|
|
|
THE SNIPER 2 (PS2)
|
Publisher: Midas Interactive.
Developer: Best Media. Released: 2002. Genre: Shoot 'em up. Posted 19th August 2012. By Tom Clare © 2012 |
You know trouble’s brewing when a publisher notes on its game’s blurb that one of the selling points is that it’s ‘unintentionally hilarious’, but that’s exactly what Midas went with when marketing the marvellously awful shooting bore-fest that is The Sniper 2. Granted, the dreadful, pantomime cut-scenes will likely raise a chuckle, but as a gaming experience, there’s precious little to smile about.
The Sniper 2 is a rare beast in the sense that its graphics, sound, longevity, narrative and presentation are all unremittingly awful. Generally there’s something to be said for consistency, but The Sniper 2 achieves an all-encompassing degree of ineptitude across every facet that you could care to grade it on, meaning it’s hard to know what to make of the gaming car-crash that ensues.
The story is a mess, but here’s what I discovered. You play as Harry, a troubled sniper, as he travels with curious lady-friend C.A., whose defining characteristics include mysterious, virus-dodging genes and the small matter of apparently harbouring the memories and psyche of Harry’s dead ex-girlfriend. As you do. They meet Stanley who, despite his effervescence, is quickly reduced to an entirely unflattering sidekick archetype, and Abby, femme fatale and kind of how Lara Croft would have turned out, had she traded in her mansion for a burger shack. Cue random kidnappings, shady disappearances and a potentially-deadly virus in the wrong hands and… you get the picture. In between the worst cut-scenes ever committed to media (crammed full of Comic Sans and no facial movement from the heinously-animated characters), you’ll do some sniping.
|
|
Most missions leave you with one or two bullets. They usually miss.
Gameplay is very simple; each mission sees the sniper perched on a ledge of some description, allowing for a limited amount of movement via the D-Pad, before picking your target and shooting through a scoped lens. The problem is, The Sniper 2 is a real one trick pony, with said trick being a really, really bad one. Harry claims at one stage that ‘sniping is the only skill I have’, but in truth, he’s not really any good at that either.
It boils down to this: The Sniper 2 doesn’t do sniping at all well. Aiming the sights proves a bit cumbersome but essentially alright, but after squeezing the trigger, you learn a whole bunch of bad things. Most evidently, that bullets take a very, very long time to reach their target, sometimes a couple of seconds. When shots do land, it’s as likely to register a ‘miss’ even the bullet has just passed straight through the line your would-be victim is occupying. Thus you’re forced to aim way in front of most moving targets, meaning the game feels utterly unintuitive to play, whilst moron A.I. muddy things further with their absurd, serpentine walking patterns. And if you miss with the couple of bullets Harry is typically given? Game Over, restart. Again and again.
There’s a catalogue of other faults. The music goes for something between elevator music and daytime cop-show, and needless to say is extremely tacky. Not only is the voicing laughably extravagant, but the sound recording as a whole is completely amateurish, as if actors have stepped away from the mic in order to appear quieter, which just goes to show the localisation of the game was dealt with in just as tardy a fashion as the original Japanese edition. With astonishingly bad texture mapping and the kind of bulging, muscles-on-muscles character models last seen during the early days of the original PlayStation.
It boils down to this: The Sniper 2 doesn’t do sniping at all well. Aiming the sights proves a bit cumbersome but essentially alright, but after squeezing the trigger, you learn a whole bunch of bad things. Most evidently, that bullets take a very, very long time to reach their target, sometimes a couple of seconds. When shots do land, it’s as likely to register a ‘miss’ even the bullet has just passed straight through the line your would-be victim is occupying. Thus you’re forced to aim way in front of most moving targets, meaning the game feels utterly unintuitive to play, whilst moron A.I. muddy things further with their absurd, serpentine walking patterns. And if you miss with the couple of bullets Harry is typically given? Game Over, restart. Again and again.
There’s a catalogue of other faults. The music goes for something between elevator music and daytime cop-show, and needless to say is extremely tacky. Not only is the voicing laughably extravagant, but the sound recording as a whole is completely amateurish, as if actors have stepped away from the mic in order to appear quieter, which just goes to show the localisation of the game was dealt with in just as tardy a fashion as the original Japanese edition. With astonishingly bad texture mapping and the kind of bulging, muscles-on-muscles character models last seen during the early days of the original PlayStation.
|
|
The Sniper 2 has just a dozen quick-fire stages to contend with, typically lasting between thirty seconds and a minute and a half each. Within the confines of the gameplay, there’s at least a modicum of variety to be found in the mission objectives (shooting a car’s tyres, taking out a hazardous briefcase as its being transferred, and disabling a group of security cameras), but all told, even if you aren’t an ace shot, the game can be polished off in an hour. For the masochists, there’s a few extra levels to tackle should you achieve A+ ranks, though with the physics as they are and the game’s reluctance to recognise accurate shooting, it would likely drive you half-mad trying. Complete the game, and you’ll unlock a few ‘kill everything’ scenarios which are ironically better than the main story missions (it’s strictly relative, though) as there isn’t a limit on bullets and usually plenty more targets.
In the end though, it’s a woeful effort from Best Media. There’s no direction or cohesion to the storyline or the gameplay, and the graphics are positively Jurassic by PS2 standards. Even if it had been worth playing, there’s nowhere near enough content to justify even a budget release price-tag. With such a poor game engine and dodgy, wayward collision parameters, it could never possibly have succeeded, and the shooting is shockingly low quality. Midas may take the ‘so bad it’s good’ line, but shelling out on The Sniper 2 will mean the joke is on you.
In the end though, it’s a woeful effort from Best Media. There’s no direction or cohesion to the storyline or the gameplay, and the graphics are positively Jurassic by PS2 standards. Even if it had been worth playing, there’s nowhere near enough content to justify even a budget release price-tag. With such a poor game engine and dodgy, wayward collision parameters, it could never possibly have succeeded, and the shooting is shockingly low quality. Midas may take the ‘so bad it’s good’ line, but shelling out on The Sniper 2 will mean the joke is on you.
|
VERDICT
Visual: 2/10
Audio: 1/10 Gameplay: 1/10 Longevity: 2/10 OVERALL: 1/10 |