Stealth Gameplay Mechanics

Which Stealth-Based Game do you think had the best game mechanics?

Personally speaking as much as I like the 'ol cardboard box, I'm an big fan Assassin Creeds 'social stealth' concept. Hiding in plain sight was a lot more intriguing and rewarding than playing hide and go seek with alleged Super Soldiers.

edited 9th Dec '10 5:31:23 AM by joeyjojo

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My vote either goes to Prototype or Fallout. SNEAK ATTACK CRITICAAAAAAAAAAAL!

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Tricky question, but I'm very fond of Thief's and Splinter Cell's mechanics.

On the other hand, I generally dislike stealth elements in FPS games.

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Depends on how much focus there is on stealth. For a highly stealth-focused game, I liked Metal Gear Solid 3 — the camo mechanic made for interesting gameplay, though I do wish there had been some kind of penalty for switching camo patterns — like it briefly bringing your camo to zero while you switch out or something — so you couldn't just switch patterns to the best-fitting one at will.

In less stealth-focused games, I like Metro 2033's example. You hit B to crouch. While you're crouched, you're stealthy unless you're in the enemy's direct line of sight or you make a noise (fire a weapon, knock items around, trigger a trap). What counts as "direct line of sight" depends on the area's ambient light. This means that in a dark place, someone can walk right past you and not notice you, and in any place you can sneak up behind someone to knife them (as long as they don't turn around). I find this much more enjoyable than "stealth mode means they only have a 50% chance to notice you sneaking up behind them instead of 100%!" because in those situations, if they do spot you (which you have basically no control over), you're screwed.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Second Sight. Temporary invisibility. No more waiting impatiently for the guards to look the other way!

edited 9th Dec '10 2:29:34 PM by feotakahari

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Snake's Revenge, it invented crawling under soldier's line of site. Still the best Metal Gear game.

edited 9th Dec '10 4:37:50 PM by Cider

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The only pure stealth game I've played was The Art Of Theft but I liked it.

edited 9th Dec '10 5:32:51 PM by DrStarky

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surely you jest.

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I Thought It Meant "gameplay mechanics you don't notice are in a game until you've used them a lot."

Derp.

"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada

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Yeah, I really like Assassin's Creed's stealth. For someone who hates stealth missions, it made them rather fun.

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Personally, i believe that the Assassins Creed Stealth mechanics were the best. Hiding in plain sight and scaling rooftops to get to targets made a bit more sense than clinging to a pipe with a silenced pistol waiting for someone to get within range so that you can headshot them, but i enjoyed those mechanics too.

Thief, followed by Batman: Arkham Asylum. The former for its pure stealth gameplay, the latter for kicking asses, cracking skulls and being a badass all while completely undetected. Metal Gear Solid isn't quite as fun (no stealth game where you use guns could be) but MGS 3's jungle theme made a very fun and unique hunting-stealth game. Tenchu (the very first one) had some great elements in it as well despite its mostly bad controls.

And although it wasn't asked, any Zelda game where you had to do a sneaking minigame has the worst stealth mechanic. Stealth really isn't something you can do half-assed and get away with it, imo.

Tenchu The Wrath Of Heaven is a tragically overlooked addition to video game's stealth cannon. the Fully open exploriable world design and tight combat system of assassin's creed is all there, something that other stealth games of the PS 2 era lacked.

Plus your a Ninja!

edited 10th Dec '10 6:32:54 PM by joeyjojo

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I liked the more aggressive styled stealth mechanics from Splinter Cell: Conviction, since the game no longer punished you or made a mission impossible to beat just because you got caught more than three times. Also unlike the last few games, I felt that I was one goddamned deadly killing machine when playing as Sam, whereas alerting more than two guards at a time would be a death trap.

The fact that some of the guards couldn't even see you even though many of the dark corners you could hide in weren't that dark was weird, but it still worked very well.

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Maybe I misunderstood something, but I'm pretty sure that Wrath of Heaven doesn't have such a world.

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I don't actually like the stealth system from the assassin's creed games I think it's too simple basically blend or stay a few meters above/below guards to avoid being noticed. I'm actually surprised no one mentioned the Hitman series with it's disguise based stealth. I'm disappointed with the current stealth games since they all seem to go in the direction that stealth is only a prelude to combat instead of a alternative to it.

Edit: And while Tenchu: wrath of heaven did have rather large maps it wasn't an "open World" game

edited 11th Dec '10 3:26:54 PM by mahel042

In the quiet of the night, the Neocount of Merentha mused: How long does evolution take, among the damned?

I definitely love the Assassin's Creed "hiding in plain sight" stealth, particularly how it continued to be refined in Assassin's Creed II.

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It was in no way a sandbox, but the maps were open and allowed freedom of movement, especially when compared to the series of interconnecting boxes school of game design than other stealth games typically used.

edited 11th Dec '10 6:21:53 PM by joeyjojo

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I am fond of Thief and Deus Ex.

I am also quite fond of The Nameless Mod. Switch up stealth and gunnery as often as you like, and take whatever route you please!

edited 11th Dec '10 8:31:09 PM by Charlatan

Thief and Batman Arkham Asylum did it perfectly.

Jonah Falcon

I loved the stealth mechanics in Alien Vs Predator.

As an Alien, you have two incredibly important traits:

1. The ability to walk near-silently on any surface.
2. The ability to blend perfectly into any shadow.

This is a brilliant blend of mechanics, because it allows for a more lateral approach to problem-solving. The Alien's incredible aptitude for stealth also allowed for more challenging scenarios than the likes of Assassin's Creed, where there were no mechanics for using shadows and the like.

As the Alien, you can also shriek to attract attention, jump incredibly long distances and move at insane speeds, which allows you to set up diversions and be out of the way before your adversary knows what hit them.

A lot of modern stealth games don't really challenge you to take risks or to try and slip under the noses of your adversaries. Alien Vs Predator does just that. And apart from being a lot of fun, it's just goddamn satisfying to drop from the ceiling and gut a Weyland-Yutani security goon with your tail.

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I loved it in Arkham Asylum. Scaring the shit out of people is really what being Batman is all about.

Madass, your posts about it keep making me want to play that game.

edited 12th Dec '10 3:30:34 AM by LuckyRevenant

"I can't imagine what Hell will have in store, but I know when I'm there, I won't wander anymore."

You can do that as Predator too. I don't have Av P2k 10, but I've played it before and it's nice to not get into huge firefights every five minutes. — I love the stealth in Thief and Hitman. And Splinter Cell. And Metal Gear.