Army Sniper Academy

Be the best... just remember squeeze the trigger and not pull it!

Being a sharpshooter is something which takes two things (besides bullets, a sniper rifle with scope and a target) which are; patience and reactions of a tetchy person hyped on too much coffee.

Needless to say Army Sniper Academy doesn’t give you the experience exactly, but to be really honest, it gives an absolutely flawless alternative – which will no doubt please every person out there who’s had an itchy trigger finger which needs some release.

The game basically follows the two discipline in two ways. Firstly, you are challenged with sniper mode, which gives you as long as you require to pull off the perfect mark. Secondly, you can challenge yourself with the rapid fire mode which gives you scrolling targets and the use of your sidearm for closer ranges.

What’s more about this game is that you get to either go straight into quick play or tournament modes in either sniper or rapid fire modes. As you can probably guess, tournament mode lets you earn your qualification in the final by going head to head challenge of eight rounds. Meanwhile, quick mode bypasses all the qualifying games and lets you skip straight to the final stage where you must compete against all the other countries finest shooters for pride and the elusive maximum 110 points.

The graphics are sharp and clear and gives you a good depth of realism which is no mean feat in itself. The challenge offered by this game is very authentic and if you have patience and good hand-eye co-ordination, then you will truly excel in this game. The movements are quite close to the real thing, whereby you move the crosshair around the target through using the d-pad and press the trigger key (5 or OK button) and the score is recorded before you take your next shot.

However, as in the real thing, your crosshairs move around the target in a seemingly random way, making it nearly impossible to get a faultless score. Having said that though, I’m sure with enough practice and just a touch of luck, you’ll be leading the scoreboard. And with nearly every Fugu Mobile game I’ve tested, you get to upload your scores to see how your score fairs with the rest of the world (but you don’t have to do this unless you really want to).

In itself then, this game captures all the main elements a shooter styled skill based game should. You get to practice your long range target shooting as well as putting your frenzied firearm techniques to the test and no doubt feeling just a little bit like ‘Dirty Harry’ in his most psychotic mode – and that’s before you see the score total at the end of it all!

Ultimately, this game will test you in all the ways you’d expect and possibly a few ways which you didn’t think possible from a mobile game. If you have the patience and dexterity to make the finite moves and the reactions to capitalise on the split-second option between scoring high and missing the mark entirely, then you will be enthralled with this title. Similarly, if you fancy something equally challenging but altogether faster paced, then the quick fire round will suit you down to a tee.

Rating 84%

Positives

Very authentic and challenging

Quick fire and sniper modes give you quite a bit of flexibility from the title

Pretty addictive once you let this game get under your skin

Negatives

A little repetitive

Quite frustrating and will test your patience and reactions to the max

It’s a shame the targets aren’t able to come in different shapes and sizes to offer some variety