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Join me, brothers and sisters, in my revolt against an abomination in gaming today - stealth.
Let me take you back a few years. Goldeneye was shown to the world. The Mission Impossible game was delayed because they realised Goldeneye would kick seven shades out of it (when they eventually released it, Goldeneye kicked EIGHT shades out of it)
The stealth missions were almost revolutionary. Except they weren't stealth missions, they were normal missions, but you had the CHOICE on whether you wanted to run around like Rambo, or go all ninja like for as long as you could before all heck broke loose. You could shoot guards with your suppressed pistol, meaning the guard around the corner wouldn't even know you were there. You could walk behind them, then judo chop them to death or empty another bullet from your magazine into their hide. The point is, you didn't HAVE to do it, it just made things easier. If you wanted to, you could re-enact Commando and run around shooting people to your heart's content, even setting off alarms on purpose to increase the numbers of people in the giant turkey shoot. But, if you wanted to, you could re-enact the actual film, and sneak around the chemical plant, only getting into a real firefight at the end. A few missions later, and you weren't even given a suppressor for your gun... stealth was out the window after just a few levels. And it was great. Russians, terrorists, they were all lining up to take a bullet from Bond in a huge gun fight in a park, a military base, a ship and even a train depot. My point is, there was stealth on some missions if you wanted it. It wasn't rammed down your throat. You didn't HAVE to hide from the guards.
This brings me to my next point - Metal Gear Solid 2 - perhaps one of the worst games to ever disgrace my eyes. But I'm not complaining about the fact that, in reality, it's nothing more than an interactive film, where every so often the cutscenes stop and you get to do one little thing before they start again. I'm not even talking about the controls, the spawn of Satin himself. I'm talking about the stealth. Never before has such a hyped game bored me to the point where I started to lose the will to keep breathing. I'd never played Metal Gear Solid on the PS1, or any of the 2D Metal Gear games, but I imagined that I would enjoy MGS2, as those few stealthy missions in Goldeneye had been fun... So maybe an entire game like that would be fun too, I thought. How wrong I was. Ooh, you get to sneak around, ooh, you can hide from guards, ooh, you can shoot them with a dart gun and knock them out... ooh... who gives a flying fudge? Has gaming really become this boring? Was I right to stay out of the last two console wars, sticking with my PC and only getting a 64 and PS1 second hand after the initial hype? Has console gaming become this bad?
I tried, oh how I tried, to enjoy the game. The initial level, in the shell, however, was hampering that attempt of mine. Enemies are few and far between, meaning I spent most of the time wrestling with the controls, trying to get the floppy haired hippy just to walk down a corridor. When I finally find someone, can I drop down from the ceiling and snap his neck? Can I cartwheel up to him from behind till he turns around just as one of my legs kicks him in the face? Can I drag him into the shadows and slit his throat? No... I have to run away, because I don't have a gun... Whoop-de-doo! Glad to see my money hasn't gone to waste, this game lets me run away from people! Hurrah! I must remember to write to all the major gaming companies, asking them to let us do this in more games. In fact, there should be a game devoted entirely to running away! Marvel at my ability to tap somebody on the shoulder, then leg it down the corridor, snickering as I go. Laugh as I play knocky nine doors on the local old people. Be astonished at the way I call people names then run and hide in lockers.
OK, I think I just destroyed the sarcasm-o-metre with that last paragraph, but I think it gets my point across. When I finally DID get a gun, was it a shotgun? A sniper rifle? A minigun? No. It was a dart gun, as in this world of political correctness, we're not even allowed to kill people anymore. Personally, I'd feel safer with a water pistol, but no, the developers felt it necessary to give me a non-lethal weapon... probably to see if it would make me snap or not. When I *did* get a gun with actual bullets, I was at my wit's end and stopped playing the game. It's resting next to my TV, gathering dust while I play old PS1 games on my big, expensive and powerful console. I was so fed up with the game, I simply stopped caring. I ran into rooms, attempting to start a fight with the guards, but they just shot at me before returning to their patrol. I spent more time staring at the FHM posters on the walls than I did trying to complete my goals (whatever they were, I got lost after the 20th cutscene, and didn’t have a clue what I was meant to be doing)
My point is - stealth is fine in small doses. It makes a nice change from the bang bang, kill kill, non-stop action... but an entire game where you spend the majority of it hiding from stupid guards and putting people to sleep? Please, don't insult my intelligence. That's not a game. A game is usually something you can't do in real life. I could re-enact MGS2 by sneaking around my house with a bottle of chloroform. Don't tell me it's fun, don't tell me it's entertaining, don't tell me it's exciting. It isn't. It's boring. Hiding from teachers who are trying to catch you knocking off lessons - THAT is fun, because there's danger, there's suspense, and there's a whole lot of the wetting of the pants. Doing it in a game... just doesn't "do it" for old MoJo here.
