- Dream Emulator reviews focus on imperfect games with a haunting charm or strange allure superseding their flaws making them oddly engaging. The games featured come are from a shared nostalgia or unclaimed deja vu, some are forgotten Blockbuster rentals, imports from Japan, children's TV tie-ins, or well loved classics, each feel borrowed from a dreamstate. -
In Simple 1500 Series Vol.56 : The Sniper for the original PlayStation, you play a highly skilled assassin for hire. For each contract you can choose the vantage point and the time of day in which to make your hit. There's 8 levels in total and the game can be completed in around an hour.
The game carves out a vibe immediately. It opens with the titular marksman, cleaning his tools and narrating his story as the camera rotates around him. The score for this scene sounds like Blood Money era Jesper Kyd doing Silent Hill, setting a slow and moody horror tinged tone. The game was released in 2001 but graphically looks much older. Though minimal and simply textured, it never looks muddy, feeling sleek and clinical even in run down apartments. In the opening scene at least, the low resolution table, tv and chairs only add to the unsettling atmosphere of the cutscene. Then the title fades in with the game's full name: The Sniper - Heart of Heavy Rain. Smooth lounge jazz plays over a Cowboy Bebop style opening sequence and suddenly the game's tonal intentions are set.
Each target is seen once before the mission, appearing briefly through a sniper scope as their name and likely location is written beneath. You'll have to memorise their distinctive features, hair, clothes, glasses etc if you want to recognise them during the level. It means that when the target does appear, they're only as familiar as you remember rather than being a well examined objective highlighted in red. It leaves you in doubt of your intended hit despite the fact that even a second hesitation could cost you the opportunity.
The menu, where you choose your vantage point and time of day, includes a model-sized 3D render of the level, similar to the map selection in Parasite Eve or level select in Ape Escape. It's an interesting way to force the player to imagine each mission as small three dimensional dioramas even though they will only ever view the scene from a single perspective. In a strange balance of power and autonomy, it gives the player a vague sense of omnipresence without letting them know where to wait or how to act.
You start each level two or three steps from the edge of the building forcing you to walk forward before aiming your gun. Its the only time you ever need to move your character. This odd decision is strangely, the most interesting aspect of the game. It feels pointless, from a mechanical point of view. They could have spawned the character closer to the edge of the building or removed character-movement entirely, having the game take place through the lens of the sniper. But the few seconds at the beginning of each mission where you're forced to walk into position injects a new dimension of player engagement and uncanniness into The Sniper.
They way you're dropped into character before you're ready and how each mission begins in the same manner makes the setup feel like a reoccurring dream. It also adds an element of professionalism to the way you embody your character. You feel calm and collected like a seasoned hitman, someone who can afford to waste a few seconds extra seconds. As you spawn, you get a call from your assistant who gives more information about your target. This is all in Japanese but even without understanding what's been said, the call itself adds to that professional dynamic of each mission and also to the sense of anxiety that comes with repeating dreams. This is further embodied in the 'kill cams' that play after you take out your target. You get a few short replays of your assassination followed by a rotating freeze frame of the moment your bullet made impact, complete with laser tracker to show where you dealt the fatal blow. It all feels clean and predetermined.
Often you need to wait for a target to exit a car or building and sometimes you have to kill your target in 'accidents' by shooting cranes, billboards and signs reminiscent of the sniper challenges from later Hitman games. Missions themselves are varied and once the story mode is completed you can unlock challenges on each map where you have a set number of bullets and a set number of targets to kill within a time limit.
It isn't a perfect game and you could probably criticise the primitive graphics or the fact you only get one bullet per level, and if you miss you have to watch the game over screen, the title sequence and click through the menus again before getting another shot. But honestly, everything in this game worked in perfect tandem for me. The game-over screen looks great with a cool score, the loading was fast and most of the cutscenes were skippable so I never had any problem replaying through failed missions. The gameplay was simple and solid, you find your target in a level and you shoot them.
I recommend playing if you get the chance. It's short arcadey fun with a uniquely oneiric and strange allure.
Comments