By Craig Pearson on February 23rd, 2012 at 3:40 pm.
If Sniper Elite V2′s Killcam of the Week is a thing now, then I’m all for it. Simple, effective delivery of bullets to the brain over distance has always been my favourite thing in games, even better when we get to join the bullet on their journey, to share the excitement of their life’s ambition of making a skull’s acquaintance. Rebellion’s WW2 sniper sim puts you in the pants of a an OSS agent, hunting his targets through the Battle of Berlin. Historically inaccurate video, below.
I hope the X-Ray effect isn’t just an affectation for the videos, but everything we’ve seen of it shows the innards of the targets leering for the camera in similar garish fashion.
Worth celebrating, that one! Trying to pin down a release date is proving difficult: Rebellion are self-publishing the PC version, but it’ll not be out at the same time as the console’s August 11th release. Just sometime after.
23/02/2012 at 15:49 jimjames says:
Does it annoy anyone else that the cross hair is floating above the man’s head when he shoots?
23/02/2012 at 15:50 jimjames says:
I mean… you could reasonably argue he’s compensating for bullet drop but it just doesn’t feel right dammit.
23/02/2012 at 15:52 Gundato says:
Can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not.
Bullet drop (sometimes exaggerated, sometimes not) has basically become standard in FPSs these days, and the Sniper Elite games are all about making a “real” sniping experience.
And I actually liked the “There is the target, let’s elevate a bit to compensate” moment at the start.
23/02/2012 at 15:57 jimjames says:
I know I know, thats a fair comment… yes. But it kind of looked like that ‘sniper drift’ too, so I didn’t get that he was purposefully aiming upwards. I think what it needed was an inner monologue saying ‘I’m going to shoot this man through the head, but first I will aim upwards slightly to compensate for gravity, perhaps about 9mm’.
23/02/2012 at 16:04 portchd says:
I’ve fired similiar guns to the M1 with the Cadets, you do have to Compensate for some bullet drop, but that seems inaccurate (it is a video game), and also I can’t help but notice that the shot seems to go through the enemy’s scope…
23/02/2012 at 16:05 NullMad says:
Yup, that’s some elite sniping. No range adjusting. No wind compensation. And much more importantly, elite sniper standing on a ledge somewhere in the open where any grunt from street level can strafe him with his PPSh or an MP40. Sigh. Guess I’ll stick with ARMA sniping for now.
23/02/2012 at 16:15 Chris Kramer says:
Bullet drop compensation at 90m? Hehehe :)
23/02/2012 at 16:17 NullMad says:
Heh actually that too. Wouldn’t the rifle come sighted at at least 100m, and maybe more? He’d have to aim down to hit the head.
23/02/2012 at 16:23 Aggressor says:
That’s what nags me as well. The proper correction when aiming at a target above you is to aim at a spot that is lower than the target itself.
23/02/2012 at 16:30 jimjames says:
If the animator/s who made this is/are reading, I’m sorry. I think it looks lovely all the same.
23/02/2012 at 16:37 BrightCandle says:
Depending on the gun that should either be aimed lower than the target point or about centre. But a lot of guns in WW2 came with simple sight adjustments, even the M4 carbine and other short range weapons came with it. A sniper rifle scope certainly did. So why is it he hasn’t already adjusted his scope for the 90m range of his shot and only adjusted manually for the hold off adjustment for wind? Infact I see no hold off for wind at all, despite a sizeable adjustment (considering the range) for gravity.
This is meant to be a game about sniping right? Right? So why not get the most basic of details about sniping right in a game focussed on it. The first one was bad for this as well, modern rifles without adjustment and here they are doing it again.
23/02/2012 at 17:47 PJMendes says:
I hope they account for the Coriolis effect in this too.
23/02/2012 at 17:57 Synesthesia says:
this.
A 90m shot does not need height compensation. Some sights during that era could be dialed.
I’m guessing this series is more for the cod “snipers” and the ones who always hog the sniper cap in tf2 while not doing anything at all. Goddamn microwave vasili zaitsevs.
24/02/2012 at 02:59 2late2die says:
I’m sorry, did I end up on rockpapersniper.com?*
Guys, relax it’s a video game. :)
* I’m totally registering, trademarking and copyrighting that right now!
23/02/2012 at 15:49 Unaco says:
I was disappointed there wasn’t any of that ‘double step’ music that seems to be so popular these days. I thought the article title was implying there would be.
23/02/2012 at 16:00 tomeoftom says:
Same! Also, I just noticed the bullet is going up the poor guy’s scope and into his eye. This game is high art.
23/02/2012 at 16:02 zergrush says:
To the rescue:
http://tubedubber.com/#Fsk3yk0S_vE:iHW1ho8L7V8:0:100:0:0:1
23/02/2012 at 16:05 westyfield says:
Well played, sir.
23/02/2012 at 17:52 DrGonzo says:
Since when was a ‘drop’ exclusive to two step? It’s in most excitable genres of music.
23/02/2012 at 18:04 grundus says:
I heard that ‘whoosh’ from here, though it was admittedly quite a bad play on words in the first place.
