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Hide and Go Sneak - The Rise Of Stealth Gaming 73

Posted by simoniker from the be-vewy-vewy-quiet dept.
Thanks to Slate for its article discussing why stealth elements are now integrated into some of the most interesting new videogames. The author argues: "10 years after Doom, the rampant weapon-play can start to seem tedious. Kill your enemies, reload, kill some more, reload - man, what a drag. You become a pacifist for the weirdest possible reason: not because the virtual violence seems so awful but because it's so bloody repetitive", before suggesting that, although "many of these games do, in the end, require you to resort to at least some violence", an "unexpected benefit" of stealth titles such as Thief: Deadly Shadows is that "Your aesthetic experience becomes much better. Most lightning-fast 'twitch' shooter games are so fast-paced you barely have time to notice how wonderfully detailed the 3-D world is... Stealth turns gamers into tourists."
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Hide and Go Sneak - The Rise Of Stealth Gaming

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  • hide and go seek rocks! I remember it for the atari 2600... good times... (switching the cart when the other person was "hiding" was fun too...)

  • Mostly true (Score:5, Funny)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @06:38PM (#9657588) Homepage Journal
    "You become a pacifist for the weirdest possible reason: not because the virtual violence seems so awful but because it's so bloody repetitive"

    I play Q3 with a coworker nearly every day. The fun of the stealth mode isn't because it isn't repetitive, but because making him say "PUNK!!!" never gets old.

  • On the other hand... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by th1ckasabr1ck ( 752151 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @06:41PM (#9657600)
    10 years after Doom, the rampant weapon-play can start to seem tedious

    Yeah, but sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting for someone to walk around the corner so you can sneak by him can be pretty damn tedious also.

    For the record, Doom is my favorite game of all time.

    • Yes, that's why campers are seen as assholes in games where there's not an implicit objective of stealthing...

      • Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Sancho ( 17056 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @06:57PM (#9657709) Homepage
        Yeah, but it's part of the game. Actually, that's why I like Counterstrike quite a bit. Death is permanent for that round...no respawning, so you have to be careful. Not necessarily always sneaky, just careful. Can't expect to just be able to respawn and run back to do some killing, and you know that the people you kill are going to stay down until the round ends. It makes camping more legitimate, in my opinion.
        • The standard argument.
          Make a difference between camping and ambushing.
          What everyone hates is that a stupid newbie is sitting in the damn BEGINNING of the map or some deserted place on the map, waiting for someone to come kill them. Making it so that it's common to see THEM hiding, for 3 mins and the people on the other just go to search for him.

        • Re:On the other hand... (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Camping is always legit. Except in Seattle. Damn City Ordinances.

      • Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dtfinch ( 661405 ) * on Friday July 09, 2004 @08:32PM (#9658152) Journal
        I say let the best strategy win. If you weren't meant to hide in a weapon-unreachable spot at the top of the tallest tower and shoot everyone with guided missiles, then they shouldn't have put those elements into the map.
        • I say virus writing and exploiting programs is legit, after all, if they didn't want you to exploit it they wouldn't have built in those bugs in first place, right?
      • If it's a strategy that works, it works.

        I'm a long-time Descent player. There are essentially three styles of play, which can be integrated: dogfighting, tunnel-fighting, and hit-and-run. All often use some element of camping. The dogfighter is often patrolling "his room". Of course, everyone knows this, so it's not so lame. But camping isn't a viable long-term strategy. Works once or twice, then people start doing clever things like using smart-missiles to kill campers.

    • I'll second that, Far Cry MP with less than four people is incredibly boring. You end up running around the map, meeting an enemy every few minutes then running around again.

      I guess it helps if you know the map well, then you can meet up in one area.

  • Maybe not? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mind Booster Noori ( 772408 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @06:41PM (#9657606) Homepage
    Maybe it's not an issue of "kill/reload/kill" being boring, but because games are progressing to a more realistic level, adding more features in an attempt of adding "virtual realism" to the game?

    Don't forget that online games are moving in the direction of turning themselves in virtual realities, and that most games are adding "online" capabilities to them (or are fully online)...

    It's just a predictible step to the future...

  • Stealth is hard enough in real life (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bersl2 ( 689221 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @06:56PM (#9657702) Journal
    In a game, I don't have as precise control of my body. In a game, I cannot see how well I blend in with the surroundings, because I cannot see my in-game self.