Simple fact is, games let us do things we can't do in real life (well, at least not legally) In a game I can do drive by shootings, I can eat magic mushrooms and grow twice as big, I can whip out a lightsabre and cut people in half, I can even win the premiership with a poop team like Sunderland. Can I do those things in real life? Heck no (especially the last one) However, in real life I *can* sneak around a building, hiding in cupboards, sneaking up on people and talking to myself- sorry, to the microchip in my suit which lets me communicate with people.
Oh, and honourable mention to Soldier of Fortune 2 for being one of the biggest let downs in gaming history. Gone are the days of gung-ho John Mullins with his desert eagle and flamethrower, instead replaced with "take this huge gun, but don't shoot anyone with it... you have to be quiet" Excuse me? They give me an industrial sized cannon, yet if I so much as squeeze the trigger, I'm discovered and overwhelmed by infinite spawning enemies. In the original, you walked around like the Terminator, an emotionless look on John's face as he de-limbed everything in sight. In SOF2, you have to sneak around, getting caught every two seconds and dying. Raven, and all other developers - THAT ISN'T FUN. Games are meant to be fun. Taking out an entire army single handedly is fun. Sneaking around like a scared, little child, worried about being seen is not, repeat, is NOT fun. Remember that. It's bad enough that almost every game feels the need for at least one stealth mission (even the Star Trek game, Elite Force had a couple) but to have an entire game based on it? Bollards to that, I say, it's just not cricket. Yes, on occasion, the odd stealth mission can be fun, if done right, but these days they just throw them together, thinking they're re-capturing the glory of Goldeneye or Hitman 1 & 2, games which put stealth to good use. Hitman was great, as the stealth was important. You weren't hiding though, as you could usually just go about your business, setting up the inevitable huge gunfight, when you throw stealth to the wind and deal your hand of death to everyone to dares mess with baldy.
Hitman ruled, and no doubt the sequel does too, but only because they got the balance right. Other games haven't. Just as you're settling in, just as you're getting used to blowing stuff up, suddenly, for no reason, you have to sneak around someplace. Why? Is John Mullins suddenly scared of taking on an army by himself? He managed to take out street thugs, international terrorists and half the Iraqi army, yet suddenly he, the almighty John Mullins, has to sneak around like a coward… What's up with that? It's developers trying to cash in on something which wasn't meant to be cashed in, that's what it is. They think they can milk the proverbial cow... well this cow has no more milk left to give, it's just giving out poison, poison to my gaming experience.
Please, somebody, go tell the game developers to lighten up on the stealth missions. They're not fun. They're not entertaining. They're the height of boredom and tedium. If another abomination like MGS2 or SoF2 comes out, I will make it my personal mission to go on a Jay & Silent Bob style cross-country search of all the developers to give them a good hiding.
Let me take you back a few years. Goldeneye was shown to the world. The Mission Impossible game was delayed because they realised Goldeneye would kick seven shades out of it (when they eventually released it, Goldeneye kicked EIGHT shades out of it)
The stealth missions were almost revolutionary. Except they weren't stealth missions, they were normal missions, but you had the CHOICE on whether you wanted to run around like Rambo, or go all ninja like for as long as you could before all heck broke loose. You could shoot guards with your suppressed pistol, meaning the guard around the corner wouldn't even know you were there. You could walk behind them, then judo chop them to death or empty another bullet from your magazine into their hide. The point is, you didn't HAVE to do it, it just made things easier. If you wanted to, you could re-enact Commando and run around shooting people to your heart's content, even setting off alarms on purpose to increase the numbers of people in the giant turkey shoot. But, if you wanted to, you could re-enact the actual film, and sneak around the chemical plant, only getting into a real firefight at the end. A few missions later, and you weren't even given a suppressor for your gun... stealth was out the window after just a few levels. And it was great. Russians, terrorists, they were all lining up to take a bullet from Bond in a huge gun fight in a park, a military base, a ship and even a train depot. My point is, there was stealth on some missions if you wanted it. It wasn't rammed down your throat. You didn't HAVE to hide from the guards.
