The missions aren't particularly satisfying, either. After awhile, though, that tension fades into tedium and you'll eventually just be wishing you could move on already. The stealth is well done here, and the game does a great job of building up the sense of tension that comes from sneaking around and picking off enemies. If you play it carefully, a single level can take well more than an hour to complete. Therein lies the conundrum with this game. If you complete all the optional objectives and take the time to set up all your shots rather than just blast away recklessly, this game will easily take up as much time as you're willing to give it. The campaign can easily take 12 hours or more to finish. You'll have to assassinate high-ranking officials, steal secret documents, rescue captured allies, and shoot hundreds of guys in the head. The missions are pretty much what you'd expect from a sniper game. There are 28 missions in a variety of different (but very similar) war-torn settings. The single-player campaign is quite lengthy. Disguised as a German soldier, you have to stop the NKVD at all costs. You are an American sniper, trained by the OSS to be the best of the best when it comes to covert operations. You have to put a stop to that posthaste, because nuclear weapon technology in the hands of Stalin's forces would surely spell big trouble for just about the entire world. The Russian secret service, known as NKVD, is in town to steal the atomic bomb technology from the German Army. The game focuses on the conflict between Russia and Germany for control of Berlin. Sniper Elite takes place in 1945, at the close of the war.

Sniper Elite is another World War II shooter, except you're a sniper instead of just an average soldier. That said, Sniper Elite does require a lot of patience, but dedicated marksmen will get a lot of satisfaction from the lengthy and challenging campaign. As the title implies, this is a game about being a sniper, and it requires a more methodical approach than simply popping a hot one in anyone wearing the wrong color of uniform.

To its credit, Sniper Elite takes a different approach to the concept of storming beaches and mowing down Nazis. Not to be left out, Namco has stepped up to bring us Sniper Elite, a third-person shooter set during the greatest war the world has ever known. With recent games like Call of Duty II and (another) Brothers in Arms, game publishers seem bent on letting us know that World War II is the only war worth fighting. Last year Vietnam gave World War II a run for its money as the most prevalent war in video games.

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