The New York Times said once of stealth games "Once upon a time, stealth in games was rare. This began to change in 1998." They hit the nail right on the head there, for as far as I could tell, the only games before 1998 that had a heavy stealth element were Castle Wolfenstein (1981) Metal Gear (1987) and it's sequel; Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1990).
Then in 1998, the success of Tenchu Stealth Assassins, the first 3D stealth game, and a couple of months later the runaway success train that was Metal Gear Solid very probably revolutionised stealth games forever. Not to forget Thief: The Dark Project which pioneered stealth games on the PC, also being the first, first person stealth game and being dubbed a "First Person Sneaker."
The main difference between other action games and stealth games is that the player is tasked with avoiding combat and striking from the shadows, often there will be numerous ways to achieve your goal either completely avoiding combat, subduing your enemies or if you feel inclined you can still take out your enemies with lethal force, but in games such as Dishonored, it won't necessarily lower your score or anything but it just might effect your game in other ways.
When using the darkness to your advantage is one of the gameplay elements, light and dark become integral to level design, allowing players to disable light sources to create new shadows to hide in and strike from. Not only is light and dark utilized but so is sound. Taking your time in a stealth game, not running around like a headless chicken, making sure you don't make too much noise. You make too much noise and you will be swamped by enemies and very probably killed. Not good.
Speaking of enemies, the AI in stealth games needs to be ignorant of certain parts of the game world and they operate on a line of sight mechanic as well as being able to hear you, if they see you or hear you they will be on you, and on more than one occasion you will find yourself heavily out-gunned and have to rely on your skills in stealth to make sure you don't get iced.
Stealth games will always have a special place in my heart, my top five favourite games list contains 3 stealth games, being Dishonored, Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 3, and you may ask why is this article coming out now? I will tell you exactly why. The new Thief title, releasing on "PS4 and other next gen consoles" and PCs in an undisclosed time in 2014. Developed by Eidos Montreal and published by Square Enix.
Thief (2014) is a reboot of the Thief series and it may be the highest draw for me so far to buy a next gen console, especially after all the news about how the new Xbox will require a constant internet connection and connection to the Kinect 2.0.
As news about Thief filters through, we will endeavour to keep you posted with it.
What is your favourite stealth game? let us know in the comments.
No comments:
Post a Comment