This brings me to my next point - Metal Gear Solid 2 - perhaps one of the worst games to ever disgrace my eyes. But I'm not complaining about the fact that, in reality, it's nothing more than an interactive film, where every so often the cutscenes stop and you get to do one little thing before they start again. I'm not even talking about the controls, the spawn of Satin himself. I'm talking about the stealth. Never before has such a hyped game bored me to the point where I started to lose the will to keep breathing. I'd never played Metal Gear Solid on the PS1, or any of the 2D Metal Gear games, but I imagined that I would enjoy MGS2, as those few stealthy missions in Goldeneye had been fun... So maybe an entire game like that would be fun too, I thought. How wrong I was. Ooh, you get to sneak around, ooh, you can hide from guards, ooh, you can shoot them with a dart gun and knock them out... ooh... who gives a flying fudge? Has gaming really become this boring? Was I right to stay out of the last two console wars, sticking with my PC and only getting a 64 and PS1 second hand after the initial hype? Has console gaming become this bad?
I tried, oh how I tried, to enjoy the game. The initial level, in the shell, however, was hampering that attempt of mine. Enemies are few and far between, meaning I spent most of the time wrestling with the controls, trying to get the floppy haired hippy just to walk down a corridor. When I finally find someone, can I drop down from the ceiling and snap his neck? Can I cartwheel up to him from behind till he turns around just as one of my legs kicks him in the face? Can I drag him into the shadows and slit his throat? No... I have to run away, because I don't have a gun... Whoop-de-doo! Glad to see my money hasn't gone to waste, this game lets me run away from people! Hurrah! I must remember to write to all the major gaming companies, asking them to let us do this in more games. In fact, there should be a game devoted entirely to running away! Marvel at my ability to tap somebody on the shoulder, then leg it down the corridor, snickering as I go. Laugh as I play knocky nine doors on the local old people. Be astonished at the way I call people names then run and hide in lockers.
OK, I think I just destroyed the sarcasm-o-metre with that last paragraph, but I think it gets my point across. When I finally DID get a gun, was it a shotgun? A sniper rifle? A minigun? No. It was a dart gun, as in this world of political correctness, we're not even allowed to kill people anymore. Personally, I'd feel safer with a water pistol, but no, the developers felt it necessary to give me a non-lethal weapon... probably to see if it would make me snap or not. When I *did* get a gun with actual bullets, I was at my wit's end and stopped playing the game. It's resting next to my TV, gathering dust while I play old PS1 games on my big, expensive and powerful console. I was so fed up with the game, I simply stopped caring. I ran into rooms, attempting to start a fight with the guards, but they just shot at me before returning to their patrol. I spent more time staring at the FHM posters on the walls than I did trying to complete my goals (whatever they were, I got lost after the 20th cutscene, and didn’t have a clue what I was meant to be doing)
My point is - stealth is fine in small doses. It makes a nice change from the bang bang, kill kill, non-stop action... but an entire game where you spend the majority of it hiding from stupid guards and putting people to sleep? Please, don't insult my intelligence. That's not a game. A game is usually something you can't do in real life. I could re-enact MGS2 by sneaking around my house with a bottle of chloroform. Don't tell me it's fun, don't tell me it's entertaining, don't tell me it's exciting. It isn't. It's boring. Hiding from teachers who are trying to catch you knocking off lessons - THAT is fun, because there's danger, there's suspense, and there's a whole lot of the wetting of the pants. Doing it in a game... just doesn't "do it" for old MoJo here.
Simple fact is, games let us do things we can't do in real life (well, at least not legally) In a game I can do drive by shootings, I can eat magic mushrooms and grow twice as big, I can whip out a lightsabre and cut people in half, I can even win the premiership with a poop team like Sunderland. Can I do those things in real life? Heck no (especially the last one) However, in real life I *can* sneak around a building, hiding in cupboards, sneaking up on people and talking to myself- sorry, to the microchip in my suit which lets me communicate with people.
