Sniper Elite V2 is set just after World War 2, 1945 at the Battle of Berlin and pits you the mission to stop the Germans firing off the V2 rockets, you play as American Karl Fairburne, just as you do in the first game as this is a remake of the first game but with a different mission, in this mission, you must capture German scientists who are apart of a plan, created by the Americans.
The game begins with an introduction video to what has happened at the end of World War 2, why the Battle of Berlin is happening and what your main objective is, stop the V2 rockets being fired and capture the scientists, during Sniper Elite, you take on not only the Germans but also the Russians as well, as the Americans are not the only country with plans for the scientists and also the rockets. Sniper Elite is a sandbox game, you get given an objective, you complete it and move on to the next objective, fighting your way through different war torn parts of Germany to complete each mission.
The gameplay of Sniper Elite is very tactical based as you find out in the first mission as you get a tutorial as to what buttons do what within the game but these buttons will be pretty familiar to anyone who has played a shooter before, RT is fire and LT is aim, the 2 main buttons you will need but another main button you will need is RB, pressing this while aiming will basically slow down time as you hold your breath and make that perfect shot, depending on what difficultly you have it on as well, will depend if a little marker will appear showing you where the bullet will land but there is nothing sweeter than getting a headshot from 150m out, this does appear after every shot you make at a long distance, shows you how far the shot was and if it was a headshot or a vital hit but why do that, when you can follow the bullet? The best feature in this game for me is the bullet cam, you make that perfect shot, you can follow the bullet and see exactly where it enters and what damage you have done to the enemy. You could anything from puncture their lung to bullet straight to their heart and for those looking for a challenge and also achievement hunters among you, put a bullet directly in the eye socket earns you an awesome kill and also some gamerscore, everybody wins.
Sniper Elite is not all as straight forward as aim the scope at the enemy, lining up the crosshair and firing, Sniper Elite has realistic ballistics which means that you have to take wind, gravity, height and breathing into effect, this means when you need to time a shot perfectly, you must line it up perfectly or else you will alert the surronding guards and have to face a lot more enemies. Stealth is a must in this game, you cannot just go gung ho into every mission because you will draw out every German/Russian within the area and instead of taking on 1-2 enemies, it turns into 10-15 enemies and sees you having to hide and pick your shots perfectly or you will get gunned down, you will come across tanks as well but these can be taken down with one bullet but again, its just timing that shot before you get taken down by tank fire or sniper fire. As you are not the only sniper around in Germany and if you do alert the guards, best to keep your eyes open as you will see the glimmer from their scope and then they will fire at you, which shows that stealth is definately your best friend within this game and this is helped as you are equipped with a silenced pistol in the form of a Welrod and an unlimited supply of rocks which allow you to distract and divert enemies to either slip in the back door or to lure them to a quiet spot and kill them, a negative here is that you do not ever have a knife on you so you need to be dead accurate with your aiming from the Welrod or you will be in trouble. You will require some patience to play Sniper Elite as it can be trial and error at some places, think you have made it only to be gunned down is frustrating but next time, you know whats coming and can prepare this time
Sniper Elite has a few collectables within it which would mean, having to go back through the levels as on my playthrough, I didnt see many of the collectable items, these are gold bars and bottles but the bottles you will need to shoot, which is more of a challenge as finding them is one thing but shooting them while trying not to attract the guards is another challenge altogether. Multiplayer is left to be desired as well, there is a multiplayer option but its only to play the story with another player, which would be fun if you can get on with one of your mates and talk tactics but kinda awkward with a random player, especially when they have no communication.
There is a demo of this game which features one of the missions from the game so if you like what you have read but not sure if you should buy the game, the demo is free to download from the Xbox Live Marketplace
Overall, I would give Sniper Elite a 8/10 it has a great story to it but the gameplay is just a tad to tactical and maybe a few more multiplayer options would of helped out the game but other than that, a very good game and would recommend it to anyone who loves sniping in any game.