Developed by Fun Games For Free, they left nothing to the imagination when you’re sat there scrolling through your respective App Store. No hidden gems or ‘Pet Crush Saga’ putting you off the scent. Nope, straight up Sniper Shooter, at least they get the games idea across quickly. Given the amount of apps available now, that only has to be a good thing.
Price
You work for an agency, as an assassin armed with your trusty Sniper Rifle. You are able to access a shop, in which you can buy upgraded weapons, providing different benefits to the player such as a Graduated rifle (with distance/wind markings) and Silencers. The currency you use to purchase these games are standard in-game coins, which you earn by completing missions. As the game is free, you have the option to buy more coins through an in-app purchase, whose prices vary depending on the gun/number of coins you wish to buy. This method of monetization is pretty much commonplace now in App developer circles, but sometimes it is implemented distastefully. In Sniper Shooter’s case, the developers have done it well, with the option to buy guns coming up occasionally when you finish a mission, and in the ‘Gun Shop’. There are no advertisements and overall it’s a very unobtrusively designed app in terms of monetization.
Gameplay
You get assigned a ‘Mission’, to which there is a small brief. This brief literally tells you who you are looking for and what they have done wrong to get this kind of justice! At the beginning of the game you don’t need to read these as there’s normally only one character on the screen to shoot at, but as the game progresses, you need to be able to identify the one person out of potentially a crowd.
The gameplay features hilarious stickman animation (albeit the people are thicker than stickmen to make it easier to shoot them!) set against a multitude of backdrops. It has a lighthearted cartoon feel but the animation looks sharp and professional, with amusing reactions by passers by or the target when you miss. You are looking through the sniper scope, with different scope designs depending on which rifle you have chosen.
Effectively, you only have one shot to make a kill. This makes it quite tense. IF you do fail to hit with the first shot, then you’ll have to act quickly to get the target before he runs off of the edge of your screen and out of sight.
To control the scope, the app uses sensors to feel the movement of the device. So you tip it forward to look down, to the right to move right etc. This gives the game a bit of depth, requiring you to need the steady hand of a Sniper.
Normally games with these controls get frustrating, but there is a handy recalibration feature on the pause menu that will put you right if the controls start going a bit awry.
There are plenty of missions, with 7 Chapters each containing different Missions. There are three more chapters with ‘Coming Soon’ plastered over them, so an update will bring you more.
Reliability
I ran this review on the HTC One, so I wasn’t expecting there to be any problems. The app ran smoothly and did not crash. Out of all the reviews on the Google Play Store I couldn’t see any that suggested it had happened to them. Oh, and by the way it has received a 4.5/5 review from nearly 100,000 people on the Play Store alone.
Conclusion
Overall, I would have to agree with the Google Play reviewers, this is a brilliant, light-hearted and amusing app. I can sheepishly admit that I have spent far too many hours on this game, but it truly is addictive. The nature of it means that you can get as embroiled in it as you want, but then again can just pick it up quickly whilst in between short breaks.
The in-app purchases are understandably there to support the developers, and they have done it well without harming the user experience. Beautiful graphics, great animation and good gameplay.
Sniper Shooter is available on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
This article was written by Greg Mosley. Greg is the Editor of the Smartphone Blog; GTM Mobiles Reviews, where you can find Android App Reviews, Android How-To’s and Android News.
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