Stealth

[Whispering Death]

Yahtzee, I think you hit a very intersting point.

One of the reasons the 1999 Aliens vs. Predator game keeps such a warm place in many players' hearts is because that "triangle" was used very effectively in most campaigns. Take the alien campaign where you started off as a defenseless "chestburster" that had to evade soldiers trying to hunt you down. Then you moved into a stealth mode where you'd creep around the station taking out unwary guards. Until the end where you became powerful enough to eviscerate the dirty humans and win the day for the evil alien race!

Another example of your theory is what many people hate modern RPGs for. Old school RPGs would start out with you powerless, you'd have to use stealth and, many times, evasion to get away from high-level baddies because you didn't have the ability to fight them toe-to-toe. So the journey was extra-exhilarating when you finally get the weapons, armor, and skills to fight pitched battles in situations where before you had to evade and be stealthy.

I think there's a lot of truth in your article. A lot of wisdom that was once understood on some level but has now been lost to the idocracy of modern game development.

 

[TimeLord]

Pac-man is a stealth game!

I knew it, you all thought I was crazy

*twitch*

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

I read the bit about Anime being a medium and not a genre and I immediately came here to agree. I hate it when people just say 'I like anime'. It makes as much sense as saying 'I like western animation'.

 

[Lemon Of Life]

Hmm...there hasn't been a single stealth game I've loved, but I've heard good things from the Thief series. Are any Vista-compatible?

 

[fesc]

"Even something like Animal Crossing has the overhanging threat of Tom Nook breaking your kneecaps for debt non-repayment. "

This made my shitty day good.

 

[ivarsa15]

So you mean that the first three splinter cell games weren't about an unkonwn guy sneaking into a building complex/stronghold where you're not supposed to be in, which isn't anticipating you and hopefully won't notice you throughout?
Because in those games, I killed at most one guy per level. And that was mostly because I fucked up, but in the splinter cell series you are always that one guy that no one see coming.

And yet you mostly had the freedom to get through the level however you wanted. Wanna kill everyone and cause havoc on the level? You sure could, with some restrictions, but you also had the oppurtunity to be silent. In most of my playthroughs, I could sometime wait half an hour just to get to that perfect spot to avoid some guard while choosing my entrances carefully, staying in the dark corners of the ceiling, hanging on pipes and walls just to get through the level without any casualities. Those were the good games, though it was slow and grinding, it would always become a great challenge to get through the level without setting any alarms or killing any guards.

By my experience, the splinter cell games had much better stealth gameplay then any other game has yet to accomplish. It was excilirating to creep in the shadow while ten guards were chasing you or using Sam's incredible acrobatics to reach airvents and pipes to get to that unobtainable vantage point for you to intercept a suspect.
But if your experience with the splinter cell franchise is governed by the last two games (double agent and conviction) I could reckon that you would send of these games as bad stealth games.

 

[JustinA]

Two examples--

MIRROR'S EDGE was excellent when it was hunkering down and exploring fresh territory in the Evasion corner of the triangle. Unfortunately, the designers just couldn't avoid falling into the quicksand of mandatory combat and fatally crippled what could have otherwise been a completely revolutionary game.

DEUS EX, on the other hand, largely achieved the mixing of all three corners of the triangle through the simple expedient of making it possible to overcome every challenge in the game in a variety of different ways. Because I was never forced into a style of play I didn't want, the mixing of gameplay styles wasn't a problem. And, better yet, the RPG elements of the design allowed me to improve my character in the styles of gameplay I preferred.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

You know, there could be a game in that fourth corner. In this train of thought, I find myself continuously thinking of Pratchett's Rincewind, so I'll use him as a kind of image to keep in mind. Why don't we have a game where killing a single guy is practically impossible, while stealth and sneaking and running away are preferred. Sure, it wouldn't be the most exciting, but imagine a falsely accused man, perhaps with a title like "Primary Enemy of the State/King/Queen/Horse-Elected Senator", running away from meatheads in armor waving swords around for effect, having to parkour his way out of an area. He'd be unarmed, where he can only use improvised junk laying around (a halfbrick in a sock, for instance), and where the ultimate goal is to get away, with no one noticing, taking into account civilians along the way. You could find a clothesline, and change your attire, you can hide in buildings and barrels and crates, you'll have a stamina gauge that you can improve over time by running more, or completing challenges. You can find little hideouts that teach you a new way to run that allows you to run further/faster and also might teach you the slogans of political dissidents that they might hinder your pursuers in the manner of the thugs or hookers in Assassin's Creed. You could even vary it up by having sages or seers peppered in the later enemies, disabling your early forms of hiding because they are aware of your presence and can find you, making the escape even more hectic. Maybe you'll eventually encounter other runners, and find their markers that only the initiated can read (I'm reminded of the Himalayan rock stacking to mark the path), to lead you to safety. He could even be a normal guy, who gets more haggard as he goes along, having no time to stop and shave, or shower, or wash off the pond scum from the pond he dove into in the last mission to avoid the dogs, using the old reed technique to hide under the surface. It could be part puzzle (what do I use to make sure I live), and part stealth (hide like hell and hope they don't shine the light in my direction).

 

[WolfmanNougat]

Well, there's always supposed-to-lose fights to mix up the combat and narrative.
Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword had a couple of those, and the story was more engaging as a result. At least, I thought so. Okay, the second one was followed by a cop-out deus-ex-machina, but at least it was comforting to know that you really were supposed to lose that fight when many of the bosses on the console games are nigh impossible to beat, yet you need to beat them to continue the story.