Oh, and honourable mention to Soldier of Fortune 2 for being one of the biggest let downs in gaming history. Gone are the days of gung-ho John Mullins with his desert eagle and flamethrower, instead replaced with "take this huge gun, but don't shoot anyone with it... you have to be quiet" Excuse me? They give me an industrial sized cannon, yet if I so much as squeeze the trigger, I'm discovered and overwhelmed by infinite spawning enemies. In the original, you walked around like the Terminator, an emotionless look on John's face as he de-limbed everything in sight. In SOF2, you have to sneak around, getting caught every two seconds and dying. Raven, and all other developers - THAT ISN'T FUN. Games are meant to be fun. Taking out an entire army single handedly is fun. Sneaking around like a scared, little child, worried about being seen is not, repeat, is NOT fun. Remember that. It's bad enough that almost every game feels the need for at least one stealth mission (even the Star Trek game, Elite Force had a couple) but to have an entire game based on it? Bollards to that, I say, it's just not cricket. Yes, on occasion, the odd stealth mission can be fun, if done right, but these days they just throw them together, thinking they're re-capturing the glory of Goldeneye or Hitman 1 & 2, games which put stealth to good use. Hitman was great, as the stealth was important. You weren't hiding though, as you could usually just go about your business, setting up the inevitable huge gunfight, when you throw stealth to the wind and deal your hand of death to everyone to dares mess with baldy.
Hitman ruled, and no doubt the sequel does too, but only because they got the balance right. Other games haven't. Just as you're settling in, just as you're getting used to blowing stuff up, suddenly, for no reason, you have to sneak around someplace. Why? Is John Mullins suddenly scared of taking on an army by himself? He managed to take out street thugs, international terrorists and half the Iraqi army, yet suddenly he, the almighty John Mullins, has to sneak around like a coward… What's up with that? It's developers trying to cash in on something which wasn't meant to be cashed in, that's what it is. They think they can milk the proverbial cow... well this cow has no more milk left to give, it's just giving out poison, poison to my gaming experience.
Please, somebody, go tell the game developers to lighten up on the stealth missions. They're not fun. They're not entertaining. They're the height of boredom and tedium. If another abomination like MGS2 or SoF2 comes out, I will make it my personal mission to go on a Jay & Silent Bob style cross-country search of all the developers to give them a good hiding.
cipro wrote:
> Games which rely on nothing but stealth play, usually arten't that fun
> for more than 5 minutes.
-------
That's exactly my point about MGS2... except it wasn't even fun for the first five minutes, I just kept playing in the HOPE that it would get better. It didn't
> Games which rely on nothing but stealth play, usually arten't that fun
> for more than 5 minutes.
-------
That's exactly my point about MGS2... except it wasn't even fun for the first five minutes, I just kept playing in the HOPE that it would get better. It didn't
garbe123 wrote:
> Cipro I don't know where you heard that about Splinter Cell because
> all I have heard is that it is going to be one of the greatest games
> ever made.
The funniest thing I've read all day, can you imagine a very slow paced Tom Clancy game being the best game in the world, HaHaHa, I suppose anything can happen.
Anyway, the game will be incredibly boring, all you do is sneak arond high tech buildings, peaking round corners, knocking out guards and hiding bodies. I admit that I can have fun doing that, but only if it's properly spaced out between more exciting levels.
Having a game totally devoted to stealth? no thanks, I want to be challanged in games, sure, but I also want have fun playing them. Games which rely on nothing but stealth play, usually arten't that fun for more than 5 minutes.
> Cipro I don't know where you heard that about Splinter Cell because
> all I have heard is that it is going to be one of the greatest games
> ever made.
The funniest thing I've read all day, can you imagine a very slow paced Tom Clancy game being the best game in the world, HaHaHa, I suppose anything can happen.
Anyway, the game will be incredibly boring, all you do is sneak arond high tech buildings, peaking round corners, knocking out guards and hiding bodies. I admit that I can have fun doing that, but only if it's properly spaced out between more exciting levels.
Having a game totally devoted to stealth? no thanks, I want to be challanged in games, sure, but I also want have fun playing them. Games which rely on nothing but stealth play, usually arten't that fun for more than 5 minutes.
I admit that Raiden was a poncy, hippy, softy guy who was nothing like the 'I don't care' attitude of Snake.
Cipro I don't know where you heard that about Splinter Cell because all I have heard is that it is going to be one of the greatest games ever made. As for MGS2, that was the only game (bar GTA3) that actually made me turn my PS2 on! The music was amazing, the story line was great and the gameplay was superb (unless you aren't a fan of stealth games). The only thing I didn't like about it was Raiden but all should be resolved with Sustance released next year :)
*slaps Knick Knack*
MGS2 is the biggest pile of dog doo I have ever seen. It's like they WANTED to make a bad game, that's the only explanation I can think of
MGS2 is the biggest pile of dog doo I have ever seen. It's like they WANTED to make a bad game, that's the only explanation I can think of
I agree with most points you raised there Mojo, I myself don't mind stealth, in moderation though. I can find it incredibly boring playing through prolonged periods of a game tip-toeing about and 'snapping' peoples necks, sure it makes a nice change in pace, but if it's too often it gets boring.
