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[PATV] Tuesday, April 30, 2013 - Extra Credits Season 6, Ep. 8: Like a Ninja
Is it just me, or does anyone else miss the longer form videos that EC used to do? Maybe it's just my imagination, but I remember EC videos consistently being 3-5 minutes longer than this. I mean, the discussion is good, and I get why they'd have to shorten things to churn them out on a schedule... but the last few videos (in particular) just feel like they need more time to say things.
I looked through the seasons and the average EC ep seemed to be around 6:30 long, with the occasional 8 minuter. And considering last week's episode was 9 minutes long, I don't think they're getting shorter.
When ever any one talks about stealth games they never mention the Tenchu series. I know Tenchu Z was bad but the first four games were really good. Also Syphon Filter did well to mix action and stealth.
The Stealth sections in Resident Evil 6 were the worst part of that game. It was...ok, up until Jake and Ada's campains, but it went off the deep end with those...largely due to forced stealth sections.
I think Uncharted 2 is a pretty good example of the cross of the two styles. You can go into areas, guns blazing, or, you can lay low, wait for the right moment, and take enemies out one by one. It's not perfect, mind you, but it's pretty close on how to balance them...more so than almost any other game I can think of.
The video said it perfectly...Stealth has more in common with puzzle games than action games...which is why the new Splinter Cell games have failed.
Mark of the Ninja has got to be one of my favorite stealth games of all time. Klei did such a fantastic job of presenting the user with a ton of information at a glance that's normally handled by cumbersome meters and gauges by just integrating it in to what you see naturally. Rings of sound indicating footsteps and other noises, both yours and your enemies. Drastic color shifts indicating whether you're in the shadows or not. So many intelligent design decisions in that game.
If you haven't had a chance to play it and this episode made you want to slide in to the shadows, I can't recommend MotN enough. Go get it!
While action and stealth are pretty separate in them, I think the Arkham games are great at shifting between them, and also at being able to recover from a failure to stealth properly.
As much as I love portal, I don't think it's a good example of a puzzle game that lets you "solve the problems the game presents you in a myriad of ways". Almost every room is clearly designed with a single solution in mind.
To me, this begs the question of whether or not it is possible to make one game that is both good at action and also good at stealth. The best examples I can think of... the original Deus Ex, the original Crysis, to a lesser extent Fallout 3... all seemed to treat Stealth itself as one tool out of many. A true alternative to combat which you could choose to specialize in or not as the game progresses. EyE Divine Cybermancy did kinda the same thing... except of course that you weren't really specializing, just choosing which upgrade to take first.
On the other end of the spectrum, you've got games like the Thief series and Mark of the Ninja and absolutely no other games, ever, which did disempowered stealth right. It's all about the feeling of being *smarter* than your enemies... listening to them voice their most private thoughts because they think they're in a safe place was half the fun. Running like hell from deadly armed enemies who desperately outclassed you after every false move was the other half.
To me the most engaging stealth game has been the MMOFPS ww2online. Yes, it was basically an action game with pratically no other stealth mechanic than going prone or staying behind something. What made it so engaging was that you nearly never felt safe. Either nearly immobile, extremely vunerable or had your vision seriously impared. Being able to somehow get close enough to the target without being seen was the only way to accomplish anything. And having it be with and against other humans and not an AI. So much of both extreme frustration and incredible satisfaction.
Cynicism is a great help when trying to be sarcastic.
This is definitely the case in Portal 2, where it's pick the white panel amongst the sea of black to continue. But in Portal 1, at least for me, re-running the game involves coming up with solutions that make the most use of your gun and the least use of your environment, such as not activating the congratulatory moving victory panel, or wall climbing your way through the passages ignoring or outrunning the plate walkways you were supposed to use, or moving fast enough to outrun Glados's confused banter in the later sections. It's all about momentum and speed and using these to break everything.
This is the main reason that Portal outclasses Portal 2, although Portal 2 solo makes up for it in the story department, and the multiplayer (and PeTI) properly sequels number 1 by not having as many black panels.
As for the video, good episode. I'm not sure action/stealth needs to be diametrically opposed though, cause all you need is a good payoff for thinking through the puzzle to balance out the short term gain of smashing it with your gun, and suddenly the waiting is worth it.
