Sniper Elite: Resistance

This game is simply sauceless. I explicitly avoided buying it when it released because it looked like a massively overpriced DLC to Sniper Elite 5, and only decided to give it a try with a -60% sale. Even at -60% I still feel robbed. I was wrong to think it was an overpriced DLC to SE5. That would imply it'd at least be of the same quality as SE5. But it's not, it's worse, and SE5 wasn't great in the first place! I finished the game only because I had a friend to suffer through it with, I would have dropped it 2 missions in otherwise. [h1]Plot[/h1] Not even worth addressing. It's bad, and it's badly executed. SE isn't known for its plot, it only needs to clear the minimum bar of justifying the missions and what happens in them, but it fails even at that. Hell, I don't think the main nazi you're chasing the entire campaign even has a single voice line. He just appears in an absurdly nonsensical cutscene on the last mission, smiles, and then you just shoot him while he runs away on a motorcycle (that he stole from two german soldiers after shooting them because uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh who knows) [h1]Gun play/customization[/h1] It's the exact same as SE5. Except with less guns than SE5. Don't ask me why. [h1]Campaign[/h1] It's bad in so many ways... I'll try to be as concise as possible: [h2]Boring and predictable[/h2] Every mission follows the same template. You have a main objective, optional objectives, and one target to kill (in a specific manner if you want to unlock a new weapon). Half the time the objectives are completely redundant, go blow up something but the RAF comes to bomb it all anyway when you leave. [h2]Kill targets[/h2] Each mission demands a different method to kill the mission's specific kill target. But while it's often interesting, there is no kill cam ever for these, even though half happen off-screen (poison, manipulation, sabotage... all stealth methods where you can't just stay to observe). It's incredibly disappointing to go through the effort of setting up a trap and not see it when it springs in action. [h2]Resource attrition, or the lack thereof[/h2] There is NO resource attrition in the game. You are a lone sniper behind enemy lines with minimal french résistance help, yet every mission gives you everything you could possibly need. The first few missions shower you with anti-tank rifles and rocket launchers, but there is not a single armored target you could possibly use them on! Need to breach a safe or a door? No problem! Here's 5 satchel charges! In fact, breaching a door with a satchel charge will sometimes immediately reward you with 2-3 satchel charges! You want to use a key instead to avoid making noise, or maybe the game is daring today and actually requires you to use a key? Have no fear, the key will without failure be within 50 meters of where it needs to be used! Don't bother trying to look for anything you might need, everything will naturally fall in your hands. I played the entire campaign on hard difficulty and regularly finished with 10+ satchel charges, and having found more AT rifles and rocket launchers than enemies on the map! [h3]Yet, half of the abundant resources are useless![/h3] As I mentioned earlier, missions with [i]not a single armored target[/i] will shower you with rocket launchers and anti-tank rifles. But even for the missions where there [i]is[/i] a tank, all those rarely ever come in use! Why? Because you can't actually carry them with you! Every weapon you find on the map that isn't part of your loadout isn't a weapon you can actually equip, it's just a limited-use weapon that takes your active weapon slot and that you immediately drop when you switch weapon. The way for you to make use of the rocket launcher you found 5 minutes before encountering a tank is to backtrack to where you found it, painfully navigate through the enemies between you and the tank as you have to drop the rocket launcher on the ground every time you need to use any of your weapons, all that so you can make use of the SINGLE SHOT rocket launcher against the tank that requires 3 to 4 shots. So of course, what you end up doing is the much more efficient strategy of just going behind the tank, loading armor-piercing rounds, and shooting it's rear until it blows up. It shouldn't work, but not only it does, it's the most efficient strategy by far. [h2]No vehicles. No threats. No nothing.[/h2] I said earlier some of the missions don't have a single armored target, so what are the big threats you have to worry about then? None. It's just going to be your regular old sniper, or with a bit of luck maybe a machine-gun emplacement, but even these barely count as a threat you need to keep track of... Even the few missions that do have armored targets, it's one of two things: Either the damn King Tiger from SE5, or a static armored train car with... a King Tiger turret on top of it (how original!!). And I cannot overstate how boring the King Tiger is! You either throw explosives at it until it blows up, or you shoot armor-piercing rounds in its rear until it blows up. SE4 had different armored vehicles with different capabilities, and you actually could take out the crew members inside with well-placed shots through the visors! You know? Precision shots?? In the sniper elite game??? Why did you remove that???? [h2]Bugs that softlock you :)[/h2] Mind you this wouldn't have been acceptable on release either, but it is even less [b][i]a year and a half later[/i][/b]. If you knock an enemy unconscious and that enemy is relevant to an objective, and you hit a checkpoint after that, and for whatever reason you have to reload from that checkpoint, there's a good chance that enemy will become invisible and intangible, essentially soft-locking you out of that objective until you restart the mission from zero! Cool! Similarly, the enemy's AI will just... get stuck. They'll sometimes stay permanently locked in a state of alert and you have to restart to do any objective that would require them to [i]not[/i] be in a state of alert. [h2]Speaking of, wow, the enemy AI is bad[/h2] Not that it was super smart in SE5 either. But boi. I've seen them get distracted by a single rigged generator for 10 minutes, the whistle mechanic to lead them to you is useless because they seem completely deaf and can only hear you whistling if you're right in front of them, they'll favorize waking up their unconscious allies (or even picking them up and carrying them!) even if that means getting out of cover and right in your gunsight in the middle of a firefight, and of course, as I've mentioned before, sometimes they'll just get stuck in a perpetual state of alert... [h2]The kill cams don't even try to be smart either![/h2] Literally a signature feature of the game! The kill cam! By default it is way too frequent, and the only thing you can adjust is just that: [i]the frequency[/i]. So if you reduce the frequency, the game will just randomly jumpscare you with a kill cam for a 50 meters shot you did in the middle of a firefight, but [i]won't[/i] do a killcam for a 500 meters shot across the map. You might as well remove the feature if it fails at making the cool shots look cool and instead focuses on the bad shots lmao [h1]Conclusion[/h1] I genuinely hard recommend against it. Even on sale. It is just SE5, but worse. It brings absolutely *nothing* new of value.