The stealth icon has gone too stealthy of late, but the best Splinter Cell games still rank among the best games ever made.
These are the games that championed ideas, mechanics and systems that would ultimately be a much bigger part of the gaming space in the future.
@Escamotage The job system mainly, and how you can set up your party. For me in the original late stage of the game I would give my A team the same skills but nerfed. Vaan was my tank/bruiser/soilder, Penelo was my healer white mage, and Fran was my black mage of course. But I gave Vaan the ability to use both white mage and black mage skills but nerfed a few levels under the true mages. Penelo could use a bit of dark magic and Fran could use a bit of white. So if either mate ran out the other could step in, same with Vaan, with the gambit system it was easy to set up that they would complement each other in battle when needed.
My B team was set up similar but a few levels below my A team. Then when my A team got new weapons and armor, their old gear was passed down to the B team.
In Zodiac age you could not do that, in such a degree as I had it in the original.
Kill Switch is one of my fav shooters from that generation, highly underrated in my opinion.
I'm one of the few people who preferred the original Red Faction to the first Half Life.
Red Faction came out in May 2001 on PS2 and Half Life came out on PS2 in November 2001 . So I played Red Faction 1st .
1. Indigo Prophecy - No
2. God Hand - Hell yeah. Still is. What a game. But Adaptive Difficulty sucks.
3. Metal Gear Solid 2 - Gameplay-wise, sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn't. The AI stuff was already Cyberpunk fair and Political Miss-information was old stuff as well. Furthermore, these themes don't really play out during the gameplay portions of the game. So they might as well have been a movie spliced into a game. Which is my main criticism of the MGS series. A lot of Talk and hardly any of it is part of the gameplay or affects it in any meaningful way.
4. Dark Cloud - Couldn't say. But Procedural stuff sucks 99% of the time.
5. Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow - The Xbox version sure was and kinda still is. The PS2? Not even close. The Asymmetrical MP was cool though.
6. The thing - The system was kinda cool in theory. In practice? Meh. But it should've been brought back for other games for sure, and expanded upon. At least some type of variation of this mechanic.
7. Final Fantasy XII - While the System was kinda cool. It did lends to your party playing on Automatic. Became monotonous after a while.
8. Kill Switch - Kinda. But Metal Gear, Splinter Cell and Winback already had it first. Then there was Time Crisis.
9. Mercenaries: PoD - You spelled Monster Attack way wrong.
10. Mortal Kombat: Deception: Tobal No. 1 or Ehrgeiz.
I have to agree on Splinter Cell, Xbox version was much better, even the Gamecube version performed better than the PS2 version. But the Xbox version was on another level.
Iceball2000: There are plenty of comparisons on youtube, I would suggest you watch them to find out.
The Xbox verison is basically the pc version in terms of graphics, so it looks and runs amazing compared to PS2, and handles lighning/shadows very well (important in Splinter Cell as you use the dark for stealth). The levels are complete and are not devided into sections like in the PS2 and Gamecube versions. Lastly, the PS2 has longer loading times. That's some of the differences for you, there's probably more that I'm forgetting.
That said, the Splinter Cell games are great on any platform.
Good list, I would include Okami (brush mechanics), Viewtiful Joe (time & zoom mechanics)
Salman From Tech4Gamers writes "Once a big deal in gaming, stealth gaming, all about sneaking around, planning, and staying cool under pressure, seems to have faded away."
"The decline of the stealth genre can be traced back to several factors. One big problem is that many games today sacrifice stealth for more action-packed scenes.
Even titles labelled as “stealth” often turn into loud shootouts soon after starting. The emphasis has shifted from sneaky strategies to just charging in and shooting, with stealth almost forgotten."
And that's what disappointed me the most about MGS4. While still a good game, it largely abandoned it's stealth roots that made the series so compelling. Since, I've gotten my stealth fix from the likes of TLOU, Hitman, and less popular tiles like Shadow Tactics.
Hmm, MGS4 had the same liberties as all prior MGS games. You could do a complete stealth no kill run in mgs4 with no issue. While also giving a large array of gameplay variations that enhanced the experience.
No MG game except Revengeance has not been able to have complete stealth runs.
@Lexreborn2
True, there were indeed non lethal runs in MGS4. Perhaps I used the wrong wording, but I was more so referring to the 'guns blazing' aspect of the gameplay. This was something that wasn't easily accomplished in the prior games of the series. One reason being that you had limited ammo. In MGS4, you had virtually all the arsenal and ammo you'd ever need early on in the game by way of Drebin points. This alone made stealth all but unnecessary, and resulted in a much easier game than previous entries. That's what the article's alluding to.
@DaReapa
You could go guns blazing even in MGS1, I know 'cause I sucked at stealth at the time and I still beat that game by simply going gung ho on the lowest difficulty and replaying multiple parts over and over 'till I eventually made it.. And it was never the case that the games simply allowed you to just play Rambo instead of a spy with no punishment, you always had a much harder time trying to be a one man army on higher difficulties than just being furtive, so it was always very much stealth first and foremost, the supposed appeal to action in MGS4 was never an issue, they added more weapons and tactics which made all out war a more viable option in some parts but not all of the game and never the ideal course of action. In fact MGS4 have, just like all other MGS games (even the open world unfinished mess that was MGS5), a score system which will rank your run and the point system, like always, favored stealth, non-lethal approaches... Not only the rank/emblem is tied to playing stealth, the game had multiple item unlocks and trophies which you could only ever get by playing it furtively... Hardly anything required you to play guns blazing.
