Sniper Elite is a series that, with the best will in the world, started out as a natural B-game. The original game, released in 2005, was a functional if fairly uninspiring shooter, made notable by its slo-mo camera that gave headshots and other difficult shots a splash of both brain matter and verve. Since then, we’ve seen every Sniper Elite game add something new, making each installment slightly better than the last.
This kind of gradual improvement is something that all of the industry should be doing. How often have we seen games like FIFA (or, as it’s now known, EA Sports FC) or Madden release a yearly installment that throws the baby out with the gameswater? Instead of doing this, Sniper Elite tends to build up to greater and greater levels with each release. Presumably, they will eventually end up with the Platonic ideal of a video game, a towering monolith that is the ne plus ultra of following bullets into Nazi testicles.
