Sorry Yoshi, I read the article before coming to GRcade and upon entering I didn't see a thread...until I ventured in to the MGS:GZ thread by association. In truth that article deserves it's own thread, so here it is along with the original reference in Mr. Yoshi's post.
Mr Yoshi wrote:I didn't realise until I played this just how much I'd missed games like MGS. I haven't played an entry in the series since the original re-released on Gamecube, so perhaps I'm not as fatigued as everyone else with the franchise, but the stripped back gameplay is just so refreshing. I haven't just sat in one spot trying to work out enemies patrol patterns for years. Coming from the constant almost epileptic movement of games like Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty it's such a good change of pace.
I hope this marks a revival of pure stealth games.
Great article on that over at Eurogamer: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-03-23-stealth-vs-stealth
I love the language used by Jordan Amaro (MGS5 designer)...
Eurogamer: What do you think makes for a good stealth game, Jordan?
Jordan Amaro: I like to feel the space, scripts and systems that have been laid out before me have not been engineered for me, the player. It's difficult to explain. You play some games and all the patterns are so obvious. You play the first levels of The Last of Us, and for the sake of tutorials the human enemies stare at brick walls, waiting for you to take them down. In Assassin's Creed you have the bushes laid out strangely and assets assembled weirdly. Or patrols in Deus Ex: Human Revolution that are super short and stop right before the corners for some reason... and those vents. Those practices destroy the entire credibility of the scene, the stage, and it pulls me out of the game since I'm shown the patterns. In other words, the aesthetics have effectively yielded before the mechanics and the game world has transgressed itself to reach the player, instead of staying true to itself.
...even though there's definitely a legacy of traditional stealth shortcomings playing out in Ground Zeroes. For instance he talks about enemies staring at walls or stopping short of corners and vents. Immersion destroying routines...but sometimes these still are present in Ground Zeroes.
Throughout the interview/discussion they trade opinions on how stealth games should be designed to feel, empower and entertain the player. Here's an interesting snippet:
Jordan Amaro: From the games I've played and my work experience I've come to the conclusion that we sacrifice everything for the sake of gameplay and fun. But that's just one component of what makes a game. I really feel bad for environment artists.
I loved The Last of Us, but I enter the power station and my brother speaks to me, and we go through the power station and I can see all the cover laid out. And I know in typical Naughty Dog fashion, I'm going to bounce through the level. I feel this is passé. This is a bit obsolete.
If I had worked on that game I would have pushed to avoid that. I might not have succeeded but I would have reduced the shooting sequence by half and made you progress through another area or loop you in so you get a different viewpoint on an already traversed space. In Uncharted 3 you end up backtracking at almost every mission and I hate that. Obviously it's a bit easy to say that now that the game is out, after all there are circumstances peculiar to any game production that explain the final result and I hope my friends at Naughty Dog don't take it literally.
Mike Bithell: The Last of Us was intentionally old-school in its design. The stealth sections in The Last of Us feel like Metal Gear Solid 1 to me. And that's why I loved them. This is where our tastes differ: I like seeing the cover. Gears of War is obviously the most egregious example. I like walking into an environment in Gears of War and mapping out.
A fairly standard observation:
Eurogamer: You say stealth was a niche, but I remember Metal Gear Solid being the biggest game in the world at one point.
Mike Bithell: It wasn't because of the stealth. It was like a movie. It was cinematic. It was all these words that used to get bounced around about Metal Gear Solid back before everyone started saying those were the bad things about it.
I think a lot of people who liked Metal Gear liked it despite the stealth. I remember being massively frustrated by the stealth and the reason I got through the stealth bits was because I wanted to see the next cut-scene. Yeah, it was massive, but my point is it was massive as part of a much more niche hobby at the time it came out. It was a big game in a smaller niche.
And something I've been doing for years, since the start of the last generation, with all action/stealth games
Jordan Amaro: What if I tell you in MGS5, if you don't change the options you have markers and all the stuff you'd expect from a western game, but when you go into the options and you start turning off things, then it becomes more hardcore and more difficult? Would that be a good example of an accessible game that by default is accessible, but if you're an experienced hardcore gamer then you can cater the experience to your liking?
Mike Bithell: There is still the issue of the default game - the definitive Metal Gear Solid 5 experience.
Jordan Amaro: I don't know about you, but when I start a game I go directly into the options to see what's there and tweak the options.
This really is a no brainer. You want to get the most out of a game, you self-impose and restrict abilities. Games become tense, longer lasting and way more rewarding. They become thrilling.
READ IT PEOPLE
"Race drivers don't really care how fast they're going..we keep going faster and faster until we approach that limit of control and that's when we balance ourselves..that's how we make good time."
JOHN FITCH
1950's Le Mans driver