I here the new Tom Clancy game Splinter Cell is under threat from becoming an incredibly dull and boring due to it's stealth game-play. From what I read about it there is no action all the way through, you just sneak about all over the place, peaking through doors and rolling past guards. Sounds like it will have a few challenges, but I doubt that if I played it, I'd be entertained from more than five minutes.
I don't mind stealth, but I do think developers need to get the right balance between slow, dull and sometimes boring stealth, and fun, high octane and exciting action.
I here the new Tom Clancy game Splinter Cell is under threat from becoming an incredibly dull and boring due to it's stealth game-play. From what I read about it there is no action all the way through, you just sneak about all over the place, peaking through doors and rolling past guards. Sounds like it will have a few challenges, but I doubt that if I played it, I'd be entertained from more than five minutes.
I don't mind stealth, but I do think developers need to get the right balance between slow, dull and sometimes boring stealth, and fun, high octane and exciting action.
Blasphemy! Do not insult MGS2's royal hide! You should get down on your hands and knees and grovel to it for it is far better than you are! The stealth is the greatest element of the game! Do you really think that in covert operation people run around with an M4? Besides, you were talking about having no weapon and having to run away! You can snap peoples necks, knck them out etc., it's just that you're too bad to actually sneek up on a guy without alerting his presence! You were talking about having a non-lethal weapon. The only reason for this is that you cannot be bothered to play far enough to get a lethal weapon! I don't know whether you were playing as Snake or Raiden but if you were playing as Raiden you can get an M4 and a grenade launcher and others ( stinger missile launcher). It is great fun to take out a guard with the M9 and then drag him to a locker. It also adds and element of fear to the game, knowing that the guard is right around the corner carrying some grenades and a A-KS74u. Once again I will say that you don't even deserve to play a game like MGS2! No go and play something like 'Machine Gun Madness 4'! Stupid person!
Haha. Great topic Mojo. Raises a lot of good points...and although I personally don't like the MGS franchise, I can see the allure. It's like being a sneaky James Bond. You could re-enact it, but on a small, girly stage. Stealth is fine if DONE PROPERLY, no matter what the dosage.
Join me, brothers and sisters, in my revolt against an abomination in gaming today - stealth.
Let me take you back a few years. Goldeneye was shown to the world. The Mission Impossible game was delayed because they realised Goldeneye would kick seven shades out of it (when they eventually released it, Goldeneye kicked EIGHT shades out of it)
The stealth missions were almost revolutionary. Except they weren't stealth missions, they were normal missions, but you had the CHOICE on whether you wanted to run around like Rambo, or go all ninja like for as long as you could before all heck broke loose. You could shoot guards with your suppressed pistol, meaning the guard around the corner wouldn't even know you were there. You could walk behind them, then judo chop them to death or empty another bullet from your magazine into their hide. The point is, you didn't HAVE to do it, it just made things easier. If you wanted to, you could re-enact Commando and run around shooting people to your heart's content, even setting off alarms on purpose to increase the numbers of people in the giant turkey shoot. But, if you wanted to, you could re-enact the actual film, and sneak around the chemical plant, only getting into a real firefight at the end. A few missions later, and you weren't even given a suppressor for your gun... stealth was out the window after just a few levels. And it was great. Russians, terrorists, they were all lining up to take a bullet from Bond in a huge gun fight in a park, a military base, a ship and even a train depot. My point is, there was stealth on some missions if you wanted it. It wasn't rammed down your throat. You didn't HAVE to hide from the guards.
This brings me to my next point - Metal Gear Solid 2 - perhaps one of the worst games to ever disgrace my eyes. But I'm not complaining about the fact that, in reality, it's nothing more than an interactive film, where every so often the cutscenes stop and you get to do one little thing before they start again. I'm not even talking about the controls, the spawn of Satin himself. I'm talking about the stealth. Never before has such a hyped game bored me to the point where I started to lose the will to keep breathing. I'd never played Metal Gear Solid on the PS1, or any of the 2D Metal Gear games, but I imagined that I would enjoy MGS2, as those few stealthy missions in Goldeneye had been fun... So maybe an entire game like that would be fun too, I thought. How wrong I was. Ooh, you get to sneak around, ooh, you can hide from guards, ooh, you can shoot them with a dart gun and knock them out... ooh... who gives a flying fudge? Has gaming really become this boring? Was I right to stay out of the last two console wars, sticking with my PC and only getting a 64 and PS1 second hand after the initial hype? Has console gaming become this bad?
