Sniper Elite 4 wants you to shoot as many Nazis as possible with a scoped marksman’s rifle

NAZIS are the perfect bad guys — so therefore it’s totally OK to shoot them in the face as often as possible within the context of a World War II game.

IF there’s one thing popular culture can agree on, it’s that old-school Nazis are the perfect bad guys — so therefore it’s totally OK to shoot them in the face as often as possible within the context of a World War II game.

This trend started way back with Wolfenstein 3D in 1992 (well, it was 3D at the time) and has continued merrily to the present day, with Sniper Elite 4 being the latest member of the club.

Developed by Rebellion Software for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the game puts you in the combat boots of Allied forces Office of Strategic Services agent Karl Fairburne during the Italian Campaign in 1943. Your mission: Disrupt the enemy war effort by any means available, notably by shooting as many Nazis as possible with a scoped marksman’s rifle. And, as always: Kill Hitler.

Numerous American, German, British, Russian and Italian rifles, submachine guns and handguns abound in Sniper Elite 4, ranging from the usually encountered fare to unusual firearms which excite military historians and cause everyone else to reach for noise-cancelling headphones and their iPad.

Shooting an enemy from with the scoped rifle triggers an impressive slow-motion bullet-camera, following the projectile from your rifle’s muzzle all the way to its target, with a detailed X-ray effect showing exactly what’s happening to your hapless foe as the bullet hits them. It’s really very graphic and as such, it’s considered in poor taste to ask the nearest person for a crisp high-five afterwards. Fortunately for those who find the gory kill-cam excessive, it can also be disabled completely.

For a game which revels in encouraging you to happily wander around Italy liberally invoking Rule .303 on any passing Nazis and/or Fascists you find, there’s a surprisingly human touch to it as well.

The glory kills are extremely graphic.

Tagging an enemy with your binoculars sometimes brings up small bits of information about them, including their name and interests or hobbies (including “likes American jazz music”, “used to work in a department store”, and “carving a wooden flute in their spare time”.)

Sometimes you will find letters on the bodies of people you’ve ventilated, talking about their families, asking for heirlooms, or making mundane comments about life in occupied Italy.

One of things I really liked about Sniper Elite 4 was that it was a stealth game which was happy to facilitate you eliminating your enemies rather forcing you to avoid them. Entirely too many games in the genre give you an exciting arsenal of weapons and then penalise you for actually using them, but Sniper Elite 4 gives the player the option to play how they want.

Do you want to be a ghost, silently eliminating only your key targets? Go right ahead. Do you want to go loud, fully embracing the WWII-era equivalent concept of “Boom! Headshot!” as trucks, fuel dumps and ammunition caches explode all over the place? Step right up!

There are several difficulty levels too — at the lowest, it’s “put your crosshairs over the target and pull the trigger”, but at the more advanced levels things like bullet drop over distance have to be taken into account as well.

As entertaining as starring in your own personal World War II movie is, Sniper Elite 4 does start to get a little repetitive after a while. The novelty of finding a vantage point a long way from your target, waiting for something to mask the gunshot sound, then shooting bad guys, reloading and repeating will soon wear off, and the levels are huge.

On one hand, the huge and varied levels look very nice and provide for an interesting array of environments, but on the other, it felt like some of the missions were starting to drag on and outstay their welcome.

The enemy AI isn’t the sharpest bayonet in the armoury either, more or less making a beeline for your last known position — making ambushes and the like very easy to set up.

Besides the “shoot people” aspect of the game, there are also additional elements in Sniper Elite 4’s missions, including recovering intelligence, helping local resistance fighters, destroying a prototype aircraft, and so on.

There is a wider story in the game but it’s nothing inspiring; I’d pretty much forgotten what it was before the end of the second mission and was focusing on the “blow up ammunition dumps” and “be a sniper” stuff too much to really care about the overarching big picture.

Fans of the series will be happy to know that yes, once again you get the chance to succeed where Claus von Stauffenberg failed and assassinate Adolf Hitler.

One of the DLC missions is Target: Fuhrer — available free for anyone who preordered the game, and as paid DLC for those coming in after release — which dispatches the player to a giant U-boat pen on the Italian coast where Der Fuhrer is touring the facilities and picking up slack, at least until you sneak in and assassinate him.

Despite its drawbacks, Sniper Elite 4 is an entertaining game that gives the player plenty to do as well as offering some poignant moments among the flying projectiles and exploding crates.

If you want to experience World War II at a more sedate pace or enjoy your gameplay with more of a precision focus, then it’s well worth setting your crosshairs on Sniper Elite 4.