Marksman Shooting

The Olympics are full of various gruelling challenges, from the obvious marathon to the 100 meter sprint (well, I’d like to see you up against the world record holders).

Anyway, one of the slightly less known, but by no-means any less skilful competitions on offer in the Olympics is the 10m Air Rifle event and the Rapid Fire Pistol event which are both emulated in very close detail for your gaming pleasure. If you have ever had the desire to test your target practice then you will be thoroughly delighted with Marksman Shooting.

With the 10m Air Rifle event you will be able to input your name and then select your country from the 15 available (alas the UK doesn’t feature – yet, with your practice you could well become the next gold-winning champion flying the flag!) In terms of game play, you will be presented with a zoomed in target which is clearly marked for your ease of targeting. To the left of the screen you see your character (which doesn’t change in appearance despite who’s team/country you pick to play for). Most importantly of all, you will see a crosshair which floats a little like a drunk bumble-bee around the target. Through your controls of up, down, left and right, you are able to tempt this rather sluggish and non-compliant crosshair to go in roughly the direction you desire. The aim (literally in this case) of the game is to take your shot when your crosshair hovers briefly over the centre of the target. For this, you will have to be very quick with your trigger finger, but not overly eager as this will probably mean you miss the centre and drift slightly off-target. The maximum number of points you can get per shot is 11, with my current record of 10.9 after several minutes of play, I believe this may be possible but nearly impossible. After shooting off your total of 10 shots, your score will be totalled up and compared with the others. I noticed that for the quick game you’ll stand a good chance of appearing at the top end of the table, however in the tournament games, you’ll need to get 11 points with nearly every shot to win.

In the Rapid Fire Pistol event, unlike the opportunity to take time to get the best score, you have a row of targets scroll past from left to right and you will have a much smaller crosshair to aim with. As the targets whiz past you will get one chance to shoot at each of the 20 targets. Again the cursor movements seem all but responsive in this game and it’s much more down to luck rather than true skill as to if you’ll get bullseye’s or a far more realistic low score. In either the tournament or quick play modes you will need to be as near to being a God when it comes to hitting the trigger at the right moment or your score will barely chart.

For the additional competitive edge and your chance to compare your results with others, the score from your quick or tournament games can then be uploaded via your phone to share.

So for those who love shooting and target practice this is quite a serious contender to get in your sights. If you’re looking for more of a general fun aim and fire kind of game then I’d set my sights elsewhere.

Rating 76%

Positives:

Very accurate and realistic

Quite addictive

Tricky

Negatives

You can’t go back to the main menu after selecting your game type

Rather repetitive

Frustratingly slow reactions/controls for aiming

Always asking to connect to the web to post your score (could rack up costs)