The world’s longest shot was fired in 2017 by Canadian snipers in JTF-2. The shot was fired at a distance of 3540 metres or 3871 yards. A shot that distance took 10 seconds to reach the target, travelling at 792mph and making it faster than a commercial airliner. At that distance factors such as wind direction, wind speed, air density, elevation and even the curvature and rotation of the Earth must all be taken into account.
The worlds cheapest shot was Square Enix giving us a whole game as a pre-order for another game, but only giving one mission for that game. Like the worst possible foreplay, Sniper Assassin is all tease by giving one really good mission and letting you just imagine how nice it would be if Square Enix gave you the whole game instead of silly little episodes.
Now Sniper Assassin is not the traditional Hitman game, think of it more like the arcade version of Hitman. As opposed to doing any of the sneaking, disguising and killing you are perched far above your foes watching them act out a predetermined sequence of events. That means you are simply intervening in a set sequence by ending the life of certain characters. The only available mission at the time of review currently gives you three targets to kill, as well as the goal of killing all 15 guards on the map.
You could just quickly shoot the three targets and polish off the guards. That works, but you won’t gain a huge amount of points. You’ll get more points for silence as well as efficiency as is expected of a world-class assassin. There are extra goals as well for fulfilling certain criteria with the kills but you will only really go for them if you are hardcore into completion. There is little punishment for just blasting your way through as long as you don’t take out civilians.
At this stage, there is really nothing else. There is a multiplayer mode which works effectively the same way, and the whole things run pretty well with no real issues or bugs to speak of and is overall an enjoyable level. The issue with providing me with a whole game with a single mission means my mind will wander and consider more issues with the game rather than enjoying all the content available.
And wander it did to the fact that this game requires a permanent internet connection for inexplicably no reason at all. Now in the original Hitman reboot, this was that same, with Square Enix dressing it up behind the various bull reasoning. If you did not connect to the servers in the original though you could still play the single-player portion, albeit without your well-earned upgrades and score tracking.
Not so here. Sniper Assassin requires you to be online at all times and if you’re not then you can play nothing including the single player. They took an already terrible caveat and made it somehow more terrible. Now in the UK generally this will be no issue as most broadband services ship with unlimited data caps. However in other regions of the world that isn’t the case and a feature like this does nothing to stop piracy or whatever excuse is desired, it puts people off buying the game.
Hitman: Sniper Assassin is currently only available if you pre-order Hitman 2, which puts me in the difficult position of being unable to recommend this game out to people because it cannot be bought individually. In its early access state, I wouldn’t recommend it: The single level is not enough content to keep engagement and it is far too easy to power through. Willingness to put in time and effort to hit all the special goals will make this game a lot more interesting but I find very little payoff in running off checklists.
Given time Square Enix will gradually release more levels as the game nears release and Hitman: Sniper Assassin will be a fun and simpler palette cleanser to bring you towards what looks like a solid game and a solid sub-game. Because despite fault the current level is fun and very well designed in all regards to graphics, gameplay, and story. For now, however, it is a cheap early access tease aimed at nothing more than to convince you to pre-order a game.
Cheap tactically, not monetarily.
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