The Life and Death of Stealth Action

tpex

tpex

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The Life and Death of Stealth Action

* Posted By: Patrick Ousley

Remember the good old days when we would wait for a guard to announce, “I feel asleep!” and we could either run around behind the truck or kill him and run to the next screen when his friends came? Stealth-action games have been a staple of video gaming nearly as long as turtle-killing plumbers have, being born out of Metal Gear no less; though for awhile the genre lay relatively dormant.

It wasn’t until many years later that stealth action would slink from the shadows. This time it was Metal Gear: Solid. With Snake’s triumphant return from the wilds of Alaska came a flurry of new stealth games. Among the elite of the time are series like Tenchu, Hitman, and the imminently relevant Splinter Cell.

The common bond that held these games together was also the catalyst of the downfall of the genre. As it turns out, people could only hide in the shadows for so long before they started to want to just blast their way through the bad guys.

Being a superspy sounds a lot cooler than it is. It doesn’t help that in all the James Bond movies, 007 is just generally being awesome whenever the camera is on him. But it does sound fun right? The lapse in popularity with stealth action can be attributed, I think, to the general lapse in storytelling in games. When graphics got pretty enough and game designers found out how much they could do with the hardware, they went straight for the silver screen mainstays. There’s some crazy virus, go sneak around for a while, then when that gets boring, start shooting everybody. Let’s call this one Syphon Filter. Brilliant!

Gone were the days when a story had to carry a game and stealth action was largely relegated to the odd sneaking part in a game when you lost all your armor for some reason. Splinter Cell tried to keep the torch lit for the interim, but as it turns out, even if the games are good, if you release the same game for five years straight no one wants to play it anymore.

Climbing things gives you a better position from which to stab.

Stealth needed a change. Not even Agent 47 could stem the tide. Then in 2007, Ubisoft changed the game and delivered a game in which the sneaking part was the fun part. Assassin’s Creed ushered in a new era of stealth action. An era in which the player character was not simply an awful shot with an underpowered gun. In retrospect, I feel that the major reason that stealth action saw the decline that it did was because players were forced into the shadows out of weakness instead of having the shadows (and as with AC, rooftops) be a source of power. Why should it take super mega soldier Sam Fisher five bullets to shoot out one light?

The theme of darkness giving power continued with Arkham Asylum in 2009 with Batman being an obvious candidate for awesome stealth action. He is, after all, one of the few DC characters with no powers at all. This finally brings us up to the present day in which we come back to Sam Fisher. Sam can now aim at and shoot out a light in short order. He knows where people think he is. And he can shoot like five of them before the last one knows the first one is dead.

Stealth action is most definitely evolving, not a moment too soon. I’ll be there as it happens. In the shadows. Waiting.
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http://resumeplay.net/2010/04/the-life-and-death-of-stealth-action/
 
Interesting read, Mr Ousley should be slapped for not mentioning the Thief series...

I found the new Spinter Cell Convinction mechanics truly impressive
 
Splinter Cell is no longer a stealth action series. Much like Rainbow Six Vegas killed off that series as a Tactical FPS. Both are now simply action games. :(

I feel that the major reason that stealth action saw the decline that it did was because players were forced into the shadows out of weakness
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This what made these games great. You had to use your brain and plan ahead while feeling vulnerable instead of playing a ridiculously over powered invincible character, mowing down hordes of adversaries endlessly charging at you borefest.

Stealth needed a change. Not even Agent 47 could stem the tide.
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Rubbish it did not. Unfortunately all similar genres will change into over the top arcade style gaming for kids with ADHD which is a great shame.

We can only hope there is a return to developers who have a passion for the genre instead of these dull games for the masses with profit being the bottom line.

Oculate said:
I found the new Spinter Cell Convinction mechanics truly impressive
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While detracting from what in essence Splinter Cell was.
 
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Cloaking, invisibility so much more effective than shadows, can even KS
 
Alan said:
You had to use your brain and plan ahead while feeling vulnerable instead of playing a ridiculously over powered invincible character, mowing down hordes of adversaries endlessly charging at you borefest
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I'm with you all the way on that point
i've only recently re-entered the world of gaming (so i've missed quite a bit from 2005-ish) til this year. But the 3 Hitman games i played were right up there with my favourite games of all time.
Then wen i got my XB360, i played Assassin's Creed 2 and i LOVED it (http://mygaming.co.za/forum/showthread.php?2181-Rate-the-Last-Game-You-Played&p=203802&viewfull=1#post203802) and i wish there were more games of the same mould
Arkham Asylum gave me some moments of pure pleasure (as is sat on a gargoyle, waiting for the opportune moment to swoop down and take out a guard without any of the others even knowing i existed) (http://mygaming.co.za/forum/showthread.php?2181-Rate-the-Last-Game-You-Played&p=202142&viewfull=1#post202142)
That is what i call gaming.
Button mashing and action games don't really interest me (...Brutal Legend and Bayonetta were real disappointments for the short time that i played them, then cast them aside) and if/when 'Steath' games begin to progress down that route, it will herald the death of my gaming future

Waiting to get my hands on Hitman Blood Money (yes, i know it's old but it wouldnt run on my GeForce 6600) to remind me of those great days of hitting the 'map' button and watching the guard's movements for 3 minutes to understand how to take them all out with only my fibrewire.

man... those were the days.
 
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Alan said:
Splinter Cell is no longer a stealth action series. Much like Rainbow Six Vegas killed off that series as a Tactical FPS. Both are now simply action games. :(



This what made these games great. You had to use your brain and plan ahead while feeling vulnerable instead of playing a ridiculously over powered invincible character, mowing down hordes of adversaries endlessly charging at you borefest.



Rubbish it did not. Unfortunately all similar genres will change into over the top arcade style gaming for kids with ADHD which is a great shame.

We can only hope there is a return to developers who have a passion for the genre instead of these dull games for the masses with profit being the bottom line.



While detracting from what in essence Splinter Cell was.
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I agree, and I think gaming will be returing to that it's supposed to be again when the casuals short attension span will move on to something elce again. Hopefully it will be jumping into volcanos and spiked pits thats the all the rage next.
 
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