    What little stealth I have in real life I have learned from slow-paced non-life-threatening situations.

    I guess I should go play Thief or Splinter Cell or something.

    • Re:Stealth is hard enough in real life (Score:4, Informative)

      by oskillator ( 670034 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @07:08PM (#9657780)
      The Thief series and the Metal Gear Solid series both have interface additions to help with this issue: Thief has an indicator which shows you exactly how well you're illuminated, and Metal Gear Solid has a radar system which shows the locations and FOVs of nearby guards. Both interfaces work pretty well.
      • This is also the case in Splinter Cell that the grandparent mentioned.
        You have a visibility indicator. Moreover, in all 3 games, you are either always in 3rd person or can switch. When you look at yourself in 3rd, you can see "how well you blend".
        Moreover, in Thief3, you CAN see you body if you look down, so u can really see how you blend, in 1st person.
        • However, the human eye and the game's AI might disagree on the visibility of, say, a camo pattern.
          • That's very true, and it gets even funnier than that!

            I haven't checked, but i'm pretty sure it will go like I say. Consider the following:
            A big enough room which is very well lit, except for a circle of darkness in the middle. You character stands inside that circle, in a way the "light meter" states complete darkness. Now consider an enemy looking there. A human will certainly see the silhouette of your character, yet the in game AI will probably not see you.

            I'm not sure if the AIs already see the shadow
      • The downside of the MGS approach is that you spend 90% of your playing time just looking at the radar, instead of the gorgeous backdrops. That kinda sucks.

        And I've been playing Far Cry recently and I find that guards tend to notice you in situations where I could have sworn I was utterly invisible (like lying on my belly, behind a tree, in some bushes, in near total darkness). "There he is!" Arg, another hour of sneaking around gone to waste...

  • Sneakers have been around since before Wolfenstein got a "3D" to it's name...
  • I'm personally startled by the degree to which "shoot and reload" games like Thief 1(1998) have been replaced by stealthy games like Unreal Tournament 2004. Surely it heralds a new era of gaming!!!!!
    • Funny? Yes

      But FPS games are not being "replaced" by 'sneekers', but they are being complemented.

      There is more then one way to make a game, and 'shooter' and 'sneeker' are only two of the ways to make one

  • Stop and ogle (Score:2, Funny)

    by empaler ( 130732 )
    I thought tourist gamers had been around for quite a while in FPSers?
    Think about all the video booths and strippers in DN3D...
    "Shake it baby..."

  • stealth in games (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alphaseven ( 540122 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @07:11PM (#9657809)
    From the article: You're always fretfully observing your opponents. To get past a guard, you might spend five minutes just standing there, stock-still, spying on him to figure out his movements, the better to creep by.

    Stealth games regularly force you to slow down, to observe, to go carefully. I spent over an hour going through the Theif III demo, if it was the type of game where I just had to go around and kill everyone, it probably would have taken me less than ten minutes.

    The cynical part of me thinks stealth is popular with game developers because they can slow the player down and stretch a 5 hour game to 20+ hours.

    • Re:stealth in games (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Snowmit ( 704081 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @08:08PM (#9658093) Homepage
      The cynical part of me thinks stealth is popular with game developers because they can slow the player down and stretch a 5 hour game to 20+ hours.

      The disadvantage for developers is that because you're slowing down and observing things, it's much harder to make a realistic world. I mean if it's live combat, and the AI is shooting at you and not doing much else, that makes sense. But making AI that can believably wander around and do interesting non-immersion-breaking things while the player stares at them for hours - that's hard.
    • The cynical part of me thinks stealth is popular with game developers because they can slow the player down and stretch a 5 hour game to 20+ hours.

      And what is wrong with that? I have to admit I am hooked on Thief, I've played all 3 of them not...well, working on the third. I love it.

      I wish there were more games like it. :(

    • Re:stealth in games (Score:3, Interesting)

      by dswensen ( 252552 ) *
      Interesting point, but I think that reasoning is a bit flawed. A game that requires you to go slow and take your time as part of the gameplay, and the fun, isn't artificially inflating its play time. If it takes you 20 hours to finish it, playing it the way it was meant to be played, then it's a 20-hour game.

