Developer: Crazy Rocks
Publisher: Ultimate Games
Platform: PC, Switch
Tested on: Switch
Ski Sniper – Review
Ultimate Games tends to publish a lot of shovelware for the Switch. We have had some of their games score extremely poor in the past, but sometimes they do support a great game for Nintendo’s hybrid console. This time we have a delightfully wrong game that has been ported to the Switch. Ski Sniper was released in 2017 for Steam and it did quite well, even with its simplistic graphics, its strange theme, and stolen shtick from the Sniper Elite games, namely the X-Ray vision kill-cam. Nonetheless, we were curious to see how this one would perform on a handheld console.
Story
There is, as expected, no story mode to be found in Ski Sniper. You just choose different vantage points and you just aim at skiers making their long jump. That’s all there is to the game. You choose a location, you aim, you fire, and you earn money. The game didn’t need a story to begin with, with its current theme.
Graphics
Admittedly, the game is not much to look at, but it’s all about the gameplay here. You’ll get simple models of skiers, who all wear colorful uniforms. The ramps all look the same, but your camera angle differs from where you are located. Other than that, there’s the X-Ray vision when you hit someone, and the ragdoll action that ensues when they tumble to the ground. The X-Ray vision is a stolen asset from the Sniper Elite series, but it does have some charm when playing this game. There are a few blood splatters when your kill hits the ground, but it never gets too graphical in terms of gore.
Sound
The sound design is quite simple. The music does have a somewhat heavier soundtrack, but the missions are eerily quiet. You’ll just hear the sound of the wind, your rifle, the dead body hitting the ground and a congratulatory cheer when you make your kill. While the possibility of having music would have been nice, the current design works for a simple gimmicky game such as this.
Gameplay
Ski Sniper is all about sniping unsuspecting skiers with a sniper rifle in a first-person view. You’ll have to choose different vantage points, aim, fire and hopefully hit a lot of different body parts and organs to earn some extra cash. When one run presents you with multiple skiers, you can earn cash multipliers if you hit more than one skier, with the last one being the most important. The game’s offset is simple, and that’s what makes this otherwise cheap experience somewhat enjoyable.
Every vantage point has its different goals for you to hit in order to earn more money. The money in this game allows you to unlock new rifles with better stats, and pills to help your focus when holding your breath to stabilize your rifle. Of course, when playing a lot, and not even hitting the goals, you’ll still get more than enough money to unlock all items in only a few hours.
The addition of the different goals lengthens the game a bit and also creates a certain something to strive for. Some levels require a few consecutive hits, while others target specific body parts and some just want you to hit targets without using your focus or best zoom. This shows that the developers wanted you to mess around with your weapons and also do more than just mindlessly shooting targets to smithereens.
The game’s controls are pretty much the only wonky thing on a console. This game is a lot easier to be played with a mouse, but the game does allow you to alter the sensitivity, making it a bit easier for you to find your perfect preset. It’s also a bit weird when you clear one of the location’s targets, that you aim at the last spot you shot for the next target. It would have been a bit easier to reset your location, while aiming at the same spot can have a few benefits when trying to make more hits.
Conclusion
Ski Sniper is certainly not the best game to have on your Switch, but it’s a fun port of a Steam game that came out in 2017. The game is an entertaining piece of software to play in short bursts in-between bigger releases. If you like shooting gallery games, then this one will offer some entertainment until you’ve unlocked everything and possibly hit all the game’s goals.
Ski Sniper - Review,
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