I think Deus Ex (and Human Revolution) does the choice between stealth and action well. You can choose stealth (which is the better option usually imo), but you can choose action. And both are fun.
The point about making failure engaging is a really good one. It's what makes Monaco so much fun; frantic chaos and thinking on your feet when it all goes wrong, followed by very little waiting after you've successfully evaded before you can give it another shot. Sure you roll your eyes at the goldfish-memory guards at first, but it's worth it to keep things engaging.
Man, I love EC so much, but sometimes it frustrates me that they'll say things like "instead of x, you should do y" but rarely give concrete examples of the good thing in action. Sometimes they'll say "this game does y well" but, please, take a moment to show us how it does it so it all doesn't seem quite so hand-wavy. Show, don't (just) tell.
Regarding the part about the game making failure rewarding, try out Monaco if you want a stellar example. Some of the most fun you can have with that game is when everything goes to hell and it turns into the heist from Reservoir Dogs, with everyone running and screaming trying to get as much money as they can while frantically evading cops and firing shotguns wildly.
Deus EX HR was my very first stealth game, and it became one of my favorite games of all time. Now I'm trying Thief Gold. Pretty darn good, but it has a way too steep learning curve.
I don't usually consider myself a stealth-game type. And I hate shooting games. But somehow, every time I play an Elder Scrolls game, I roll a stealthy archer. This video really helped me to see what about that setup might make it compelling for me. I really engage each situation carefully, trying to get as many arrows in stealth that I can (to maximize the damage bonus.) I probably spent half an hour on a room of vampires just yesterday, reloading as necessary to see how many I could pick off before I had to deal with the remainders in one pack.
In other words, it really -is- a kind of puzzle for me. Not the typical stealth-game type, but my reasons for engaging the situation that way are very similar.
This sort of analysis, and these sorts of realizations, are why I love you guys so much. In college, I learned to find the art in art. I love how you take that sort of thinking and apply it to this media.
For a game that actually can combine stealth and action, and this might sound strange, I would name Just Cause 2.
Here I refer to the Wanted Level Rico can get. He needs to hide and avoid enemies to drop the wanted level, and this can get really intense. Hardly any place is safe once your wanted level gets high enough, the only place that usually works is diving down to the bottom of the sea, but then you have to see what runs out first, your oxygen or the wanted level.
Now I know there isn't any actual stealth and almost every single thing you do makes you wanted by the police and the army, however it forces the player to look for the best places to hide, best sniping positions and exit strategies. Also if forces the player to not cause too much damage or shoot too many soldiers and cops. It forces the player to really work with the tools and the game design.
Well, those are my two cents.
The only ones that face reality are the ones too stupid to duck when they see it coming!
Eh...some of Tenchu is good, some of Tenchu is not so good. I would say "some Tenchu games are good and some are not," but even within individual games there are usual parts I think are great and others that are just balls. The first one probably has the best total package, particularly with regard to not having overly ridiculous bosses/combat moves paired with the stealth action, but there are some quite satisfying sections in Wrath of Heaven and Tenchu 2 as well. (Fatal Shadows...not so much, really.) The bugs in the original Tenchu really broke the game on a couple levels, though. I'm looking at you, tall tower full of enemies that like to become invisible until they detect you and then all appear at once just to ruin your stealth rating.
The trouble with stealth in games like Skyrim and Far Cry 3 (in other words, open-world RPG type games) is usually that stealth is overpowered: AI is too dumb to respond effectively to stealth; stealth attacks are obscenely strong; stealth mechanics allow for immersion-breaking silliness like being "hidden" right in front of someone two feet ahead of you who, despite looking directly at you, apparently can't see you despite being in a well-lit area; etc. You could go guns-blazing through Far Cry 3 if you felt like it, or you could just murder everyone in an outpost with one quick rush through the right doorway and a silenced pistol with far less risk taken and less ammo expended. Likewise sniping your way through dungeons in Skyrim once your stealth is above 60 or so. Kinda removes any challenge from the game (until you run into a boss encounter that ignores stealth, in which case it is useless and the difficulty curve inverts).
