2.5/5 ★ – RetroRanger's review of Sniper Elite 3.

I love sniper rifles both in video games and in real life. When I do play games that have guns, the sniper rifle is my top choice every time, and I play the role of the sniper in my friend group whenever I get the chance. I'm also a huge fan of the stealth-action genre in all entertainment mediums, and most of my favorite games have stealth mechanics in them. Sniper Elite 3 is a stealth-action sniping game, and as such, was supposed to be my introduction to a series that should have become a new favorite for me. Instead, I found myself barely wanting to complete Sniper Elite 3, and nervous about its sequels. || This review contains minor spoilers || Sniper Elite 3 holds up really well visually despite taking place in North African deserts and coming out in 2014. I was genuinely impressed by the environments, and the character models and animations seem great for the time. The voice acting, cutscenes, and audio - both sound design and music - are all average here, the cutscenes being especially awkward and lazy, but all are serviceable for a game that's really only about shooting people and being a "rugged lone soldier guy." What's not serviceable is the story. Story moments in this game range from laughably over-serious to completely ridiculous and cartoonish. At one point the game wants you to feel emotionally invested in a character's death who had no buildup, no story moments connecting him with the main character, and a death scene so poorly executed that it was laughable instead of emotional. During the last mission of the game, the antagonist gives a cringe-worthy "you and I are the same" speech, and then the main character has a cartoon superhero moment with a perfectly timed explosion. These are awful inconsistencies and are genuinely embarrassing. There were some moments in the story and cutscenes where the main character was meant to come off as this seasoned and gritty Solid Snake type, but the moments continuously felt like parodies of what was actually trying to be portrayed. I understand that Sniper Elite 3 isn't trying to tell a dramatic, heartfelt story, but the issue is that despite not trying to do so, the developers still tried to do so. It's a real problem in these games that are just trying to give story reasons for what the character is doing, but not trying to tell a deep story at the same time. The issue is that instead of committing to that idea, many developers end up trying to have deep or emotional story moments in a story that, by their own design, isn't meant to be deep or emotional. The result usually has players laughing at death scenes or cringing at moments that are supposed to be serious or epic. Sniper Elite 3 and similar games are really just glorified arcade games, having one main gameplay mechanic taking place across levels, and having short intro and outro cutscenes for each level just to add some context. These are how arcade games work, and this is how Sniper Elite 3 works, and similar games, like Aragami 2, also work. Most leveled games end up working or at least feeling this way, and that's completely fine when developers commit to the design. Sometimes it's more than fine and creates one of the best genres in gaming--roguelikes and roguelites. For stories and narratives in these arcade-like games, developers need to either commit to the philosophy of simple context narratives - a story that just gives context for each level - or actually develop a deep and compelling story. Most developers land somewhere in between these two design philosophies, and the results hurt the overall experience of the games. In conclusion, Sniper Elite 3 would have been a more enjoyable game without the embarrassing and awkward attempts at compelling and emotionally moving players within the framework of an intentionally simple and shallowly designed story. Sniper Elite 3 is a game about shooting people, the developers got confused about what that meant for the story and narrative, but the actual shooting was mostly enjoyable. Like a lot of these half-baked co-op arcade-style games, I did have a good time with my buddy. Everything is more fun in co-op, especially with special friends who make every experience better. That's my experience every time I play with this particular friend, and even Sniper Elite 3 wasn't an exception. In terms of general gameplay, everything was fine. Stealth works how it should, though not without its frustrations. There were a surprising amount of tools and weapons to experiment with and I genuinely enjoyed setting traps for enemies and vehicles. The staple of the Sniper Elite series, the slow-motion x-ray shots, was really fun to watch, and the gun handling/mechanics were satisfying to try and master. Hitting shots without breathing in and having the reticle appear felt especially cool. As always, working together with a friend to sneak through areas and take out enemies together without being spotted is great fun and rewarding even in bad games. All of these elements made Sniper Elite 3 at least a decent "arcadey" time with a buddy. Still, there were some huge missteps with the game design, so much so that I would have felt fine to abandon this game and move on to try the next one. Unfortunately, the worst part of the gameplay in Sniper Elite 3 was one of its most interesting and unique features. That feature is using loud noises to mask sniper rifle shots, effectively silencing the bullets. There are no silencers available in this game, which seems like an absurd design choice for a stealth sniping game, but this does add to the challenge and creates the opportunity for the noise masking mechanic. This is a smart and satisfying mechanic in theory, and sometimes in practice, but it's poorly executed in Sniper Elite 3 due to the amount of waiting players have to endure simply to get one shot off. Generators, which can be found and rigged in some of the levels to cause consistent masking noises, are the exception to this issue, but they aren't in every level. Players have to use the sound of warplanes flying overhead to mask their shots in the absence of generators. Again, this sounds like a smart and interesting mechanic, but both the timing and location of the masking effect from the planes are really inconsistent. This became very tedious and increasingly frustrating as my buddy and I tried to play the game how it wanted us to. Time after time we would wait for planes for several minutes, just for our enemy to duck out of sight right when they flew overhead. We inevitably stopped caring about stealth and just started blasting, which was admittedly pretty fun, but felt like the wrong way to play the game and was at least somewhat unsatisfying. Playing this way created more issues, however, and one that seriously baffled me. The game only gives checkpoints when players have completely hidden from the enemies and relocated. Relocating is a mechanic in the game that requires players to literally relocate after they have been spotted, meaning they have to run from one spot to another before enemies stop searching. Another feature that sounds smart and interesting in theory, but ended up being tedious and annoying in practice. Not getting checkpoints unless being completely hidden meant that going on a level-long guns-a-blazin' run will send players all the way back to the beginning of the level when upon death, even if players complete mission objectives, and even watch cutscenes! The message this sends, besides that the developers really enjoyed implementing unfun game mechanics, is that the game was really meant to be played one way, which was stealthily. That's the way I wanted to play the game, but the tedium of waiting for noise-masked shots and the absence of at least some form of silencer for the sniper didn't make it worth it. These issues are on top of some really unfun game design choices, like not being able to relocate while sprinting even if enemies can't see you, tanks and vehicles taking multiple hits from RPGs, and above-ground enemies being able to hear you jogging in an underground bunker--just to name a few nitpicks. Flaws aside, Sniper Elite 3 is at least arcade-fun. The sniping mechanics and the tools and traps are all rewarding to experiment with in co-op. The slow-mo x-ray feature would be worth the playthrough if there weren't sequels that improved upon it. And, although I am nervous about the quality of the sequels, these issues are easy fixes. Silenced bullets or more noisemakers would take away nearly all of my frustrations with the game design. A rework of the "relocate" mechanic is also in order, as it really adds to the tedium in this game. Lastly, these games need a story that prides itself in its simplicity and implausibility, or a story that is given proper development and thought. Sniper Elite 3 is a 2.5/5, or 6/10. Played in: 2023 Played on: PC Playtime: 8 Hours Status: Beaten.