Xbox Addict

With this single disc, you get the complete Silent Scope experience (hence the title) including all three Silent Scope games previously released on the Playstation 2 and the arcade version, Silent Scope EX. In the first Silent Scope entry, you take on the role of a professional sniper who is brought in undercover by the government to take out the terrorist group that has kidnapped the President of the United States and his family. For the second outing, Silent Scope 2: Dark Silhouette, the terrorist group has set its sights on stealing a new gas missile by taking over a research lab. The government has sent in a strike team, but all contact has been lost, so a second strike unit is brought in?you. Here you take on the role one of two snipers who must act alone in order to stop the potential destruction of the free world and rescue the first strike team. While silence has been implied to all the missions, secrecy is another big issue for Silent Scope 3. This time a wealthy terrorist group has kidnapped a brilliant doctor who has the ability to clone missiles, which is only discovered after some of the cloned missiles have been found. The new team, headed up by Colonel Robert has been reduced to one man as result of the need to keep the public out of the loop for fear of causing a panic. And in case you hadn?t guessed already, that one man is you. Finally, in EX, you take on a series of different assignments in order to become the best sharp-shooter in the game. All the Silent Scopes here include target practice areas so you can get used to the game and perfect your shot before stepping into the line of fire.

While you may be thinking ?what possible fun could come from porting a bunch of PS2, controller based shooting games over to the Xbox?? How about the fact that for the first time the Silent Scope games are light gun compatible, the way they were supposed to be played. So for all those people who shelled out a bunch of money for a light gun just to play House of the Dead 3 will finally have a second game to use it with. But for those who don?t have a light gun, you have three options. First, you can do the obvious move and purchase a light gun. Second, you can use the controller, similar to the way you would play these games on the PS2. But the best option is the third one, which is what I chose. The third is to go out and pick up the new light rifle, specially designed for Silent Scope Complete.

If you have ever seen the Silent Scope game in an arcade, then you know what the light rifle basically looks like. Much like a real sharp-shooter (or sniper) rifle, the gun comes in multiple pieces and must be assembled in order to use (really only two pieces are necessary, but it just looks better, and is kind of fun, if you put it completely together). Once assembled, you can go into the options area of any of the Silent Scope games and set up the gun for play, which includes the incredibly cool feature of going to zoom mode only when you get behind the scope. This really is the only way to play the Silent Scope games. The only draw back is the idea of paying fifty dollars for light gun designed for a single game. But the good news is that you can use the main gun piece as a shotgun (equipped with working pump and recoil action) for House of the Dead 3. If that isn?t enough, just remember that it is cheaper then getting into the Steel Battalion series (near two hundred dollars for controls that work for only two games just seems real insane to me).

(Back to Silent Scope Complete review already in progress)

In order to give Silent Scope Complete a fair review, I decided to split the play: half using the light rifle and the other using the controller S. This first section will be based on playing with the controller. Using the controller had a couple of perks to it that the rifle did not. First, reloading is easier to deal with because you don?t have to fumble the buttons on the side of the rifle in order to find the appropriate button (otherwise you have to wait to run out of bullets in order to auto-reload, which always seems to happen at the worst possible time). The second is just the familiarity that you won?t have with the riffle until after a few hours of play. Other then those two perks, the controller is super limited. Movement with the analogue stick is just not smooth, especially trying to get a good aim on such small targets. Another big issue involves a choice you have to make, and that is how will you locate your targets. The first way is to remain in normal view and move towards the green lit targets, then hit the zoom button, and then take your shot. The second way is to stay in zoom and find your way to the target and take your shot. If you choose the first route, then you have to hit an extra button, and possibly have to readjust, using the analogue stick, to get the best shot off. But if you choose to remain in zoom you have to deal with finding the target with an incredibly sensitive analogue stick, which means tons of overshooting your mark. Basically, neither option is that great.

The game play itself (regardless of whether you?re using the rifle or controller) is fun and challenging. It is all about learning not only to be an accurate shot, but a fast and accurate shot at the same time. A typical situation will have you targeting four or five enemies on a rooftop. Once you take out the first one, you will have only seconds to take out the others before they realize your location and begin to return fire. In hand with accuracy and speed, you?ll need a steady hand. Another situation will have you acting as escort to the President and there will be three or four terrorists on motorcycles with guns in hot pursuit. Again, you?ll only have seconds to take out all the targets before they get to the President, but these guys will not be standing still. The best advice I can give is don?t get frustrated easily and give up. Just keep trying again until you get used to the targeting system and you will get it down. But don?t get too cocky. As you progress onward to the second and third game things will only get more and more difficult. Those four soldiers on the roof will turn into eight terrorists with hostages that you?ll have to shot at through one foot by one foot windows (at one point, the windows are behind towering flames). Remember the bad guys on motorcycles? They turn into a couple of jeep loads of terrorists and you have to take out all four to take out the jeep in its entirety. In the end you need to get real accurate and very quick on the draw to get through all four games.

The sound issue is a split decision. Sound effect wise, Silent Scope Complete is amazing. Again, if you have surround sound, the bullets really do sound like they?re coming from hundreds of yards away. But the stand out here comes from EX. The arcade designed sound comes out big even through standard television speakers. The best area to judge is the airplane hijacking shootout scene. The insanity of the situation is only escalated by sounds of enemy fire, the thunderous blasts from your rifle and explosions as tanks near and around the plane send flames everywhere. So the sound effects rock, but the soundtrack, on the other hand, does not. The music is, at times, very cheesy and annoying. It seems like they took the most generic, clich? suspense music they could find and stuck it into the most intense fire fights in the game, which just got annoying after a while. My solution was to blast Black Flag?s Damaged album through my stereo system during boss fights so the music would drowned out the soundtrack.

To sum up, Silent Scope Complete, when played with the light rifle, is a great way to bring the arcade experience to the Xbox. While the game might feel repetitive at times, the increases in difficulty are going to challenge your abilities as a sharp-shooter. It is all about speed, accuracy and a steady hand in order to take down the terrorist threat (which ever one you?re working on at the time). But the real question comes down to is this: is it worth spending fifty dollars on a gun on top of the cost of the game itself? If you want the best all round arcade shooting experience available today on any video game console, then it is definitely worth it. Besides, you can?t beat getting four games for the price of one. Good luck and happy hunting.