Sniper Elite VR

It’s tough being a VR enthusiast with only access to a PSVR. For the last two years or so, we haven’t seen a ton of games being released for the system, with the vast majority being smaller games made by indies, usually hampered by the limitations imposed by the PS4’s aging hardware. But if there was a game I was looking forward to, hoping it would never get cancelled, that game was Sniper Elite VR. Ever since hearing from my colleage, Jordan Hawes, after his E3 2019 preview of the game...

Sniper Elite VR is an absolutely fantastic transformation of the flat-screen game, trimming the fat to just the parts that’ll be fun in virtual reality. Translating the sniper rifle into a VR medium makes the game immersive in a way we’ve not seen capitalized in many games to date. This one should be in your library, if you can handle the gore, and the occasional braindead AI.

What makes a fictional story exceed its scope and become something more? It’s the same quality that makes a video game rise above its kin. Verisimilitude. The ring of truth. Or, if you prefer, authenticity. Or better yet, feeling real. Sniper Elite VR has that vibe. And because of it, this single player game pulls you in. This is no small feat. Especially since the game does not impress out of the gate.

Rebellion’s no stranger to virtual reality. Having remade Atari's classic Battlezone as a PSVR launch title and publishing Arca's Path two years later, it’s teamed up with Just Add Water for Sniper Elite VR. While PlayStation owners haven’t lacked for Sniper Elite entries — we’ve previously seen III, 4, V2 Remastered, and the Zombie Army spin-offs — this VR-exclusive entry is a series first, dropping third-person shooter mechanics for a first-person approach to better fit. Thankfully, Sniper Elite loses nothing in this transition.

Had the game been released a couple of years ago, in identical form, it would've been flippantly dismissed as 'just another WWII game', but in the current climate Sniper Elite V2 seems like a breath of fresh air.

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While there's plenty of problems with it, Sniper Elite VR has enough decent moments to make slogging through the bad stuff worth it, but only just.

Sniper Elite takes its first foray into virtual reality with Sniper Elite VR, but it stumbles on the most crucial steps.

Ultimately, Sniper Elite VR is what it is. If you want to snipe enemies across a range of scenarios, all the while carrying out the actions required to reload a bolt-action rifle between shots, you’ll no doubt get some enjoyment out of it. It’s not particularly impressive visually, however, and beyond the additional arm-work required the dispatch the enemies you’re up against, the gameplay is rather basic. Throw in the additional fiddliness associated with VR, and the fact that the series’ kill-cam doesn’t quite gel with the format, and you have a game that’s fun to delve in and out of as a cu...

Sniper Elite V2 is a satisfying shooting gallery, though it often does a lackluster job maintaining the illusion.

Though initially promising, the mechanics of Sniper Elite begin to fall apart once the dual controller setup for Oculus comes into play. This could certainly be remedied in the future through the introduction of a proper gun peripheral, but as of now, we're stuck firing blanks.