Parents' Guide to Hitman Sniper: The Shadows

This is an engaging sniping game, but its pay to win play and repetitive action limits the enjoyability of the experience. Taking place at the fictional Mount Storm lodge in Canada, Hitman Sniper: The Shadows starts with a tutorial that teaches you the basics of being an International Contract Agency (ICA) agent. While it takes some getting used to the touch-only controls, you'll accomplish three main objectives: eliminating all guards, using your special ability, and performing a headshot. Players earn bonus points for using the environment as best you can to take out targets, which could be spent later on upgrades. The Campaign mode takes you through 7 chapters, each with several contracts to complete, which tests your skill with each of the half-dozen operatives under your control.

Similar to 2015's Hitman: Sniper, the contracts are a bit of a puzzle, as you need to figure out the best way to take out these high-profile targets, including nearby loyal minions, without raising much suspicion. This makes the game more challenging than just aiming and sniping. But while there's some strategy and variety, there's also monotony after you've completed a few of the Campaign chapters. It's still thrilling, but gets repetitive after an hour or so. At least there's also a PvP (Player vs. Player) mode to sharpen your skills against other human players, rewards for logging in daily, weapon upgrades, and six different characters to play around with (based on your mission). There are some technical issues, mainly because there's no native iPad version, so you'll have to expand the iPhone screen to fit on the larger tablet. Unfortunately, the visuals take a hit in the process. The loot crates and various in-game currencies also may annoy players, because the PvP portion comes across as a "pay-to-win" game. That being said, fans of sniper games will not be disappointed with Hitman Sniper: The Shadows, if they can overlook some of the game's flaws.