this title may seem like a joke to many people, or even clickbait, but it's not, i fully mean this in all seriousness and i'll explain why in a little. i loved this game, not in an irony poisoned "haha so bad its good i am insecure with the things i like and have to pretend i am above it" or in a joking way like "haha woah you gotta see this its so baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad" way, no, that's cowardly, i love this game wholeheartedly, i love its ambition despite its lack of budget, i love how it looks, i love its cute sniping puzzles and it's weirdo secondary campaign and it's awkwardness and it's busted localisation, it to me is a nearly perfect game, not in execution, but in intent.it's in that that reasoning that made me rethink how and why i love the art that i love. to me the execution behind a piece of art does not matter, and the sniper 2 is art as all games made with intent are, but what matters to me fully is the intent behind it and the sniper 2 was made with the purest of intentions.

i think the best way to explain farther is to do a little comparison between it and some other games i have covered, namely the finals and the messenger. while both of these games are probably better made than the sniper 2 and their execution is undeniably better, i'd call the sniper 2 a nearly perfect game and i would say i dislike these other two games a little, not wholley, but a little and the difference between them is the intent. while the sniper 2 is made with purer intentions, a game that tries its hardest to be cool and stay true to the much purer vision of its passionate devs, it's a game made by people who love and care for their game, these other two games are made with much more cynical and downright rancid intentions. the former game, the finals, while a super fun game, is a cynical, artless cashgrab, so uncaring for style or art as a concept that it refuses to even use real voices, instead using AI and it has so little artistic originality that it feels like its whole aesthetic was also AI generated, it exists purely to make money with almost no care for the art of it. the latter game, the messenger, is gross for very different reasons, it's very irony poisoned and, for lack of a better word, gamery. it has influences but where the sniper loves these influences and pays tribute with its love, the messenger thinks its above them, it talks down to them as if it's better than they are purely because its new, it's full of mockery for the player and less in the yoko taro "making a point" way and more in a gamery bro way, very duded writing to the point it even makes direct references to jordan peterson and has the games merchant basically be the writers political mouthpiece for his bullshit, it's gross, a vile game even, well made in all ways beyond its writing (though i did find the second half so boring and its writing so gross that i did drop it) but it's that intent that kills it for me, makes it into one of the few games i may very well call bad because the intentions behind it are so gross. really this is all just personal, these two games are beloved critically and by more mainstream gamers, i frequently hear both being called some of the best in their genres, so this is just how i see it, for most people the execution is all that matters, intent and artistry be damned, and that's fine, it's cool to see it that way, but this game made me realize that i do not see it that way, and i think that makes it something special if it can give someone that kind of realization.

okay yeah i guess i should talk about the actual game then. it's a rail shooter without rails, is how i would word it, mostly similar to konamis silent scope games it has you pick a vantage point and doing little sniper challanges, showing you a picture and having you find and kill this target, the faster, with less bullets and closer to a headshot you get the better your rating will be which will change your route through the game. it's simple but it's fun enough and there's tons of variety, sometimes you will have to shoot a thing in a timeframe, sometimes you will need to cause a chain reaction like shooting a skylight to lure people outside, sometimes its a boss fight or a stealth camera shootout, there's lots to do in the games very short (1 hour per route) runtime and you even get a second campaign where you have to find hidden aliens with your fully zoomed in scope as a big reference to "they live", there's even a huge obey billboard, it's cute. that's what i mean when i say the game is pure hearted, it has its influences and its aspirations but it holds no cynicism about it and really wants to do its best to pay homage to the things it likes, like with this second campaign or the anime style opening and ending screens that bookmark each episode of the game. that is all their is though, it's tough so it will take you a few times per level in some of the later ones but they're so short that the setback really isn't so bad and as per its branding in japan, it's a simple game, cheap and very one-note with its gameplay but it gets the job done and here it's really more about the story anyway.

that story, along with the games killer ost, is probably the best part of it with its fun tone and some really quotable lines like the cool transition phrase between levels or the monologues, it really tries to be a kojima game by way of a 90's anime OVA, the gungrave anime is what it reminded me of the most with its mob themes and it goes some wild places with betrayls, twists, deaths and even some pretty scifi stuff like genetic modification, it's a cute story and while it's maybe poorly told because of its awkward dub and localisation with its comic sans subtitles, it's so ambitious that it even tried to tell its story that i feel you have to respect it and the bad dubbing just ads to the charm i think, you'll remember this game for years to come, it even has a recap of the first game so you can jump right into this if you want to. the soundtrack that i mentioned before is also amazing, it's by tsukasa masuko, a former atlus composer who worked on games like digital devil story, the mainline SMT's, the devil summoner series, quest 64 and more recently some mana games like sword and heroes and the amazing caligula effect games, both of which have some of my favourite OST's ever made (soul hackers is also up there). this soundtrack is up there with some of their best and it has some of the best jazz midi's you will ever hear, this games soundfont is downright iconic and almost every track is amazing, it's hard to downplay as it just might be one of my favouite OST's on the system, it just has so much style and charm and it's so catchy, the opening theme especially, give it a listen if you can, it's a real standout OST, real minnesota fats pool legend vibes, smokey bar room jazz. the graphics are pretty good looking at least outside of the more awkward cutscenes, i think anyway, it has some really nice city levels and you can change the time of day so each stage could have a few variants, sure it looks very dated even for its year, it's much closer to a mid budget ps1 game than a ps2 game but i think it ads to the charm and its low poly look is nice, it's very basic in a nice way that only games of this budget from back then looked, the character designs can be a little iffy though, at least compared to the amazing art featured in the opening.

as was the fate of many simple series games, it never really had a port ever, but it's physical copy is at least very cheap, it's one of the cheaper and easier to find pal exclusives and i really would reccomend trying to track down a copy. it never had a sequel either, which is a shame because i would have loved to see them end up with a bit more of a budget, get something closer to the very similar silent scope games, but with this teams sense of style to it, but the simple series is still getting entries even now with some like oneechanbara and EDF being hits in their own right. the developers, BESTMEDIA, which is an amazing name, would go on to make some more simple entries with the survival game duology but would not make much more beyond its sequel in 2007, they also woked on the original sniper game, they worked with another developer Xroad on this game but this dev seemingly only worked on the sniper and a visual novel alongside bestmedia called kanojo no sensetsu. the sniper series producer nobuyuki okajima is still making games though, making tons of recent games for D3 like samurai maiden , nightshade and many oneechanbara and EDF games, he also worked on some bigger projects in the past like tons of simple classics like demolition girl, dirt track devils and deadly strike, a real master of his craft, shoutout them.