There is something pleasant about using sniper rifles in videogames. The ability to reach out and touch someone in such a way requires the finely honed combination of sadism and dexterity we have all learned to love.
Silent Scope was a frustrating and slightly misleading title that was expensive to master in the arcades. It frustrated in as much as you were expected to have to shoot down aircraft with a sniper rifle. Surface to air missiles anyone?
To avoid the expense of arcade gaming, games consoles were released, and following in this fine tradition came Silent Scope for Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 which were well received. It was both playable and well presented, but lacked a few essential ingredients.
We were treated to an in-depth look at the PlayStation 2 version’s latest beta build yesterday and we liked what we saw. Only the first level is playable at this point, but there are already many improvements over the original.
If you have seen Silent Scope 2: Fatal Judgement in the Arcades, you will have noticed that it is a two player game. This has been carried over to the console version very well and will eventually feature co-operative and competitive modes.
The gameplay in the sequel is much more balanced than in Silent Scope, with the action being much more varied. Now, instead of just sniping at various bad guys dotted around the environment, the game tries to encourage you to shoot from the hip, providing you with an assortment of close up confrontation.
The environments are now fully interactive, with everything registering a bullet and things blowing up, A-Team style.
There is no set release date for the game at this time, but expect to see the PlayStation 2 version some time before Christmas.