      Now, a game with no way to save except between missions, or ridiculous caveats that hinder or reverse your progress -- that's artificially inflating play time. So far as I know none of the Thief games

  • Stealth Paradigm in Multiplayer (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Prien715 ( 251944 ) <agnosticpope@gmail. c o m> on Friday July 09, 2004 @07:44PM (#9657968) Journal
    One problem was the time problem. In the time it takes to get one stealth kill, you can get many run and gun kills. The solution is a heavy penalty for dying, like not respawning.

    Now the problem with the stealth paradigm is that it can be boring for those already dead: you really want to wait for a 20 minute stalk match with the last two players?

    CS I think balances these two, despite being the first game in the genre to populatize the no-respawn rule. I get most of my kills not because I'm the faster shot, because I see the other player first and can line a shot up without him even noticing me (and no, I don't camp, I just go alternative routes). I can play CS like a stealth game (especially in maps like oilrig) but you don't have to, which is what's so great about it. (In America's army and RC3, it's stealth only (or sit at a choke point and fire into the smoke) which is less exciting. I want to stalk an enemy who isn't necessarily stalking me.) The max time limit of 4-5 minutes in most maps (though it can seem like forever) also helps as well as the ability to stalk a specific target (e.g. the VP or the bomb sites) on offense.
    • > CS I think balances these two, despite being the first game in the genre to populatize the no-respawn rule.

      I'm quite sure that Action-Quake2 came before CS, and it was popular at the time.

    • Now the problem with the stealth paradigm is that it can be boring for those already dead: you really want to wait for a 20 minute stalk match with the last two players?

      The bigger issue is that multiplayer usually doesn't support a real stealth game type. That is, the "mission" is too obvious for both sides, and so you know what the win/lose situation is. The plot behind single player, however, is that your enemies aren't specifically looking for you or actively guarding a "flag". They're just puttin

  • Woah Woah (Score:3, Insightful)

    by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @07:52PM (#9658026)
    The whole stealth thing is seriously getting old. How many metal gear solid games are out there. Add splinter cell, tenchu ninja game.... whoopie.

    This market needs more team play like wolfenstein enemy territory and the bloodfest will be all worth while.

    • Have you played BF1942/Vietnam lately? Although the games were specifically created for teamplay, most online games are just a bunch of loners trying to shoot as many as possible without any sort of cooperation.

      der Joachim

  • reload? when? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09, 2004 @08:22PM (#9658120)
    "Kill your enemies, reload, kill some more, reload - man, what a drag."

    That is why doom features the CHAINGUN! Cut out the reload part for 100% fun!
    • I know you meant delay between shots, but DooM didn't keep track of rounds of ammo in and out of the weapon, it just subtracted rounds from your total ammo each time you shot. If I remember correctly, the shotty did have reloading animation, though, which slowed down the rate of fire. The first fps game I remember seeing that kept track of both bullets in the clip and a separate stockpile, requiring reloading, was Goldeneye for N64. I'm sure it's not the first though.
      • I believe Bungie's Marathon for Mac did it first, back in 1994.
      • In Duke Nukem 3d you had to reload the pistol, IIRC, but it didn't show you how many shots you had left. I'm not sure when DN3d came out, though.
        • In Duke Nukem 3d you had to reload the pistol, IIRC, but it didn't show you how many shots you had left.
          Actually, it did. The reload animation gets played when the number of bullets remaining reaches a multiple of 12. (And the number of bullets is listed on the HUD.)

          • Actually, it did. The reload animation gets played when the number of bullets remaining reaches a multiple of 12. (And the number of bullets is listed on the HUD.)

            And the Grenade launcher needs to get reloaded when the number of Grenades drops to a prime number.

            Seriously, might be a good way to teach math to kids. Or horses.

  • Stealth = Realism (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09, 2004 @09:11PM (#9658270)
    I love stealth games. If I actually went ahead with my plans to infiltrate a super-secret military/criminal facility, killing the administrator and his minions and stealing his secret plans, whilst armed with only a shotgun and a crowbar- well, let's just say my plans call for LOTS of hiding.

    Stealth aspects are low-rent immersion, I love it!!

    Of course, all the tetrahydrocannabinol delta 9 I take helps the immersion as well. Enough of that and you'll *want* to hide.
  • Descent 2 is still a great game, even though there's now Descent 3 (which is better). A game like that feels much more realistic than a "person" game, because you have what feels like complete, perfect, and natural control over yoru ship. Furthermore, there's so much talent required, due to all the degrees of freedom. If you play against good players, Descent never really gets boring.