So can we please stop making bullshit up about MGS4 already? I don't know if you were mad the game skipped your platform of choice in favor of the PS3 or if it devalued your life achievement of beating a silly game by being a little more accessible or whatever else was the issue, but it was some 15 years ago, it's time to let go of this whole they abandoned stealth bullshit, they never did that, in fact, it was the second best stealth mechanics in the entire franchise, behind only MGSV, which allowed an even more complex stealth system (and even more open combat too if you wished, because that's what the increasing technology of different generations allowed) but I would argue MGS4 still took more advantage of their stealth mechanics than MGSV ever realized (largely because of open world vs linear structure, but still...). Yes, you could play like a normal shooter action adventure, but you could even more easily had played it like one of the best stealth action games ever. If you choose not to, that's on you.
MGS 4 most certainly did not abandon its stealth roots. As someone who got pretty much every rank you could achieve in that game. I can assure you, that is not the case.
In my opinion as far as modern stealth mechanics and freedom of approach I think V is the best we’ve had so far
Interesting, I would however add that I think part of the decline in interest in many recent stealth games, Assassin’s Creed as a prime example, has been that instead of the stealth play being the fun, it’s been RPG’d as a character choice akin to playing as a mage or a thief with all the same drawbacks and things which turns many players away (upgrade grinding, obscure overly complex skill and equipment upgrade trees). One thing about MGS, Splinter Cell, early Hitman and early Assassin's Creed etc was that they were games you picked up and played with the game the feature, not supplemental to homework hidden in the pause menu.
The novelty has worn off for 'pure' stealth games. They are too tedious. I personally like a good mix.
They don't make games like this anymore.
Too dated in my book. The AI is way too unpredictable to be acceptable today. It's definitely a game of its time.
Agreed with those sentiments. The quality of the CPU controlled characters make or break a stealth game and they are pretty poor in all the Splinter Cell games by today's standard. This is what led me to playing Spies vs Mercs all the time in later games just to get a better stealth experience from a real person. Arguably Sony are making better stealth games albeit not Tom Clancy stuff.
You should stick with fortnite or one of the countless bloodborne style games then. What a joke.
I had a good time with the game. It is a product of its time. But when it came out it was a must have game for a lot of people. I wish Ubisoft would make another game in the series or at least a reboot.
They are making a remake, I think. I loved the original game when it was released, but I tried to play it again in recent years and just couldn't get on with it. The same with the older Hitman games.
Yeah chaos theory still holds up though I gotta say. If you’re a fan of the series I highly suggest you go back to that one. Ubi has said they are remaking sc for “modern audiences”. I don’t have a lot of faith for the future of that company
Due to the lack of modern stealth games, and me constantly playing the MGS series, I've been looking for alternative stealth games to play, and went back and re-played the SC series recently. I wouldn't call SC1 or SC:PT masterpieces, there are AI issues, they're very much trial-and-error games, and that can lead to a lot of frustration. I also found the stories in this series to be boring, uninteresting, and just sloppily told. Cinematics are also of poor quality for both in-game scenes and CG cut-scenes, the soundtrack didn't leave any impression on me either.
Chaos Theory is better, but there was still a lot of room for improvement, and Double Agent (old gen ver.) was a sloppy mess that ended up a regression from CT. But still, at least they tried back then, these days Ubi-junk doesn't even try to make good games!
Everyone needs to quit with all of the unnessacery Ubi-hate. SC Conviction and Blacklist are both still good games.
Everyone needs to quit with all of the unnecessary Ubi-hate. SC Conviction and Blacklist are both still good games, they just weren't 100% focused on stealth with Conviction and they remedied that in Blacklist. The only thing they have released recently that I was disappointed with was Watch Dogs Legion, and Skull & Bones. Everyone seems to be salty about the misleading trailer for the original Watch Dogs and The Division. Which are also, both good games, and actually Watch Dogs seems like it was ahead of its time even with all the trailer drama (having gone back and played recently, can say the game didnt deserve all the flak). Yeah the misleading E3 trailer that had better graphics than release is understandable to a very small degree, when most Teaser Trailers, or Game Demo's only have that portion of the game developed so they use the highest quality assets of w/e they have being showed, or what they are showing was made purely for the showing, allowing for extra polish . As to the gripes about minor game design changes, or cut features upon a games release just goes to show how unknowledgeable most gamers are in terms of how game development works or to even understand what what the hell a WIP, let alone titles still in early development.
Good games from Ubi since 2014 (Year that SC Blacklist Released) include:
Watch Dogs 1 & 2
The Division 1 & 2 (Although I had a hard time getting into The Division 2 at first)
R6 Siege
Ghost Recon Wildlands & Breakpoint
Immortals Fenyx Rising
AC Origins, Odyssey, MIrage (Haven't finished Valhalla games too damn long)
Far Cry Primal, and 5 (6 also has a length issue)
Avatar Frontiers of Pandora
Prince Of Persia The Lost Crown
Haven't played a couple of titles those being For Honor (played at launch but didn't honestly give it an actual go), The Crew, R6 Extraction and at the time of writing this xDefiant.
Even if you absolutely hated any of the above titles, they aren't inherently bad games, they're just good, but not always top quality either.
I say give Ubi credit where credit is due, they at least fix games post launch if they start out rough, Breakpoint is an excellent example this and is such an enjoyable experience now compared to it's launch.
