Something about sniping just makes my heart all warm and fuzzy. Perhaps it's the thrill of toying with the virtual life of an enemy centered in my crosshairs. Or maybe I just like guns adorned with humongous scopes. While my teammates prefer to jump into the fray directly (usually meeting the tender embrace of the opposition's gunfire), I typically hunker on the fringes behind something hopefully solid enough to both hide my presence and shield me.

Section 8: Prejudice takes my love for long-range assassinations and turns it on its head. The game's explosive multiplayer mode offers enough tools, weapons, and vehicles to mess around with, and its aesthetic similarity to other sci-fi shooters -- such as Starsiege: Tribes and Halo -- treads familiar ground and offers a consistently solid experience. The gigantic maps are a haven for sharpshooters to draw a bead on their prey from clear across the battlefield.
 

Of course, no one told me about Prejudice's hidden rite of passage of having a foe land on your head after he skydives to the ground at Mach Death. That's right: Because players reach the battle by deploying from orbiting dropships, any spot on the map (besides the no-man's-land of the anti-air turrets) is a potential spawn point. Including, to my mortification, the sniper nests I so dearly covet.

Eventually, I realized that developer TimeGate Studios wanted to keep the pacing of Prejudice's multiplayer constant via its “spawn anywhere” function, which admittedly adds some fresh excitement to the spectator sport of sniping. Staying mobile, already a crucial skill for survival, is even more paramount when trouble can literally land right at your doorstep.

When did this realization occur, you ask? Probably after the fifth time my face got vaporized by jetpack backwash while I was peering down my scope. Thus, I plead with my fellow and future teammates of this amazingly robust game: Check up on your snipers every once in a while. We're highly allergic to falling chunks of soldier-shaped power armor.