    The game has a simplicity which is graceful. Elements of stealth, dogfighting, and close-quarters tunnel fighting are all built-in, as is hit-and-run.

  • Shooters are not getting old... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's just that game writers have given up trying to write a decent one. How many good shooters have come out in the past few years? Maybe three. I'd kill (no pun intended) for a good one. Halo 2 and Doom III are definitely on my 2-get list.

    Another sad turn is the move away from having multiple weaker monsters and towards one big monster. Yeah, it's really hard to animate twenty baddies coming at you in one room with today's expected quality, but I fondly remember certain levels in Doom II where you'd run a
    • Blah! After being used to Doom monsters, I tried to pick up quake. I'm used to these guys taking a few shotgun blasts at most to kill for non-bosses, but as far as I could tell, the weakest Quake monster took 5 grenades! Going around the next corner just to find another monster that I'd have to shoot in the face 50 times with a shotgun got old pretty quick. I think Doom was more fun.

      • Blah! After being used to Doom monsters, I tried to pick up quake. I'm used to these guys taking a few shotgun blasts at most to kill for non-bosses, but as far as I could tell, the weakest Quake monster took 5 grenades!

        I'm not sure which monster you are talking about... The weakest "monster" in Quake would be the Dog, which is killed by two shotgun blasts with standard accurracy. Next would be the Solder and Enforcer, which require 2 and 4 hits respectivly.

        The toughest monsters in Quake would be t

  • Thief is _not_ a good example of your case (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MikShapi ( 681808 ) on Saturday July 10, 2004 @12:28AM (#9659235) Journal
    Thief is an overmilked cow. Sorry, but it is. If Deadly Shadows was the first Thief installment you played, and you're completely oblivious of other fun things people put in other contemporary games (such as character buildup and improvement over time) and you're still too new to computer games to understand what "game balance" is and why (or whether) it's important, then hell yes, Thief is a great title.

    But let me point out the following:
    1. This is a third installment of the game. It boasts nothing new from the first two, except for a nicer physics engine and visual candy. This is good for a GOOD game, but BAD for a game that has a large amount of serious design problems. Read on.
    2. Even on expert mode, the game is just too damn EASY. I'm not against giving the player options, I'm against all of them doing such a tremendously good job solving the problem. It renders proper choice of technique (read: require player to THINK) useless. You don't need to think which way is best to solve a problem. All of them are. Douse the torch, or sneak when the guard is on patrol, or clobber him and hide the body. Or head-shot him with a broadhead. Or flashbomb him and run past. It's not like he'll alert every other denizen of the map if you do. On a sidenote, the game is damn too forgiving.
    3. The game does not reward excelence, meticulousness. Obtaining >90% of the loot doesn't require you to be attentive to small details so much as just be systematic.
    4. It's ONE OF THE MOST REPETITIVE GAMES I HAVE EVER PLAYED. Probbably more than Doom 3 will be.
    5. Character enhancement? Leveling? where?
    6. AI - In Thief III everybody is a combination of Sherlock Holmes and a retarded cockroach. Someone will see an object, turn away, you grab it, he turns back, sees its not there, and he'll not raise the entire house. If you leave a door open however, he'll call a guard (which will come, peek in the shadows, find nothing and forget the entire thing).

    Let's put this in contrast: Let's look at the Competition.
    A. HITMAN series.
    They too didn't change much for the last two installments. With them however, I consider it to be a GOOD point.
    PRO: The game most definitely rewards excelence. On the "Expert" mode (i.e. Finishing all levels with "Silent Assassin") It's HARD (read: more challenging and less boring). Technique choice is critical in many situations to do a clean job. Not every technique is good for every situation. This is so not only because [some] hitman weapons make significantly more noise and ruckus, but also because of proper level design.
    CON: While level-up doesn't exist in Hitman, you do get better weapons and are allowed to stash them and later take them with you on missions, but only if you wish to replay the missions a second time after you completed the first time with the default weapons. I did however find the "side-goal" of bringing a weapon back each mission to enrich my stash quite fun.
    PRO: Excelent level design.
    CON: You only notice how excelent the level design is if you play hardcore and attempt Silent Assassin. The casual player can just easily barge through, and the levels are untolerably easy.
    PRO: (I don't believe I'm saying this but after a bit of thought I'm firmly resolved on this):
    You can't save more than X times per level.
    Usually I stress this is a cheap, sorry and pathetic way for devs to artificially extend the amount of playing hours a game contains.
    I'm making an exception here. In Hitman the ability to make only so many saves forces you into taking care and doing things right, and generates suspence. I LOVED IT. Really.

