Fortunately, the art of the snipe is alive and well even in this otherwise forgettable game. Thusly, if you work your way carefully through the majority of a given mission, you'd damn well better complete it before you take a break or you'll be forced to start it all over again. Though it'll also save when you reach a checkpoint, checkpoint saves don't survive game shutdowns. You can't manually save your progress-the game instead makes hard saves only when you've reached the end of each mission. You can't, for example, fast-forward or skip through any of the cutscenes or mission introductions, no matter how many times you've seen them before. But your bizarre compatriot is just one of a bushel of problems and ill-conceived concepts allowed to slip through. Yet you won't hurt him because, unlike the original game, MS3 won't let you. Chances are that even you'll take a few pot shots, just to vent your frustration. Good thing then that he's invincible when in autopilot mode, because he constantly leaves himself wide open to be blasted by anyone who sees him goofily standing there. Sometimes he'll materialize, out of nowhere, only to perch himself right beside you and trap you on a stairwell or in a godforsaken room somewhere. Sometimes he might open fire on the enemy to help you out, other times he doesn't. Sometimes he'll follow you as he should, other times he won't.
What's not so cool is that the non-human-controlled soldier is an utter buffoon. What's cool about the whole thing is that the game allows you to switch control instantly between the two soldiers, so you can be the sniper one moment and the spotter the next. Then the sniper picks off what he can from long range, before the spotter moves in again to finish up. When the twosome head into combat, the spotter typically starts the proceedings by taking a good long look around. Each of you is permitted a set number of weapons and devices, the main distinction being that the sharpshooter (sniper) generally brings a long-range rifle along with his pistol and grenades, while the spotter carries a short-range automatic weapon together with his pistol, smoke grenades, and high-powered scope. As a marine sharpshooter in Iran, it is your duty to go places where others fear to tread, taking your trusty partner, the spotter, along with you on your journey. For MS3, that enemy is Iran-more precisely, Iranian terrorists.
And it proves that the same game can essentially be re-released over and over again, keeping things fresh only by updating the locale and the enemy. It proves that budget games, at half the price of regular fare, have a formidable audience. If this is true, and we can only presume it is, what does it mean? It means gamers like to shoot stuff and particularly like to snipe stuff-so much so that they'll grab virtually anything that allows them to do just that.
MARINE SHARPSHOOTER 3 WALKTHROUGH SERIES
There's a claim right on the box that the Marine Sharpshooter series has sold more than a million (yes, a million) copies. Yet there's clearly a method to the madness. Yet developer/publisher Groove Games has opted instead to stick with what didn't work the first two times and foist upon the innocent public a retro blast from the past, a retread, a reasonable facsimile of the original that now appears even less capable because we're now four years into the future. Three years have since passed, more than enough time to modernize the game and perhaps deal with its shortcomings. When Marine Sharpshooter 2 emerged approximately a year later, it was seen as marginally superior to the first but certainly not worthy of sincere recommendation. It was regarded as repetitious and more than a little problematic, and a bit behind the times even for its low-cost "budget" stature. When the original appeared on the scene four years ago, it received a slightly less than lukewarm reception. What is surprising is that version number 3 exists at all. Marine Sharpshooter 3 is the like-minded grandchild of a first person shooter released back in 2003 called, not surprisingly, Marine Sharpshooter. Why are we here? Is there a god? Is there a whole gaggle of gods, each with a bad attitude and a bunch of mini-gods orbiting around them like little satellites? Why is Paris Hilton in the news…ever? How is it that some games are allowed to reproduce? As we wind our way through this thing called life, we seek out answers for those questions that gnaw away at our collective subconscious.
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