Likewise sniping your way through dungeons in Skyrim once your stealth is above 60 or so. Kinda removes any challenge from the game (until you run into a boss encounter that ignores stealth, in which case it is useless and the difficulty curve inverts).
To be fair, once most combat skills get to 60 or so, dungeons become a breeze aside from Dragon Priests (which are easy on some characters and hard on others). I tend to view characters at that level less as looking for a challenge and more as seeing how much I can accomplish/collect in the world (gather all the priest masks, gather all the Daedric weapons, etc).
another brilliant post, never liked stealth games, but I realise that is more about my attitude than the games. I think I will have to give a couple a try. So Action, Horror and Stealth games you have covered what other genres are left?
No mention of Blood Money? It doesn't do stealth in the same way as say, the thief games, but it fits the mold of "more puzzle game than action" perfectly, and it's still fundamentally about evading detection and getting away with things you aren't supposed to be doing. It's just that your toolset involves things that make everything look NORMAL; you have disguises to blend in with the guards, you have "accident" kills to deflect suspicion, etc. It's a different approach to stealth while still being built on the same core idea of being given a problem that can't easily be solved with brute force, and giving you the freedom to solve it through observation and cunning.
@Barnesm They are few and far between which makes stealth games difficult to get into because most are bad. the original MGS was great, but I don't know how playable it would be now depending on your requirement of graphic fidelity. Play Deus Ex Human Revolution, as it gives you the option to stealth or blow things away, so you can determine how much you like the stealth aspect. Also, whether you kill people or not, load up on guns.
Often, even in the great stealth games, the game will reset all AI states back to "Everything is Normal" routines after a given time... despite the fact that a guard saw me drag his lifeless comrade away and nobody has any reason to believe I left. Why? From a design standpoint, why should a game "reset the puzzle" so absurdly? Why not just "leave the puzzle at medium difficulty" and keep the guards on alert?
I played DX:HR on murderous difficulty and even at that setting, given enough time, everyone goes back to drinking coffee except with one guard less. Why would the designer choose to do this? Is it difficult to script the game so that guards stay in their partially alerted state, or is the reason more to do with it being better gameplay-wise to completely reset the puzzle?
On another topic: I noticed that in Batman:AA and AC, you CANNOT use stealth in beat'em up encounters. Even when you sneak up to them, you do not have an option for a stealth takedown. What's the reason for this?
Would blending combat into the stealth sections and blending stealth into the combat sections be a bad design choice?
@elheber The Arkham games, in particular Arkham City, do a good job of not resetting back to "everything is ok, we're all ok, here, how are you?". Take out enough thugs and the remaining thugs will become quite skittish, even to the point where they will shoot at anything that moves. Including each other if you can arrange it. In Arkham City the thugs can and do shoot the gargoyle vantage points giving you fewer places to escape to when spotted, and on the hardest difficulty getting spotted usually means you're not going to be able to hide again easily if at all.
Yes, I too was disappointed by the lack of Blood Money shout outs. Especially since it utilizes the often underused disguise system. Yes, it gives you the option to go action-heavy and infiltrate the level like Rambo on caffeine pills, but at its core it was a stealth game. More precisely, it was a stealth game where stealth was just another tool. You could skulk in the shadows with minimal interaction with the level if you wanted to, or you could hide in plain sight in a disguise and pantomime your way through a crowd. You would map out patrols, research which disguises worked where, and spot security cameras and work out how to evade them along the way. And if you did manage to get spotted, it wasn't an instant game over and you could still take them out and hide the body in a bin before continuing. Or you could kick down the front door like the Terminator and start a fire fight if you really wanted to, but you were penalized after the level with notoriety and less funds as well as in game with clunky aiming mechanics and heightened suspicion. The mark of the true expert was getting in and getting out quickly, silently killing your targets (or staging them to look like accidents) with a bare minimum body count and leaving nothing behind that could be traced back to you.
Good episode, I just think you should have explained better why Mark of the Ninja, Dishonored and whatever game you think it's a good stealth game.
