Summary
Developer – Rebellion, Just Add Water and Coatsink
Publisher – Rebellion
Platforms – PlayStation VR, Steam VR, Oculus Rift, Oculus QuestÂ
Sniper Elite VR, oh how you surprised me. For those of you who do not know, Sniper Elite is a long running third person shooter series based in various theaters of World War 2.
My initial thoughts coming into Sniper Elite VR was it was just gonna be a shooting gallery, but i was mistaken. Sniper Elite VR has been one of the only VR shooters I have played in months that actually has a well paced campaign. The campaign took about 6 hours to complete, and it comes together pretty well. The campaign is a must play, the amount of tension due to the excellent gun handling and reloading creates tense moments if you miss a shot against an enemy sniper and you start to panic to get off another shot.
The difficulty of the game is based on what you prefer, you can play the game where you have no bullet drop and ammo is everywhere, or with bullet drop and very scarce ammo scattered through the maps can add a challenge that’s worth giving a try. In terms of movement, they have included almost every movement system made in VR. Even the grab and flick from Half Life Alyx makes an appearance. On all platforms a variety of controller methods are also included, so all the bases are covered on that front.
When you’re finished the campaign but not sure if it has any replay value left, well that’s the advanced difficulty comes to play, and each different rifle completely changes the feel of the sniping experience. I personally spent hours with the Springfield rifle, with each bullet feeling so incredibly satisfying to bolt into the rifle and shoot away.
Sniper Elite VR isn’t perfect. Some moments of the campaigns featuring a bit of stealth, or close quarters combat suffer compared to the superior sniping gameplay. It does provide a nice change of pace, because without them the campaign wouldn’t feel as unique as it is across it’s 6 levels.
In the end, Sniper Elite VR is a nice shooter and worthy of the series it came from. Maybe we will see a sequel of some sort, because as a first shot, this VR experience has far more ups than downs.
