Put me in an arms depot, and I will make a beeline for one weapon; The sniper rifle. It surely is my weapon of choice. The GTA series, Call of Duty, Deus Ex, where you could pick people off from ½ a mile away rank as my favorite shoot 'em up experiences. Private Jackson, the sharp shooter from Saving Private Ryan film, IS a personal hero of mine.

Whenever I have gone paintballing - despite the limited range, accuracy and force that a real 30.06 calibre sniper rifle packs, I am still a deadly weapon (kind of) and in my element. So imagine my excitement when a game was launched called that had the word 'SNIPER' in the title. The fact that it had a '2' in the title gave me even more inspiration as only really good games worthy of a sequel get a sequel... right?

So ignoring the relatively cheap price, the zero media attention, the 'below the radar' launch straight into the bargain section (hey isn't that they way some classics occur?) I pre ordered immediately. Several long weeks later, the game arrived. And my PS2 just couldn't load the thing fast enough. Phone is off the hook, DIY can wait, clear the calendar!

As with a lot of games, I thought I would just take a quick practice on the tutorial bit, just to get a handle for the controls. Let me savour the experience. I picked level one tutorial and the aim was to shoot someone in the distance. Excellent! This is what a sniper game is all about after all! Of course I passed with flying colours. I wouldn't have expected anything less. In fact - forget the rest of the training; let's cut straight to the game.

It started with a rather lengthy, rather cheesy, rather appalling graphics cut scene introduction, which you annoyingly couldn't skip. Despite that tingling alarm bell that something was amiss - I carried on happily and bear with it to the first mission... Nothing will detract from my sniper experience!

Hmmm - this first mission is all very familiar... Is it de ja vu? No! Just the training session with a storyline bolted on... So placing a shot right between the target's eyes that any sniper guru would have been proud of, I receive an oddly placed grading system (even the delights of a grade 'A' do not help displace the annoyance that this feature becomes). Anyway I make a conscious effort to keep the faith. Nothing will detract from my sniper experience!
Level 1 over, another lengthy cut scene storyline... On to mission 2 & 3 & 4. Grade A's all round. Time elapsed... about ½ an hour - tops! Yikes. That includes cut scenes!

So that concludes my story. I am yet to play the game again. I beat myself up nightly that I got drawn in & fooled by the word 'sniper' in the title. I sincerely hope that my weapon of choice is not tarnished forever.
I struggle to find a defense for this game, but in order to be a balanced reviewer, the missions did vary between types of targets (not only humans - vehicles / bombs etc) & the scoping experience was actually good (3 levels of zoom with a flashy noise when you zoom in). However this is not much of a defense - not enough to raise it above 1 star.

Note: originally written on Amazon.co.uk by myself. reworked & reworded for use here.