About the Game
The game – a mission-based, stealthy and immersive simulation game with massive maps and high replayability – offers the player plenty of creative chances for observation and curiosity. One of the absolute best bits of the game is the ridiculously long shots – seriously ridiculous! – that you can pull off in this game (see below for details). The ‘bullet cam’ is cheesily dramatic, but great fun, and helps to pull off this satisfyingly sharp precision shooting!
You play as Raven, an assassin with a lengthy kill-list, and begin the game when you are dropped into an exotic location with your list of targets to work your way through while you are there – the contracts of the game’s title. The game is set in ‘modern day’ rather than the previous alternate history of the other games in the franchise.
As always with these games, you cannot just go barrelling in and taking out everyone in sight… Well, you can, but it tends to have consequences! Be observant and take note of enemy soldiers, use exploding barrels and fuse boxes to set up each mission, and generally just see how creative you can be. Speak to as many locals as you can without triggering any suspicions, and see what, if any, intelligence they can offer that might help you get along.
You can replay your favourite contracts to earn upgrades, power-ups and cool gadgets to help you be an even better sniper. And you can perform each mission a different way each time, learning just how you can use the environment to suit your nefarious purposes.
The Nitty Gritty
The long range missions topped out at about 400m for the first Contracts game, but in this one we get the abovementioned ridiculously long-distance precision shots – 1,000m to 1,400m! At that distance people will not even hear the shot that kills the guy standing right next to them! Nor will they hear your shriek of delight seeing them fall!
Just to reiterate: that’s nearly a mile to make the shot – and you more or less have to make it from one vantage point. The game is set up to encourage you to try and mix it up a bit, with some targets only accessible at a distance, while others can be messier and more creative, up close and very personal!
You can also stealth creep through some bad-guy camps dropping villains or henchmen with a silenced hand-gun, but the sniper element of the game (as implied by the title) is by far the most fun element. The maps are divided into disparate areas with primary and secondary mission maps clearly demarcated, so you always know where you are and where you should be.
Speaking about creativity, you can use your bullets to drop things (a dangling container, or an immense statue, for example) on your targets, and you also gain points for style and creativity, but getting the job done, whether with dramatic flair or with a classic bullet to the brain, is what counts in the long run.
One bit of work that is needed is your weaponry. You will need to master the use of the scope to work out how far away your target is, and this can be quite tricky, but it is worthwhile to make those oh-so-satisfying ridiculously long shots. The wind indicators too need some getting used to, but they can help you pinpoint your targets.
Mission Assist Features
Your guns are highly specialist and your pack comes with various assist-features that you can toggle on or off to increase or decrease the difficulty of the game. These include:
- An automated sniper turret helps you mark and nab your targets
- Use binoculars to scope the land, especially to find high points to take your shots from
- Your drone can fly over tricky areas spotting enemies hiding from your direct gaze
- Finally, not as high-tech as the rest, use your crouch-walk facility to stealth-creep through enemy camps