I tried, oh how I tried, to enjoy the game. The initial level, in the shell, however, was hampering that attempt of mine. Enemies are few and far between, meaning I spent most of the time wrestling with the controls, trying to get the floppy haired hippy just to walk down a corridor. When I finally find someone, can I drop down from the ceiling and snap his neck? Can I cartwheel up to him from behind till he turns around just as one of my legs kicks him in the face? Can I drag him into the shadows and slit his throat? No... I have to run away, because I don't have a gun... Whoop-de-doo! Glad to see my money hasn't gone to waste, this game lets me run away from people! Hurrah! I must remember to write to all the major gaming companies, asking them to let us do this in more games. In fact, there should be a game devoted entirely to running away! Marvel at my ability to tap somebody on the shoulder, then leg it down the corridor, snickering as I go. Laugh as I play knocky nine doors on the local old people. Be astonished at the way I call people names then run and hide in lockers.
OK, I think I just destroyed the sarcasm-o-metre with that last paragraph, but I think it gets my point across. When I finally DID get a gun, was it a shotgun? A sniper rifle? A minigun? No. It was a dart gun, as in this world of political correctness, we're not even allowed to kill people anymore. Personally, I'd feel safer with a water pistol, but no, the developers felt it necessary to give me a non-lethal weapon... probably to see if it would make me snap or not. When I *did* get a gun with actual bullets, I was at my wit's end and stopped playing the game. It's resting next to my TV, gathering dust while I play old PS1 games on my big, expensive and powerful console. I was so fed up with the game, I simply stopped caring. I ran into rooms, attempting to start a fight with the guards, but they just shot at me before returning to their patrol. I spent more time staring at the FHM posters on the walls than I did trying to complete my goals (whatever they were, I got lost after the 20th cutscene, and didn’t have a clue what I was meant to be doing)
My point is - stealth is fine in small doses. It makes a nice change from the bang bang, kill kill, non-stop action... but an entire game where you spend the majority of it hiding from stupid guards and putting people to sleep? Please, don't insult my intelligence. That's not a game. A game is usually something you can't do in real life. I could re-enact MGS2 by sneaking around my house with a bottle of chloroform. Don't tell me it's fun, don't tell me it's entertaining, don't tell me it's exciting. It isn't. It's boring. Hiding from teachers who are trying to catch you knocking off lessons - THAT is fun, because there's danger, there's suspense, and there's a whole lot of the wetting of the pants. Doing it in a game... just doesn't "do it" for old MoJo here.
Simple fact is, games let us do things we can't do in real life (well, at least not legally) In a game I can do drive by shootings, I can eat magic mushrooms and grow twice as big, I can whip out a lightsabre and cut people in half, I can even win the premiership with a poop team like Sunderland. Can I do those things in real life? Heck no (especially the last one) However, in real life I *can* sneak around a building, hiding in cupboards, sneaking up on people and talking to myself- sorry, to the microchip in my suit which lets me communicate with people.
Oh, and honourable mention to Soldier of Fortune 2 for being one of the biggest let downs in gaming history. Gone are the days of gung-ho John Mullins with his desert eagle and flamethrower, instead replaced with "take this huge gun, but don't shoot anyone with it... you have to be quiet" Excuse me? They give me an industrial sized cannon, yet if I so much as squeeze the trigger, I'm discovered and overwhelmed by infinite spawning enemies. In the original, you walked around like the Terminator, an emotionless look on John's face as he de-limbed everything in sight. In SOF2, you have to sneak around, getting caught every two seconds and dying. Raven, and all other developers - THAT ISN'T FUN. Games are meant to be fun. Taking out an entire army single handedly is fun. Sneaking around like a scared, little child, worried about being seen is not, repeat, is NOT fun. Remember that. It's bad enough that almost every game feels the need for at least one stealth mission (even the Star Trek game, Elite Force had a couple) but to have an entire game based on it? Bollards to that, I say, it's just not cricket. Yes, on occasion, the odd stealth mission can be fun, if done right, but these days they just throw them together, thinking they're re-capturing the glory of Goldeneye or Hitman 1 & 2, games which put stealth to good use. Hitman was great, as the stealth was important. You weren't hiding though, as you could usually just go about your business, setting up the inevitable huge gunfight, when you throw stealth to the wind and deal your hand of death to everyone to dares mess with baldy.
