Silent Scope

About Silent Scope

Silent Scope (1999) is Konami's arcade sniper game, played with a rifle mounted on the cabinet whose scope shows a zoomed view, in which the player rescues the kidnapped First Family from terrorists.

Silent Scope in Depth

A rifle is mounted on the cabinet, so players have to physically shift position to aim, and its scope shows a close-up of a small part of the screen, like a sniper's long-range view of where the rifle points. Some areas are dark and need night-vision scopes to spot opponents. Five shots can be fired before reloading. Time and health are limited: killing certain enemies adds time, while training the scope on an attractive woman awards health and bonus points. Each of the three stages, one for each member of the First Family, has sub-bosses and a large boss, who take more than one bullet unless hit with a precise headshot. Enemies shoot back if not killed fast enough, and civilians caught in the crossfire must be spared. At points the player chooses between two or three paths, easy, medium or hard, which change the boss and the next mission.

Scores depend on where an opponent is hit, multiplied by the number of successful shots in a row, with the most for headshots; on the practice range, shooting the guns of human-shaped targets earns bonuses. The story begins when terrorists ambush the President's convoy returning from Chicago and capture the First Family, demanding the release of their leader, the dictator, and ends with the player down to a single bullet after emptying a magazine into bulletproof glass as the dictator escapes.

Making Silent Scope

Konami developed and published Silent Scope for arcades in 1999, the first game in the Silent Scope series. AllGame's Brett Alan Weiss called the arcade version "a blast to play, though a few more realistic sniper missions would be nice", noting acceptable graphics but music that could not be heard during the action. The home ports on the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast received moderately positive reviews, though Metacritic's average of 63% rests on few reviews. GamePro called the PS2 version "a picture-perfect arcade conversion" and "a must-rent title", and said the Dreamcast version's training courses "offer diverse fun". Edge gave the Dreamcast version seven out of ten, writing that it is "all about high scores through high accuracy" and that its "one shot, one kill moments of euphoria and despair" made it a success, and Next Generation called it "a solid shooting game with unique play mechanics". Sequels began with Silent Scope 2 in 2000.