    B. Deus-Ex. (1, not 2!).
    Deus-Ex was NOT a sneaking game. It could be though. It was a successful combination of about 4 types of games, of which sneaking was a major one.
    If we only look at aspects of it that are present in sneaking-only games, we find excelent level design (which you could replay 3 times and find new stuff you haven't found before each time you play it) and very good rewarding of attentivene

    • Making Theif harder (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If you find Thief to be too easy, I suggest you make it harder for yourself. One of the BEST things about the Thief series is you can make your own rules. One of the most popular and widely accepted difficulty increasers for Thief is that of "Ghosting". Ghosting is basically one rule:

      Never, EVER be seen (fully spotted).

      Of course, lots of people add additional rules to make things even harder. Popular choices include:

      Never kill anything not human, or never kill anything at all
      No knocking guards out, o
      • 1. I'm well aware of the AI-reverts-to-normal-level-after-loading-bug and played it patched to 1.1

        2. I DID play the game with my own rules. I never killed anything human. and I only clobbered people who had stuff I wanted and there was no other way of getting it off them.

        The problem with playing it with your own rules is that it's utterly unrewarding. No different from, say, completing Thief without ever using the Strafe Left button. Whoopee!

        As for the rules thing - I strongly disagree with your approach
        • hmmm...
          now, PLEASE don't think that i am attacking you personally, per se. But you have kinda hit on one of my pet peeves, so i gotta comment.

          Bassically, i think this sort of attitude is what is bred by our educational system. That is, people think, "why would i do this, if I am not being aknowledge/rewarded?"

          I call it the "Gold Star Syndrom" (GSS)

          I mean really, why does an inatimate computer need to reward you for anything? Why does aknowledgement make what you did any better/hareded/more important,
          • First off, thanks for the insight, and no, I'm not offended.
            In fact I pretty much share your view of how sad this GSS as you call it is, and was fully aware of it at the time I wrote the above as well.

            It's Interesting. I'm sorta trying to figure out what it is that makes my funhaving tick.

            My personal opinion - I like the sense of accomplishment, and I get it when I did something hard. I guess the gold star is a way of the devs saying "we knew someone would get to this hard-to-get-to point", and I guess I

    • Uhh.. (Score:1)

      by Kwil ( 53679 )
      You *have* patched your version of Thief III right?

      Otherwise if you're playing on expert and save your game, you're not playing on expert any more.
    • Dude,

      Read this:

      Thief 3 Deadly Shadows Bug Neuters In-Game AI [slashdot.org]

      and this:

      Thief Deadly Shadows 1.1 Patch Fixes AI [slashdot.org]

      .. and play the game again.

      Yuioup
    • I haven't played Thief, so I cannot comment on that, but I disagree with your assessment of Hitman. It was an incredibly frustrating experience for many reasons, including:

      - Getting stuck in doors. Yeah, like an assassin would find himself unable to operate a simple, unlocked door...

      - Not being able to save. You play for an hour, make a tiny mistake, game over. Next step: repeat the previous hour exactly as before...

      - Enforces illogical situations. In the restaurant mission you cannot kill your target

      • Speaking as someone who has played Hitman II and Hitman Contracts, but not the original Hitman:

        1) No door sticking (but I'm playing on XBox, and I've noticed "sticking to the scenery" seems more frequent in PC games. Not trolling, as I love my PC games. Just an observation)

        2) You can save up to 5 times per level (6? I forget), which is enough to make it clearable, but not so many as to make the FPS quick-save-marathon approach work.

        3) I don't remember many illogical situations.

        4) The guards only kind
      • My experience was a lot different. I found some of the doors clumsy if you approached them running, which was doubly annoying since the only time I ran in that game was when I was being chased by a gang of machine-gun wielding guards. I liked the challenge of the no-save gameplay. The saves in Hitman II definitely changed my playing style. The only time I found it annoying was when I had to replay the Rotterdam docks mission twice (nailed it on the 2nd time). I did the Honk Kong boss assasination mission th

    • holy crap (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Character enhancement? Leveling? where?