I have Sniper Elite, I got it in a sale a while ago for the price of two litres of petrol (at today’s ludicrous prices), but I haven’t felt compelled to play it because sniping in Arma II is so much fun. As is sniping in Ghost Recon (hitscan though it is), and sniping in BF3 is also fun. Sniping is generally fun, in fact, just as long as the game you’re playing hasn’t made it possible for you to get a headshot by doing a 360 spin in the air and/or tapping the aim down scope button before you shoot or whatever, sniping is fun.
23/02/2012 at 23:10 Tams80 says:
@ zergrush
That fit just too well.
23/02/2012 at 16:03 John Mirra says:
Is that auto-aim when he ‘emerges’ from the cover?
Also, I think it’s too large bullet drop for 86.9m.
23/02/2012 at 16:14 baconismidog says:
Exactly what I was thinking about the distance and not needing to aim high. A sniper rifle that’s that low at <100m is pretty poorly ranged, indicating that the weapon is set to be on at about 30m. If anything, he should have had to aim at the dude's neck to hit his scope like that.
Assuming a high-power low(ish) grain round in a caliber made for accuracy at disatnce (7mm, .270mag, .308): A bullet set to be on bull at 200m will actually be slightly high at say 100m, on from about 175-225 and low therafter. This isn't a perfect curve though, and as the bullet looses momentum it'll slow faster.
I likes the guns, what?
23/02/2012 at 16:04 Fadobo says:
This is a factual representation of German snipers during the WWII era, who are known to be usually standing up clearly visible on rooftops, exposing as much of their body to enemy fire as possible. Science!
23/02/2012 at 16:12 Faldrath says:
I know it’s a bit unfair to single out this game since so many more do similar things, but after watching the video this Calvin & Hobbes strip immediately came to my mind: http://www.derraik.org/images/C&H/C&H%20-%20violence%20TV.gif
23/02/2012 at 17:54 DrGonzo says:
I presume that comic strip was written by some sort of psychopath then. Because violence in mainstream media doesn’t do any of those things to me :)
23/02/2012 at 18:06 HothMonster says:
IDK Gonzo. I’m pretty sure the natural human reaction to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufss5ot_vGE should be OMG thats horrible, mine is “awesome.” I doubt I was born broken (at least in this regard)
23/02/2012 at 16:16 Malleus says:
LOL … how to make a sniper game cooler? We already have heads exploding in slow motion (via killcam). … Got it! Let’s have heads exploding in slow motion in friggin x-ray view! Ahahah … video games these days … they just crack me up. :)
23/02/2012 at 16:45 spongthe1st says:
It’s cool and everything, I like that they’re representing bone and organs, and even though they’ve clearly got it wrong in this case – bullet drop, wind and all that shiz.
But, in a game that is supposedly striving for greater realism why do we have the Holly wood through-the-scope-headshot?
There’s only one recorded instance of this occurring in the history of modern warfare and even that isn’t completely watertight.
The guy who supposedly achieved it said it was a complete fluke and guessed afterwards that both he and the other guy were spot-on targeting each other at the same moment – he suggested that had he been a millisecond slower on the trigger the same thing would have happened to him instead.
24/02/2012 at 01:28 wodin says:
I’ve read reports of it happening in WW1 aswell.
24/02/2012 at 09:43 Obliter8 says:
I doubt it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1U8YVWyMYY
23/02/2012 at 16:55 SirKicksalot says:
If they made a sequel to Sniper Elite, then there’s still hope for a Rogue Trooper sequel!
(not to be confused with Rogue Warrior)
23/02/2012 at 18:49 sinister agent says:
(Not to be confused with Rogue Traders).
23/02/2012 at 23:12 FRIENDLYUNIT says:
OMG yes!!
I was just thinking about that game last night and that I should inflict it on a few friends as a steam gift.
23/02/2012 at 18:52 Shooop says:
The x-ray gimmick looks cheap and dumb. Did everyone forget how well Solider of Fortune 2 handled virtual gunshot wounds?
23/02/2012 at 19:11 sinister agent says:
I too would like to register a strong dislike of the x-ray thing. It was cringeworthy when Romeo Must Die did it a decade ago. It’s bordering on an atrocity now.
23/02/2012 at 19:57 SirKicksalot says:
I thought it was awesome in the newest Mortal Kombat.
23/02/2012 at 21:53 equatorian says:
As far as WWII goes, though, I hope it also has an archery mod so you can pretend to be Jack Churchill.
24/02/2012 at 02:47 Shooop says:
Most people (99% of them Americans) would complain about it being too implausible. Which would be hilarious for those of us who know he really did fight Germans with a long bow.
24/02/2012 at 06:22 Bweahns says:
I was also immediately perturbed by seeing the guy aim above the dudes head. Almost all rifles are sighted in at 100m-200m in war time (obviously tailored to whatever the sniper wants in this case). Meaning at that range you aim where you want to fire, above that range you aim high and below it you aim low.
I also sighed seeing him aim from an opening in the building with his gun poking over the edge, surely even the most inept sniper knows to hang back in the building in the shadows and not expose his rifle or any part of his body out the side of a building.
It’s annoying because this game claims to be a sniper game where you would want really authentic sighting and ballistics.
24/02/2012 at 16:32 Lucid says:
I just can’t get myself excited for this because of Rebellion’s recent track record of garbage.