S.N.I.P.E.R. Hunter Scope

Genre: Arcade / On-Rails First-Person Shooter / Third-Person Shooter

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Sharp Shooter Bundle: S.N.I.P.E.R Hunter Scope + Knights & Guns along with Knights & Guns. It is also included in 2 in 1 Trash Punk & S.N.I.P.E.R. Hunter Scope, along with Trash Punk.)

(Note 2: Multiple versions of this game have been released. In addition to the original game, there is also the Deluxe Edition, which includes the standard Expansion Pack, the Premium Edition, which contains the Elite Arsenal expansion, the Extended Edition, which contains the Weaponry Upgrade expansion, and the Platinum Edition, which contains the Target Acquired expansion. For the purposes of this review, I am only reviewing the core game.)

S.N.I.P.E.R. Hunter Scope is an Arcade-style game that uses First-Person Shooter and Third-Person Shooter elements to present an experience akin to classic arcade light gun games like Silent Scope and Time Crisis. This game was released on Nintendo Switch in 2020.

The presentation here is decent, with 3D characters in a squat cartoony style. It’s a bit silly, and undermines the gritty realism of light gun shooters from the era this game looks to replicate, but it works well enough for the game. These visuals are paired with energetic music and an overbearing gruff-voiced announcer. All in all, it makes for a decent but silly over-the-top experience.

As for the gameplay, I’ll say I have a lot of respect for what this game is attempting here, and it is certainly an ambitious game. Bringing the experience of a game like Silent Scope or Time Crisis to the Nintendo Switch would be quite a feat in and of itself, but trying to do both? That’s biting off a lot… and unfortunately, it too often feels like more than the game can chew.

I’ll start with the obvious – the controls. S.N.I.P.E.R. Hunter Scope offers players multiple ways to control the game, but all of them feel off in one way or another. Players are encouraged to use gyroscopic motion controls, with multiple ways to do so, but players using Joy-Cons will find this motion delegated to one Joy-Con or the other, with the remaining Joy-Con assigned important commands like ducking and reloading. Assigning these buttons to the left Joy-Con feels awkward, but so too does aiming using the left Joy-Con, and for whatever reason you can’t use the same Joy-Con to do both.

Alternately, players can opt to use a Joy-Con holder or a Pro Controller, but of course this kinda’ breaks the immersion of holding a gun in one hand, and makes it feel a bit strange to aim using gyroscopic controls. It works, but it’s not ideal. Alternately, you can dispense with motion controls altogether and simply use the analog sticks to aim, but this feels like it’s missing much of the point and saps much of the fun out of the game.

There’s a few other elements that feel like they mar this game’s motion controls. Firstly, there’s no button to recalibrate the aiming, something that’s too often necessary in Nintendo Switch games using gyro controls. Players can use the control stick to manually move the cursor, but this is slow and clumsy. Also, when playing missions involving the sniper scope, the scope moves slowly when zoomed in, which… well, that’s not how sniper scopes work, and it makes motion controls feel a bit awkward.

These control issues are so frustrating because when they’re not a hindrance to the game, it’s actually a blast to play, and really does do a great job bringing back fond memories of the classic arcade games it imitates. The action is fast-paced and varied, there’s some good strategy to when to duck behind cover, when to reload, and when to take your shot. The game even innovates a bit by giving players the option to try to time a press of a button to speed up a reload, slowing it down if they attempt and fail. I will say it’s frustrating that hiding behind cover doesn’t actually protect you from incoming fire, it only makes you a smaller target. Largely because of this, the challenge level in this game is a bit on the tough side. However, overall, this game is a delight to play… when it works properly.

Ultimately, some of the issues with control that S.N.I.P.E.R. Hunter Scope has are its own fault, such as the lack of better options for button assignment, the unintuitive way it integrates the sniper scope, and the lack of a recalibration button. Some of the issues it has are the Nintendo Switch’s fault – Joy-Cons simply aren’t designed for this sort of “light gun game” in the way that the Wii remotes were. But regardless of who’s more to blame, the control issues are there, and they are what ultimately keep this game from being the wonderful tribute to classic arcade light gun shooters that I feel like it very well might be without those issues. Players with a fondness for those classic light gun games may still want to give this game a look, but be aware that you’ll be wrestling with the controls in an attempt to try to find something that only sorta’ works. If that sounds okay to you, this game will definitely be worth a look.

tl;dr – S.N.I.P.E.R. Hunter Scope is a game that looks to bring back the glory days of arcade light gun games like Silent Scope and Time Crisis, and while it does about as good a job at this as one could expect, suffice it to say that the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Cons aren’t ideal for this sort of motion control, and no matter which of the game’s control options you choose, they all seem to have problems. If you don’t mind wrestling with the controls, you may still find some arcadey enjoyment to be had here, but most will likely find this too frustrating to bother with.

Grade: C+

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