In many ways, Sniper Elite VR is my dream game. There is nothing that I want more in a game that mixes virtual reality with the grusome nazi killing of the Sniper Elite games. While I was a bit worried about the transition from traditional 3rd person shooter to VR first person shooter, I was incredibly pleased with what I got a chance to play at this year’s E3.
Even when playing on the Playstation VR, I never felt the controls hindered my ability to blow the heads off of some nazi scumbags. By the time it came for me to put the headset down, I was eager to try the game out on my PC, but that will have to wait.
The demo itself was relatively short, just long enough to give me a taste of the final product. I started out at the bottom of a staircase that led up to an overlooking bridge, below me was a bombed street filled to the brim with nazi soldiers. I had a sniper rifle in my hand and where there is a rifle, there is a way – so I made my way up the bridge and took up position.
I was given the option to either play the game sitting down or standing up. Sitting down is perfect for people who are not used to playing VR games, you can be more relaxed, pressing a button to crouch rather than physically crouching down to avoid bullets.
You also can choose between teleportation movement and normal movement. Teleportation movement is there to help people who get motion sickness while in VR. As a veteran of VR gaming, I chose to stand and use normal movement and within seconds I was fully immersed in the game.
Every shot was satisfying, and even though you are playing in VR, they still managed to get the gory X-Ray shots into the game in a way that does not feel strange or off-putting.
When I finished my first run of the demo on a normal difficulty, the Just Add Water dev who was with me told me that I had enough time to either try to do a challenge run for a higher score, or try out a harder difficulty. I opted to try a harder difficulty, and boy, it was indeed much harder.
Still, as I made my way through the demo, blowing away nazis (mostly by shooting them in the left eye for some reason) I could not help but love every moment. Just as my run was coming to an end, the developer leaned in and said, “You know we still have testacle shots, right?”.
I had one final nazi to dispatch and, in an attempt to impress the developer, I lined up my shot, breathed in, and was shot dead before I could pull the trigger. Not the most satisfying conclusion to my career as a VR sniper, but none-the-less a fitting end for my hubris. Sniper Elite VR is awesome and I hope more games will follow in its footsteps.
Sniper Elite VR is coming to Windows PC (for Oculus, Steam VR, and Vive) and PlayStation 4 (for PlayStation 4).