Hitman ruled, and no doubt the sequel does too, but only because they got the balance right. Other games haven't. Just as you're settling in, just as you're getting used to blowing stuff up, suddenly, for no reason, you have to sneak around someplace. Why? Is John Mullins suddenly scared of taking on an army by himself? He managed to take out street thugs, international terrorists and half the Iraqi army, yet suddenly he, the almighty John Mullins, has to sneak around like a coward… What's up with that? It's developers trying to cash in on something which wasn't meant to be cashed in, that's what it is. They think they can milk the proverbial cow... well this cow has no more milk left to give, it's just giving out poison, poison to my gaming experience.
Please, somebody, go tell the game developers to lighten up on the stealth missions. They're not fun. They're not entertaining. They're the height of boredom and tedium. If another abomination like MGS2 or SoF2 comes out, I will make it my personal mission to go on a Jay & Silent Bob style cross-country search of all the developers to give them a good hiding.
Let me take you back a few years. Goldeneye was shown to the world. The Mission Impossible game was delayed because they realised Goldeneye would kick seven shades out of it (when they eventually released it, Goldeneye kicked EIGHT shades out of it)
The stealth missions were almost revolutionary. Except they weren't stealth missions, they were normal missions, but you had the CHOICE on whether you wanted to run around like Rambo, or go all ninja like for as long as you could before all heck broke loose. You could shoot guards with your suppressed pistol, meaning the guard around the corner wouldn't even know you were there. You could walk behind them, then judo chop them to death or empty another bullet from your magazine into their hide. The point is, you didn't HAVE to do it, it just made things easier. If you wanted to, you could re-enact Commando and run around shooting people to your heart's content, even setting off alarms on purpose to increase the numbers of people in the giant turkey shoot. But, if you wanted to, you could re-enact the actual film, and sneak around the chemical plant, only getting into a real firefight at the end. A few missions later, and you weren't even given a suppressor for your gun... stealth was out the window after just a few levels. And it was great. Russians, terrorists, they were all lining up to take a bullet from Bond in a huge gun fight in a park, a military base, a ship and even a train depot. My point is, there was stealth on some missions if you wanted it. It wasn't rammed down your throat. You didn't HAVE to hide from the guards.
This brings me to my next point - Metal Gear Solid 2 - perhaps one of the worst games to ever disgrace my eyes. But I'm not complaining about the fact that, in reality, it's nothing more than an interactive film, where every so often the cutscenes stop and you get to do one little thing before they start again. I'm not even talking about the controls, the spawn of Satin himself. I'm talking about the stealth. Never before has such a hyped game bored me to the point where I started to lose the will to keep breathing. I'd never played Metal Gear Solid on the PS1, or any of the 2D Metal Gear games, but I imagined that I would enjoy MGS2, as those few stealthy missions in Goldeneye had been fun... So maybe an entire game like that would be fun too, I thought. How wrong I was. Ooh, you get to sneak around, ooh, you can hide from guards, ooh, you can shoot them with a dart gun and knock them out... ooh... who gives a flying fudge? Has gaming really become this boring? Was I right to stay out of the last two console wars, sticking with my PC and only getting a 64 and PS1 second hand after the initial hype? Has console gaming become this bad?
I tried, oh how I tried, to enjoy the game. The initial level, in the shell, however, was hampering that attempt of mine. Enemies are few and far between, meaning I spent most of the time wrestling with the controls, trying to get the floppy haired hippy just to walk down a corridor. When I finally find someone, can I drop down from the ceiling and snap his neck? Can I cartwheel up to him from behind till he turns around just as one of my legs kicks him in the face? Can I drag him into the shadows and slit his throat? No... I have to run away, because I don't have a gun... Whoop-de-doo! Glad to see my money hasn't gone to waste, this game lets me run away from people! Hurrah! I must remember to write to all the major gaming companies, asking them to let us do this in more games. In fact, there should be a game devoted entirely to running away! Marvel at my ability to tap somebody on the shoulder, then leg it down the corridor, snickering as I go. Laugh as I play knocky nine doors on the local old people. Be astonished at the way I call people names then run and hide in lockers.