And hey, better to have a supposed-to-lose fight after a stroll down I'm-a-fucking-badass street than to wade umpteen times through a cheaply difficult level, only to die in a cutscene anyway, right?

 

[Sougo]

I never enjoyed splinter cell, but saying that out loud was apparently considered a gaming-sin.

 

[PS2MAN]

Ha I contest your silly Tea Party Mr Hatter. Investitive gameplay still exists and normally is sandwiched into RPG's, requiring you to go speak to X in order to get Y to give you a coin so you can pay for Z's magical boomerang. Ok most of the time it is just not required or forced but there are times where it is immersive.

So my question to you Yahtzee is - doesn't the existence of Deus Ex shit on your Triangle?

 

[ImprovizoR]

The only game that did the storytelling like a movie and was a lot of fun was GUN. So it can be done sometimes. It started of slow, had ups and downs of a character and even a bit of stealth in some levels and it culminated with an epic boss battle. I really felt like I was "playing a movie".

 

[SpecklePattern]

It seems to me that modern sneaking games are like playing Adventures of Lolo (on NES) in 3D. We have the technology to make smart stronghold guards, but now, like in Lolo they are only able to breath fire in one direction.

I would give my soul for a good stealth. It is true that developers are trying to make movie like games and perhaps fail in them that way... Like in splinter cell you can wait the guy next to you just ignore the seventh time he, lets say had the "I-thought-I-saw-something" movement, but there is no feel to it like Yahtzee said. World is revolving around Fisher. I would like to fear the guards that the stronghold has to offer. I wish they offered a challenge. More autonomous world would also be nice (No freaking position triggers that make something happen over and over in the same way).

 

[econael]

a game with a three-act plot would use all three corners of the triangle - start out with evasion when you're vulnerable, use stealth in the middle to redress the balance guerrilla-style, then gain sufficient strength to sort everything out with violence in the end.

that's exactly what Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth did!

 

[Sabrestar]

Some of the most intense and most fun moments I've ever had in video games involved desperately fleeing from enemies of superior strength. However, I am yet to see a game really nail evasion as a gameplay mechanic. Or as a story element for that matter.

It's been mentioned before, but the only game that has had parts that nail that feeling for me has been Metroid Fusion. Some of the evasion parts had me simply terrified running all out. Almost as good in the related section of Metroid Zero Mission.

And Yahtzee, thank you (seriously, not sarcastically) for finally putting the Ebert controversy to rest. They're different, they aren't the same, now let's let it go and let games be games and films be films.

 

[thenamelessloser]

Kind of funny cause some of my favorite games used the category that neither the enemy or the player are attacking for at least some parts... Some old PC RPGs had parts like this such as the Fallout games and Planescape: torment, and Arcanum (or maybe that is almost all the games that had that. of them...)

But heck, there is a whole GENRE that involves relatively little of enemy attacking the player or player attacking the enemy- puzzle adventure games such as Gabriel Knight and Monkey Island. I do admit some of the puzzles in those type of games could be lame and annoying with just trying to use items on everything... But what would be perhaps interesting is a game that revolves around diplomacy and words, like the parts in WRPGs where you convince a boss to commit suicide or for some other situation that avoids a physical conflict.

To me this is as much escapism as going and beating up 20 guys at once. Why? Because even though I read a decent amount, my writing and speech skills are still rather sub par, yet, being able to convince an enemy to kill itself or some other situation that my character's words alone solve the situation can be as fun or even more fun than just bashing the other dude's skull in.

 

[Phokal]

Metal Gear Solid 1 hits all three points pretty well.

Early on, you are pretty weak, so you evade and avoid fights altogether. Plus, being seen and taking down opponents downgrades you, so you avoid it.

Then you have a couple of sequences of forced action or a boss fight.

To top that off, whenever you want, you can snap and just start hunting guards (screw the downgrade). Combined with a silencer and more weapons, this is more hunting than evasion.

Also, ironically, it sounds like splinter cell hits some of these points, too. I'm playing through double agent, which is a lot of evasion, and some hunting (required to kill X guards). It sounds like Conviction is hunting + forced combat. Plus, there is also the co-op...

I really like the example, though. Can games tell a story in a non-film method? Or can a game tell a story in a film method, that often involves continual loss and punishment?

 

[hi0marc]

Can the idea be applied to racing games? where the AI isnt racing (i.e the police) You are, and you must race without them noticing... Although killing said police car would cause more trouble than it'd solve...

 

[The V Man]

You know, I've long been thinking that in fire fights where the player is seriously outmatched, there should be a retreat option (read: requirement) to have things play out a bit more realistically. I mean if I were a burly commando type I'd only have gotten to be such a force of testosterone by knowing when I can and cannot win - and discretion IS the better part of valour, right?

Trouble is, developers never consider running away as a valid option unless the game has planted you specifically weapon-less and it the serves the plot.

There are, however some exceptions - Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth and the Thief series actually reward your cowardice with survival. Well, the latter more than the former which again had retreat as an oft-used plot mechanic. So I guess we're really just down to Thief being the only game that made running away screaming like a little girl a viable option.

Buggery.

 

[mcubas]

"Ideally, a game with a three-act plot would use all three corners of the triangle - start out with evasion when you're vulnerable, use stealth in the middle to redress the balance guerrilla-style, then gain sufficient strength to sort everything out with violence in the end."

That sounds like Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth to me... good game