      Jesus fucking christ. We need automated satellite lasers or something to shoot down all the retard armchair game designers.

      It's like the shit train just keeps coming..

    • Deus Ex is almost best played as a Stealth Game. I really enjoyed playing as a stealthy ninja who only kills people when absolutely necessary. My only complaint was that if alerted enemies would turn towards you if you tried to run up behind them to knock them out (even with full silent running). Bots and Men In Black where you couldn't sneak past were about the only time I ever used heavy artillary.

  • Difficulty (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DownloadTHIS ( 794378 ) on Saturday July 10, 2004 @02:23AM (#9659616)
    I think the main problem with stealth games is that they can never give the character the proper combat skills. I remember playing Metal Gear Solid, and while I mostly hid through the game, I recall not worrying much when I did get caught because I could still gun down quite a few gaurds before dying, even make it out alive often. Meanwhile, when playing Splinter Cell I felt that Sam's combat skills were subpar for someone who the NSA put so much trust in. To be fair, the emphasis is on stealth, but shouldn't he at least have some chance in a gunfight? Now, I'm not asking for Sam to be able to charge through without worrying, but there should be at least a little room for error, especailly seeing as save point were presented in a checkpoint system, not a save anywhere system like a PC game. (Note: I played the Xbox version, I don't know if the save system is different on PC.)
  • The MMORPG Neocron [neocron.com] makes use of stealth ability for the Spy character class, who can stealth for short periods of time once they achieve a certain level. It does make the game interesting when you have to take into account that you might not be alone when you think you are. There are ways to combat stealthed players, such as AoE weapons and the Psi Monks have a spell that can cancel stealth - the classes really are designed to compliment each other.

    It's a great game and they are about to launch a major u [neocron.com]
  • Sneaking is a nice option, but IMO it should be just that, an option.
    Also if I get caught sneaking, then give a chance to fight my way out of the situation. For example in LoZ: The Wind Waker at the forsaken fortress there are sections where you have to sneak past some moblins. If you are seen then you get taken to a holding area with no chance to try fighting the moblin. This is only a mild example however.
    A more annoying example is Jedi Knight 2 : Outcast. In particular the Cairn - Docking Bay level. Ge
    • not familiar with the game, but that does indeed seem lame....

    • A more annoying example is Jedi Knight 2 : Outcast. In particular the Cairn - Docking Bay level. Geez I'm supposed to be some kind of uber jedi-wannabe with a huge pile of weapons and yet if some git hits the alarm panel I don't get the chance to fight my way out.

      Yes, I remember that section all too well. I wouldnt' find this to be a problem, if it werent for the fact that there were a few points where you were in a very high risk of being detected (and there wasn't a way around them, since it was a one-

  • Everything new gets old and old new again. This illustrates a law of psychology is that things get old the more you expose yourself to them for the vast majority of people. The fresher they are in your memory while you are consuming a product you will soon get burnt out on it after you no longer get some sort of psychological reward or satisfaction from it.

    But then years later you may go back to it and play game X or watch movie Y all the way through again. Think about it, even some of the greatest repl
  • I love it when I come across my friends playing some whimpy sneak-around game. I routinely taunt them with "Oh, be careful! You don't want those bad men to see you! You had better hide! Go and hide behind the wall like a little girl!"

    Give me a real grame like HL or Quake or FarCry any day. I've totally given up on sneaky shooters.

    No amount of storming into rooms armed with loads of guns and laying waste to massive amounts of my enemies will ever become dull.

    • No amount of storming into rooms armed with loads of guns and laying waste to massive amounts of my enemies will ever become dull.

      As you know, some games have attempted to make the enemies more challenging. For example, Red Faction gives the mercenaries a rail driver, which is a one-hit kill weapon designed to penetrate walls (you can see enemies through walls with its thermal scope.)

      I have yet to see a player who can complete a map containing such enemies without having to excessivly save and reload.

  • Nearly there (Score:4, Insightful)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Sunday July 11, 2004 @12:01AM (#9664646) Homepage
    I almost believed author Clive Thompson until he called, at the end of his article, Manhunt "another superb recent stealth game." Recent, I can believe. Supberb, not so much.

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