OK, I think I just destroyed the sarcasm-o-metre with that last paragraph, but I think it gets my point across. When I finally DID get a gun, was it a shotgun? A sniper rifle? A minigun? No. It was a dart gun, as in this world of political correctness, we're not even allowed to kill people anymore. Personally, I'd feel safer with a water pistol, but no, the developers felt it necessary to give me a non-lethal weapon... probably to see if it would make me snap or not. When I *did* get a gun with actual bullets, I was at my wit's end and stopped playing the game. It's resting next to my TV, gathering dust while I play old PS1 games on my big, expensive and powerful console. I was so fed up with the game, I simply stopped caring. I ran into rooms, attempting to start a fight with the guards, but they just shot at me before returning to their patrol. I spent more time staring at the FHM posters on the walls than I did trying to complete my goals (whatever they were, I got lost after the 20th cutscene, and didn’t have a clue what I was meant to be doing)
My point is - stealth is fine in small doses. It makes a nice change from the bang bang, kill kill, non-stop action... but an entire game where you spend the majority of it hiding from stupid guards and putting people to sleep? Please, don't insult my intelligence. That's not a game. A game is usually something you can't do in real life. I could re-enact MGS2 by sneaking around my house with a bottle of chloroform. Don't tell me it's fun, don't tell me it's entertaining, don't tell me it's exciting. It isn't. It's boring. Hiding from teachers who are trying to catch you knocking off lessons - THAT is fun, because there's danger, there's suspense, and there's a whole lot of the wetting of the pants. Doing it in a game... just doesn't "do it" for old MoJo here.
Simple fact is, games let us do things we can't do in real life (well, at least not legally) In a game I can do drive by shootings, I can eat magic mushrooms and grow twice as big, I can whip out a lightsabre and cut people in half, I can even win the premiership with a poop team like Sunderland. Can I do those things in real life? Heck no (especially the last one) However, in real life I *can* sneak around a building, hiding in cupboards, sneaking up on people and talking to myself- sorry, to the microchip in my suit which lets me communicate with people.
Oh, and honourable mention to Soldier of Fortune 2 for being one of the biggest let downs in gaming history. Gone are the days of gung-ho John Mullins with his desert eagle and flamethrower, instead replaced with "take this huge gun, but don't shoot anyone with it... you have to be quiet" Excuse me? They give me an industrial sized cannon, yet if I so much as squeeze the trigger, I'm discovered and overwhelmed by infinite spawning enemies. In the original, you walked around like the Terminator, an emotionless look on John's face as he de-limbed everything in sight. In SOF2, you have to sneak around, getting caught every two seconds and dying. Raven, and all other developers - THAT ISN'T FUN. Games are meant to be fun. Taking out an entire army single handedly is fun. Sneaking around like a scared, little child, worried about being seen is not, repeat, is NOT fun. Remember that. It's bad enough that almost every game feels the need for at least one stealth mission (even the Star Trek game, Elite Force had a couple) but to have an entire game based on it? Bollards to that, I say, it's just not cricket. Yes, on occasion, the odd stealth mission can be fun, if done right, but these days they just throw them together, thinking they're re-capturing the glory of Goldeneye or Hitman 1 & 2, games which put stealth to good use. Hitman was great, as the stealth was important. You weren't hiding though, as you could usually just go about your business, setting up the inevitable huge gunfight, when you throw stealth to the wind and deal your hand of death to everyone to dares mess with baldy.
Hitman ruled, and no doubt the sequel does too, but only because they got the balance right. Other games haven't. Just as you're settling in, just as you're getting used to blowing stuff up, suddenly, for no reason, you have to sneak around someplace. Why? Is John Mullins suddenly scared of taking on an army by himself? He managed to take out street thugs, international terrorists and half the Iraqi army, yet suddenly he, the almighty John Mullins, has to sneak around like a coward… What's up with that? It's developers trying to cash in on something which wasn't meant to be cashed in, that's what it is. They think they can milk the proverbial cow... well this cow has no more milk left to give, it's just giving out poison, poison to my gaming experience.
Please, somebody, go tell the game developers to lighten up on the stealth missions. They're not fun. They're not entertaining. They're the height of boredom and tedium. If another abomination like MGS2 or SoF2 comes out, I will make it my personal mission to go on a Jay & Silent Bob style cross-country search of all the developers to give them a good hiding.