Marine Sharpshooter is the latest first-person shooter (sniper) game added to the App Store. The game got a lot of attention when originally released as is was a free download and is now priced at .99 cents.

Marine Sharpshooter has a decent premise - "Dropped behind enemy lines, you must uncover and dismantle an elaborate terrorist plot to launch a series of co-ordinated attacks around the world. Your mission will take you from hidden outposts in desert cities to full scale military bases." There are five major missions within the game, each of which involve completing a series of objectives - clearing the enemy terrain of hostiles. In addition to having enemies who identify your position the minute you fire your first shot, you are also timed. You have to clear a set number of battlefields within the time alloted.

The problem is that a solid premise is marred by a flawed implementation -- the gun controls can often be sluggish and there is no zoom-in/zoom-out to help target your shots. Without having a zoom feature, you don't get a view of the whole terrain so your scope flashes red in the direction of enemy fire. While the key objective is to clear the enemy terrain, you are awarded points and the points system is somewhat bizarre. You lose 200 points for every missed shot but, when an enemy is hiding behind an object (window, etc.), these are the times where you have to point, rapid fire and hope for the best. My key complaint with Marine Sharpshooter is that the game play seems incredibly repetitive - every terrain has the feeling of 'sameness'.

While the game is certainly priced affordably, I'd recommend passing as I just couldn't find reason to keep playing this game. As a point of comparison, I played iSniper until I finished the game.