I struggle with the controls, the general calmly walks away and disappears. Mission failed.
Welcome to Snipe Elite VR.
Sniper Elite VR review: miss
The Sniper Elite series has been a mainstay of the military shooting genre since 2005. The series is known for its combination of stealth and long-range shooting, with an iconic kill camera that will sometimes zoom in and show bullet damage to bones and organs in great detail.
Sniper Elite VR is the latest entry in the series, and it's the first step into virtual reality. Gamers don their favorite VR rig (this review was made on PSVR connected to a PS4 Pro) and step into the eyes and shoes of a WWII sniper as he recounts his personal history during the war. The game takes place over 18 missions, spread across war-torn Europe.
There are several control options. Movement can be smooth and untethered, similar to a modern FPS, or you can opt for the standard VR system, point-to-point teleportation, which is particularly useful for those who may be prone to motion sickness. Besides the PlayStation Move controllers, you can also choose to use a DualShock 4. I've played with both and preferred the DualShock, but both options work pretty much the same.
The levels themselves are linear and a mix of stopping points to eliminate enemies and move forward to complete various objectives. In general, the levels are quite short. The tolerance for spending time in VR varies from person to person, so it was probably a wise design decision.
The sniping mechanic is interesting. The controller acts as a stand-in for your weapons. You lift it up to your face to aim down sights and you can press a button on the controller to focus your shot. The litter is surprisingly authentic. Misalignment of your eye with your eyeglass creates eyeglass shadow, large black areas where you can't see anything. I was pleasantly surprised to see this integrated into the game.
The game is presented through the memories of an old man, a partisan who fought in the war many years before. He sits in his peaceful home, watching his family enjoy life, as he recounts his journey.
The narration continues during the missions, and the well-acted voice-over creates a very good atmosphere. The juxtaposition between the peaceful setting of home and the macabre violence of war is poignant and adds weight to both sides of this equation.
Weapons, locations and equipment are all authentic WWII. It's one thing to mow down a squad of Nazis with a trench gun. It's another to pick one up and inspect it, flip it in your hands to see the details. Looking down at your belt to see ammo pouches and grenades, or watching the shell ejected from your shotgun roll across the floor, will serve you even more to immerse yourself in the moment.
The problem is actually playing the game.
The movement works well enough, but the small arenas and narrow hallways feel like something pulled from the original PlayStation era. The shooting ranges from proficient to downright gruesome, which in a sniping-focused game is a terrible thing to get wrong. It's so common to go from enemy after enemy to a stop shot to your gun and refuse to point in a certain direction.
I found myself re-centering my screen frequently, which shatters any hope of immersion, and fighting the controls at the most critical moments.
The stealth system is almost unusable. There are no melee attacks, so even if you sneak up behind someone, your only option is to shoot them. The pistol works as well as the sniper, that is, a lot, but not all the time. Enemies have gauges that fill when they become aware of your presence. They react to gunshots and bodies but seem to have the memory of goldfish. If an enemy stumbles over a body, they will be affected, then quickly spend the rest of their lives.
Many levels use the classic sniper trope of a “very loud noise that happens at regular intervals” to give you a chance to shoot undetected. It's fun for early levels, as you time your shots at planes or anti-aircraft fire, but it's badly overused as a stealth mechanic.
There's also no auto-save system in the game. Most levels have radios that function as checkpoints, but that's another archaic system from a bygone era. These are often spaced too far apart, making gameplay frustrating at times.
Why? Because it doesn't take many hits to kill you in this game. That would be fine, except the enemies are all snipers. It's incredibly frustrating to fight with your gun controls, only to have a Nazi henchman kill you with a pistol, sending you to a painfully long loading screen and forcing you to repeat entire sections of a level. .
Other than the occasional red barrel explosion, there's little to no interactivity with the environment. Levels are lifeless. Walking through a narrow hallway in the woods is like walking through a narrow hallway in a Nazi base, which is like walking through a hallway in an Italian town. Levels have collectibles to find, but they don't add to the experience in any meaningful way.
The visuals aren't exciting. PSVR is pretty limited hardware at this point, so the low resolution and general lack of texture in this build isn't surprising. Authentic uniforms and sets change to various shades of brown, which become nearly indistinguishable from other objects at a distance. Still, that doesn't detract much from the experience, and seeing even low-res explosions up close in VR can be thrilling.
There are some really good elements in this game, where the presentation is immersive and the gameplay works, but those stretches never last. All too often, poor shooting mechanics make dull levels a chore. By the end of the game, I found myself intentionally revealing my presence to enemies, then waiting around the corner to mow them all down with impunity. Everything to get to the end of the level.
Sniper Elite VR - The essentials
Benefits
- Compelling presentation, telling the story
- X-ray kill-cam is horrible
- Notable effort put into authenticity
The inconvenients
- Overall bad gameplay
- Bland and lifeless levels
- Frustrating checkpoint system
Sniper Elite VR isn't a great game. It's fun once in a while, especially in the beginning, before the novelty of exploding a Nazi spleen in VR wears off.
But it's not an experience I can recommend to anyone other than serious fans of the Sniper Elite series, or someone hungry for a PSVR shooter. Even then, any endorsement would come with some major caveats. It's an admirable effort, but this game misses the mark.
[Note: Rebellion provided the copy of Sniper Elite VR used for this review.]
