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Another sniper game? Well, Konami seems to be intent on making this series nothing more than a cash cow, and that is fine. Konami did it to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and after four years nobody gave a crap about the series, so they have some experience in this sort of thing. Now, in the third installment, you really can't do much more except try to make the game more interesting, and try to keep the game as varied as possible. To a certain level, Konami has done that, and we admire that. This game has more variety than the first and is more challenging than the second, but it still isn't the best of the series. Why? No innovation, of course.
The story is just like the first two. Be mr. sniper and shoot down terrorists and avoid the innocents, which is wildly easy anyways, so only an amateur can mess up there. The terrorists seem to have that same driven idea of trying to wreak havoc, so you might as well ignore the plot as best as you can. Just aim and shoot. I would like to have a story following the main character, but you can't get everything. Why is that?
The graphics aren't much different from the first two. They have a little more detail and there isn't too much pop-up. Hit detection is remarkably smooth, and that has always been a strong suit of this series. There may be a few questionable hits that you may get, but that only means that you get the points. A glitch that might help you. Who knew?
Moving the gun is very easy to do and it doesn't take too much effort to do. It isn't too loose, and it isn't too tight, so you will have that balance, but it might get you thrown off just a little bit, so beware. There is also some issues with the missions that don't have you really shooting from a long ways away. There are some really uneven sniper aspects there, like out of control balance in a few areas that shouldn't be much of an issue.
There is no sound, really. The voice-overs are really cheap and the music is practically non-existent because of the loud noise your sniper rifle will be constantly making.
The overall gameplay structure does beat out the first two, but a lot of that comes from some really inspired levels, like taking out terrorists who are trying to hijack a plane. No need for imagination. It almost sounds like the way you would imagine it. The two games you get to play will hold your interest for a long weekend, so you might as well get your ya-yas out of this game because chances are you won't be playing this game ever again unless you are a huge fan of this series. -- Chris Vavra, PGNx Media
---- Oct 9, 2002
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