Sniper Elite V2: Change history with a single bullet

By Games Master for Games Master Magazine Subscribe now!

Lying face-down in rubble with a scope delicately poised is an art perfected by thousands in Battlefield and CoD's multiplayer, but never quite like this. Your name is Karl Fairburne, and you're behind enemy lines in 1945 Berlin.

As the bullet flies the camera follows in its wake - and before impact the German's every internal organ is shown in glorious Mortal Kombat X-ray vision. In Sniper Elite fingers are torn off, hearts explode, eyeballs bulge and entrails spill - and in this case tiny skull fragments fly out of the victim's head. It's gruesome stuff.

The deceased's comrades are clearly shaken. They leap into the nearest cover, unaware of your hiding place. One pair of cracked shoulder-blades later, however, and they've got the message: providing covering fire for each other and flanking their way towards your nest. The pressure starts to mount on your one-man mission to dismantle Hitler's secret stash of V2 rockets...

When you haven't got your eye pressed up against your scope you'll also be third-person sneaking through Berlin - performing takedowns on unsuspecting guards, hiding bodies and (when all else fails) liberally spraying Nazis with a last-ditch machine gun.

Despite wanting to keep the hardcore leanings of the last-gen original, Rebellion are also softening the easier difficulty modes to make the game slightly less niche. When you breathe in to stabilise your shot, for example, you'll get a red cross aim assist to paste on your foe's skull - while you'll know how much your enemies know about your location from the colour of the circle at your feet.

Sniper Elite V2 might not have the dazzling spectacle of your CoDs and Battlefields, but it is valiantly coming in from a different angle. Quite whether it's an angle that'll secure the perfect head shot is yet to be seen.