Sniper Elite V2 Free Today Only (June 4, 2014)

For today only, the game Sniper Elite V2 is free on Steam.  This is not a free weekend deal, the game itself is free to buy, and you can play it forever.  Just sign into your Steam account, add the game to your library and you are free to enjoy it whenever you want in the future.

The metacritic score doesn’t seem to appealing at just 66 points.  The main issues with the game seem to be a mediocre system for any weapon other than the sniper rifle and the AI isn’t the brightest.  However, for a free game, I thought I’d give it a shot.

Impressions
Since the game became free, I’ve sunk about 2 hours into the game and have gotten a taste of the campaign, the challenge mode and the online multiplayer.  I don’t think many of the reviews do the game justice because it has a slick visual style, a unique approach to the WWII genre and decent enough multiplayer.

The game itself is set near the end of World War 2.  The main character undergoes a series of missions that involve a bit of stealth.  The game is similar to any other modern first person shooter, but with a heavy emphasis on the sniper rifle; quite a different approach from the rest.  Though you have the option of using sub-machine guns and pistols, the game is clearly designed for the sniper rifle.  You can probably get away with using the pistol and sub-machine guns once in a while, but do expect to snipe quite often.  If that isn’t your cup of tea, this isn’t going to be your game.

The real fun part of the game is the visual style.  With V3 coming out soon, the graphics on V2 do look a little dated.  But it makes up for it with a distinct style.  Vital shots and headshots will run the scene in bullet time and let you see the damage done.  If the shot was particularly toxic, you can watch it smash through someone’s skull or pierce through their heart.  Each successful shot will also prompt a little notification, letting you know the distance the shot was made and the points you’ve scored.  It’s a cheap way to get my ego up, but I have to say it’s absolutely awesome to see those kinds of effects.

The multiplayer seems reasonably good too.  The load times are incredibly fast, so this is a great game to jump in to play 5 minutes during a break or something.  It does get a bit slow if you play team deathmatch, seems like everyone is camping in a corner (for good reason), but capture the flag is quite a bit faster.  I wouldn’t expect too many servers to be up a few days after this free promo ends though.

Overall, this is a great little game.  I’m sure it isn’t the most replayable game, but for free, who can complain.  There’s still plenty of laughs left to be had, and I’m sure I’ll be booting this up once in a while.