Sniper Elite 4: A real sniper needs only three things to succeed in an operation: a trusty rifle, a jar of urine and ointment from pressure sores. And what did you want – the work is dusty, hard and, if we are not talking about games, not at all interesting. Another thing is Sniper Elite, where you can lie on the damp ground, looking out for your target, or you can not lie, arranging chaos around. Of course, Carl Fairburn is not Rico Rodriguez from Just Cause, his hatred is not directed at infrastructure facilities and historical monuments, but he also loves to blow up, especially fascists of all nationalities and ranks. Were you promised stealth about a sniper? Forget it. There are still too many features in Sniper Elite 4 not to use the full benefits of military progress to eliminate the Reich, and too beautiful a picture not to eliminate it brightly.
In addition, the action has moved to one of the most beautiful territories in Europe – Italy, where the climate changes as you move from the south of the country to the north. Along with it, locations change each other: from flourishing urban landscapes to snow-covered alpine military factories, from midday forest edges to night settlements where the Nazis staged a massacre. Everything here is the same as in the previous part: each level is a huge open location with its own surroundings and tasks. How and in what order to perform these tasks, what to do with numerous opponents is up to the player to decide. Sniper Elite again does not load the plot, giving full scope for the realization of your own deviant desires: you have mines, trip wires and other extensive arsenal, which improves by itself when completing various tasks like “Fire N disguised shots.”
Alas, Karl still does not know how to drive vehicles, therefore he uses it only as a four-wheeled explosive, and he moves exclusively on his own two feet. Well, that’s right, each location should be studied measuredly and in detail, since the collectibles are not marked on the map here, and in order to find them all (as well as to make special shots), you have to climb under every bush, penetrate into every house and climb every tower . The average passage of one game episode takes about two hours, and the sum of the episodes, believe me, is quite enough to get stuck in the game for a very long time, and even without using the multiplayer that came with Sniper Elite 4.
Here are just lovers of the plot and complex stories here, as usual, there is no place. A few hand-drawn screensavers and banal dialogues – and here you are again thrown into the occupied territories and left to your own devices. Searching for a scientist who developed guided missiles, or a leader of the resistance, an elusive Angel, working for a mafia that is categorically opposed to Italy swearing allegiance to the Nazi movement is some kind of passing trifle that can be ignored until the very final mission. , where for the first time a full and mandatory splash screen is presented. If you want more plot than gameplay – you have Uncharted 4, but this sniper is clearly not eager to delve into intrigues, he just does his job and kills the Nazis, even if they are Germans or Italians.
No, Sniper Elite 4 is not the perfect game to recommend to all fans of shooters and stealth action games. But Sniper Elite is perfect in its niche, in the category of plotless tactical sandboxes, where the joy of a cunningly executed kill exceeds the joy of completing the operation. I want to stay on every mission and continue to shoot through the eyeballs of the Nazis, blow up the air defense system, cover the few insurgents and mine the roads in anticipation of tank support, and not run as fast as possible to the final.
