Silent Scope

In Silent Scope, you become a sniper within an elite counterterrorist organization. Tasked with rescuing the kidnapped daughter of the U.S. President, the player must take out any terrorist targets carefully, without injuring hostages or innocent bystanders. Silent Scope features a bandoleer-full of cool missions that take the player to such diverse locations as cities (downtown), freeways, and sprawling estates. Players also must carry out challenging objectives from various land, sea, and air perches.

While Silent Scope might be the first console game to recreate accurately the feeling of being an antiterrorist sniper, one must remember that Virtua Cop introduced the concept of blowing the bad guys away to Sega Saturn users years ago. In fact, the game pays homage to Virtua Cop in that the entire targeting methodology looks and operates the same way.

Because the game's onscreen targeting system has an adjustable zoom on the scope, it provides a level of accuracy that heretofore was unknown in console games. All the better to see the highly detailed graphics that have been taken straight from the arcade original (although manhandled and retrofitted by Konami's art team to fit into the PS2's more texture-space-challenged RAM allocation).

Minus the physicality of the arcade game's "big gun," the home game is surprisingly similar in play. There are beg

Amazon.com Review
Like other arcade games before it--Crazy Taxi, Dead or Alive 2, and various zombie games, among others--Silent Scope will help give a major push to a new console system. And, while the PlayStation2 might take its initial bows with nothing but praise, Silent Scope likely will be a magnet to the iron filings of controversy: it involves guns, blood, and body counts.

In Silent Scope, you become a sniper within an elite counterterrorist organization. Tasked with rescuing the kidnapped daughter of the U.S. President, the player must take out any terrorist targets carefully, without injuring hostages or innocent bystanders. Silent Scope features a bandoleer-full of cool missions that take the player to such diverse locations as cities (downtown), freeways, and sprawling estates. Players also must carry out challenging objectives from various land, sea, and air perches.

While Silent Scope might be the first console game to recreate accurately the feeling of being an antiterrorist sniper, one must remember that Virtua Cop introduced the concept of blowing the bad guys away to Sega Saturn users years ago. In fact, the game pays homage to Virtua Cop in that the entire targeting methodology looks and operates the same way.

Because the game's onscreen targeting system has an adjustable zoom on the scope, it provides a level of accuracy that heretofore was unknown in console games. All the better to see the highly detailed graphics that have been taken straight from the arcade original (although manhandled and retrofitted by Konami's art team to fit into the PS2's more texture-space-challenged RAM allocation).

Minus the physicality of the arcade game's "big gun," the home game is surprisingly similar in play. There are beginner and advanced modes, which takes into account that most folks, although the game might make them feel like super agent-snipers, can't really shoot like one. Casual gamers and serious students alike will enjoy the fact that a near miss causes a terrorist to duck and/or take cover, thus allowing more time to aim for the whites of his eyes, or simply to put a few rounds in his center of mass.

The game's boss encounters also are fun and imaginative. For instance, it's up to you whether you go "full metal jacket" and destroy an attacking Harrier Jump Jet with a barrage of bullets, or calmly line up a head shot on the pilot and emerge victorious with a single squeeze of the trigger. --Todd Mowatt

Pros:

• Many cool missions and settings
• Both beginner and advanced modes

• Will be too violent for some

One of the more interesting things is the fact that the enemy snipers will see you if you shoot close to them and miss.
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I have only played one other game as cool and it is Grand Theift Auto 3 but this game is still very cool!
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Another GREAT concept is that you get a on-screen-scope so it zooms in for easier shooting.

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I recommend some sort of laser gun controller with this game but
it still RULES without one!
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Over all this game is very good and is a definate buy, so good luck and happy hunting :)


It is an ok game.   August 28, 2001
 2 out of 4 found this review helpful

Its an all right game. I bought it because I thought I played it in the arcade. It was really fun in the arcade, but it happened to be a way different game. I can't get passed the last level, it is VERY hard. I always run out of time. But, I am not the best. For skilled gamers only. THAT MEANS NOT ME! hehe.


Where's the gun again?   May 11, 2001
 1 out of 4 found this review helpful

I'm sorry, but I still comprehend the fact that this shooting game is missing a gun. I know this is a slow sniper game, but still... Imagine playing Area 51, and all the great Sega Arcade shooting games without that big freaking gun. Besides, that, this game's great... I've tried shooting pedestrians, but was banned from doing so. Damn.


MAKE SURE YOU RENT FIRST   April 24, 2001
 0 out of 4 found this review helpful

Following my own advice I rented this game first before buying it. The game being a 5-day rental, I only kept it for a day. After 20 minutes the game becomes very, very, boring. I know this has been said many times before, but this game should have been left in the arcade.