Sniper Elite: Resistance Review

I already knew going in that this was basically a DLC expansion pack for Sniper Elite 5 charged and marketed as a full game. Pretty much everything in that game is already present in this one minus some unpolished movement. However with that said, despite Resistance being a modern sequel going back to the game sequels of yester year where it's esstentially an expansion that doesn't overhaul much of anything, I got a lot more fun out of the game than I thought I was going to.

As much as I really wished the series would add some kind of light and darkness mechanic(Metal Gear Solid and even the latest Assassin's Creed adopted it) change the setting, or just have the movement system be seemless and smooth like MGS5, I still had fun with it despite all of that.

The good things about the game is that the story is just nothing more than excuse plot to do some covert espiongage missions so thanks to that, it means there is hardly any forced action segments and 98% of the game with the exception of the final mission where you need to kill a German Officer that was behind everything, you can do much of it in stealth. The lack of story and the need for gripping drama means the story doesn't need to have the villain getting the one up on the hero and getting into dull action at best or infuriating at worst.

I do miss Karl Fairburne but that's because I really like Tom Clarke Hill, the new protagonist is "fine" even if he's channeling Jason Satham.

After playing so many games especially modern ones where stealth is optional, almost feels like a fallacy and the game is pretty much biased towards action, it just feels refreshing to a play at all where stealth and being competent at it is something I can actually do. Playing so many modern Ubisoft games and Assassin's Creed especially just makes Resistance that much more refreshing to play. There are still issues I have more on that later.

Another thing the campaign in SER does really well is doing one of my favorite game tropes where you see a location off in a large distance and eventually throughout the level you will slowly make your way there. It does a good job at making the standalong level feel like a grand epic adventure. Takedown animations also look very nice and brutal and are also quick.

Final thing I liked of is that there will be "search zones" for the player to look around in order to complete the various objectives. One issue the stealth genre had was that using quest markers doesn't feel like the player is doing objectives organically but the genre by it's nature of being slow pace means that exploration will be more of a hinderance since you will have to look around while evading patrols. This is a decent enough middle ground. Rebellion also listened to the compliants of that one mission in SE5 where you needed a satchel charage to do progress through the mission since now maps in SER had them scattered throughout. Mission helping items like that, crobars and bolt cutters will be highlighted in yellow. Getting stumped won't happen as much. 

With all that said, there are issues still outside of the ones where I mentioned earlier. There is still some unpolish. The animations will sometimes glitch out no real reason. For example, sometimes the legs of the player character will clip through the ground, at other times he will hang off a ledge and won't let go or will let go but the game won't register the feet touching the ground.

One big issue is the AI, by no means is it terrible or inconsistent enough to the point where the game is unplayable but at the same time, it has some weird "quirks" about it. For example, I can headshot a guy and some guards will have heard the sound despite my gun being silenced(I know real life silencers aren't like this but this is a game) and I can even kill guards doing close quarters takedowns while they are unaware and that might have enemies suspect me. What annoys me about this is that stealth game logic dictates that if I take out guards before they make a very loud noise of any kind then I remain undetected yet this game will follow it insconsistently.

Another issue is that the game will introduce enemies who are tougher meaning you can't kill them when they spot you and can kill them seconds later but it never does organically. No cutscene or the player character having a line like, "these guys aren't your usual Nazi infantry" which can catch me off guard considering a tactic I did for a while was get spotted and kill them seconds after being spotted before a gunshot was fired.

Final issue is that I also really wish there was the ability whistle or have a guard come over to you since it having guards come over to me and taking them down is an aspect of stealth games I like since it feels like I'm manipulating the guard AI. 

Overall, SER was a game I had more fun with than I even thought I was going to. Sure, you can criticize it for being a glorified DLC to SE5 but it's not like there were annual SE gams or an overwhelming amount of modern releases that handle stealth gameplay extremely well so as a result, Resistance turned out to be a solid surprise all though I would get more annoyed with the game if I were to play more of it due to the AI quirks. The series does need a gameplay overhaul with all that said.