For a game built upon the very concept of an emotionless creature taking pride in killing for cash, Street Sniper is trying its best to do the opposite. Most games of similar genre follow an uninteresting, down right boring protagonist, with no name, little known backstory and shady career, most would think Street Sniper does the same, but most would be incorrect.
What does boring mean anyway, tiresome? Uninteresting? Repetitive maybe? No one ever says efficient. How could boring mean efficient you will most likely be asking. Imagine a hurdler and a free runner, the hurdler will just run and jump over the hurdles when they need to, quick precise jumps over the hurdles, but the free runner will run, slider under the hurdle, front flip, cat pass over the hurdle. The hurdler will likely win, but the audiences eyes will be on the frankly flamboyant parkour artist as its more interesting than the strictly boring hurdler. This is a perfect metaphor for the protagonist in this game.
There are many different types of contract killers out there, some people love close combat with knives, or other blades, others like to be stealthy and use the famous garrotte wire. Heck some even somehow get others to do their bidding like the famous Chester Wheeler Campbell a fairly dangerous contract killer during the 80s, some use guns up close and personal, maybe even a suppressed weapon for the slightly more silent ballistics kill. Then of course there are the killers that leave no trace, people that make it look like a suicide, or an act of god, perhaps a choking or a heart attack. Then likely the most boring of them all.
The marksman. Someone that sits on the building opposite and waits for the perfect kill shot, takes out the target and leaves. Imagine how the John Wick Franchise would be if someone just shot Mr Wick from five hundred metres away with a high powered rifle, I tell you what it would be like, terrible, it would be a short film and rather boring.
Unfortunately for Hollywood, this is the most efficient way of killing someone quickly and in the smallest amount of time possible, no fannying around bribing guards to put Ricin or Aconite into someone food or drink, no messing about with knives or guns close to the victim. No trace.
One letter. B. What does this mean to you, the common man. If you have never played this game, likely nothing. It could be a name, it could be an insect or animal. Or it could be a trained killer.
B short for Boring or Bodhi (no one is really sure) is the name of our protagonist in this game, although he is an emotionless killer with no empathy, sympathy or remorse, he is a legend in his field.
He has never failed a contract, never missed a shot and somehow is not only the cheapest contract killer, but is also the easiest to contact. Yet no one has ever heard his real voice, seen him or had any conversation with him. He will either seek out open contracts or you send him some basic details on your desired victim.
Bodhi is a codename, nobody wants to call him boring as, he doesn’t deserve that treatment, he is one of the most reputable killers in the business, so we call him Bodhi.
Bodhi has no family, no friends, no colleagues and no acquaintances, he works alone. Some say he was raised by wolves, others say he just spawned and people even say he doesn’t exist. But we all know that’s not true, Bodhi has successfully killed 1000s of people without being caught.
How does he complete such feats you may be asking, well I will tell you.
First we’ll start with appearance, Agent 47, is a bald, 5 ft 10 man with a barcode on the back of his head who often wears a two-piece suit, not very conspicuous if you ask me. Bodhi however is trained in blending in. He wears normal, casual civilian clothing, often looking like a tourist or a resident of whatever country the hit is taking place in. Whatever he is wearing, wherever he is, he will always carry a bag, a rucksack maybe with a hidden compartment, where he stores his weapon of choice
This takes me nicely on to the rifle he uses during every contract. The Remington Defense CSR (Concealable Sniper Rifle), a lightweight and compact 7.62mm bolt action takedown suppressed sniper carbine with a 14 inch barrel. It is small enough to collapse into a normal sized laptop case and powerful enough to take out a human being at up to 1500 metres, this is something that Bodhi takes advantage of.
Legend has it Bodhi only brings one bullet to his jobs, his rifle may be suppressed, but any gun shot noise is bound to give people a fright, one job that caught the attention of other contractors was the triple threat trio, they were 3 dangerous men, who ran a very large drug cartel together, an open contract came out to take out all three men for the low, low price of $50 million. The information put out about them was that they were at a friends wedding, putting family first. Other contractors that were there said they heard one rifle round being fired, somehow taking out all three of them in one shot, the bullet went cleanly through all of their heads killing all of them instantly. The police arrived instantly, eager to get some dirt on these 3 high class criminals, but they found nothing, except one little thing, the letter B engraved into the bullet lodged into the third man’s head.
The police and eventually the other contracted killers that were at this venue waiting to kill all three found that the place that B shot from would have been directly in the open, but no one saw anything out of the ordinary, he went unnoticed.
It was at this point, which was fairly early in his career (as far as we know) that others became aware of this living legend, someone so efficient, could even live. Somehow this guy is still one of the cheapest killers in the business and can often kill someone within 48 hours, wherever they are.
They say the only thing holding him back from being quicker is the lack of quicker travel options, think of that, a killer so efficient, that the only thing holding him back is the fact planes don’t fly fast enough, its completely crazy.
For all anyone knows, Bodhi could be a semi normal guy or girl, a family man perhaps, maybe a someone that can get away with travelling a lot. But I guess we will never know. This game unfortunately doesn’t give anything much more personal, we don’t ever see the character we play, nor even hear his voice. I am really hoping the second iteration of this gives us a little more information about this illusive creature. Well that’s unlike me, I never ramble on about back-stories.
What’s the gameplay like then. Yeah its not good.
Its spectacular, somehow its taken all the best parts of all the favourite adventure and action games, mixed them together into one game, it pretty easily takes elements from tomb raider and hitman not to the point that its just stealing assets from the other games, no, of course not, like most of the games I play, this game is very immersive, on a few of the contracts I took, after playing them to their fullest I started feeling like a psychopath, I mean seriously the brutality of these kills is insane, it can take tolls on your very being. Which is why there certainly should be an age warning on this game.
The graphics are simple, but still easily manage to suck you into the game and live it likes its real, it was never designed to be like the real world, no, few people actually have the need to take people out for cash in real life, although the extra dough would be nice.
So coming to a conclusion, is this game worth it. Yes of course it is, this game (in the UK) is 79p, seventy-nine pence, are you kidding me, buy this game now if you don’t own it already, if you like the hitman series or hell, even the tomb raider series put your decaff, almond milk, caramel syrup macchiato down and buy this damn game. Next time you go to Starbucks don’t pick up the extra marshmallows in your hot chocolate, buy this game.