Also, I have to point out that stealth and action aren't opposites. For instance, take Splinter Cell: Conviction. The mechanics of that game were build so well that they work fine even if you, for some reason, decide to shoot everything that moves with a machinegun. The action mechanics don't work as good as the stealth mechanics, but they are good enough for you to play as you want and have fun. Okay, the Iraq level was lame, but the problem was the level itself, not the mechanics.
I think they have overlooked a major point of discussion regarding the appeal of stealth games. As they pointed out, the major appeal of action games is a feeling of empowerment and most of the sensations that go along with any power fantasy; however, I think that there is more to the appeal of stealth games than just triumphing despite perceived disempowerment (i.e. conquering a sort of impotence relative to the game's setting).
I think that there is a palpable voyeuristic aspect to stealth games, and that this is the major area of appeal. While being vulnerable is a major component of stealth games (as it is generally necessary to make the player take on a vulnerable role in order to justify stealth focused gameplay to begin with), I believe that the reason people enjoy stealth games is that they take the role of an endangered, hidden observer seeing and doing things that others would prevent them from seeing and doing.
The thrill of the possibility of being discovered (and whatever danger that may lead to) is, of course, a major part of the appeal of this role, perhaps even one of the more engaging parts.
@regstacks
I'm not sure that the voyeuristic possibility is what drives a lot of stealth game players. I can only speak for myself and my circle of friends, but it's not what drives us. For me it's the actual act of being stealthy, slinking through the shadows, and either letting everyone live (Dishonored) or quietly murdering the lot of them. (Mark of the Ninja). In any game where I'm giving the chance I play a rogue archetype, so it's just my thing. I just enjoy the act of being crafty and manipulating the actions of others for personal gain in games.
A great comparison between the two types of games would be Shank(2) and Mark of the Ninja. Essentially they're two halves of the same whole. Mark of the Ninja explores the stealthy and complex side while Shank 2 simply wants you to kill everything that moves. You can actually learn a lot about each genre from just these two games.
I think there should be a part two. Take some games and go through why a section is good, and why a section is bad. For example, that stealth sections in CoD always seem terrible because they don't feel empowering and they are always set up for you.
I think Assassin's Creed does a good job at balancing stealth and pure run and slash. If you want, you can stealth your way to a target, but if the game allows you then there is nothing stopping you from bursting through the front door and trying to fight your way to that target.
Posts
I think Uncharted 2 is a pretty good example of the cross of the two styles. You can go into areas, guns blazing, or, you can lay low, wait for the right moment, and take enemies out one by one. It's not perfect, mind you, but it's pretty close on how to balance them...more so than almost any other game I can think of.
The video said it perfectly...Stealth has more in common with puzzle games than action games...which is why the new Splinter Cell games have failed.
If you haven't had a chance to play it and this episode made you want to slide in to the shadows, I can't recommend MotN enough. Go get it!
On the other end of the spectrum, you've got games like the Thief series and Mark of the Ninja and absolutely no other games, ever, which did disempowered stealth right. It's all about the feeling of being *smarter* than your enemies... listening to them voice their most private thoughts because they think they're in a safe place was half the fun. Running like hell from deadly armed enemies who desperately outclassed you after every false move was the other half.
This is definitely the case in Portal 2, where it's pick the white panel amongst the sea of black to continue. But in Portal 1, at least for me, re-running the game involves coming up with solutions that make the most use of your gun and the least use of your environment, such as not activating the congratulatory moving victory panel, or wall climbing your way through the passages ignoring or outrunning the plate walkways you were supposed to use, or moving fast enough to outrun Glados's confused banter in the later sections. It's all about momentum and speed and using these to break everything.
This is the main reason that Portal outclasses Portal 2, although Portal 2 solo makes up for it in the story department, and the multiplayer (and PeTI) properly sequels number 1 by not having as many black panels.
As for the video, good episode. I'm not sure action/stealth needs to be diametrically opposed though, cause all you need is a good payoff for thinking through the puzzle to balance out the short term gain of smashing it with your gun, and suddenly the waiting is worth it.
And Batman Beyond music at the end? lol.
In other words, it really -is- a kind of puzzle for me. Not the typical stealth-game type, but my reasons for engaging the situation that way are very similar.
This sort of analysis, and these sorts of realizations, are why I love you guys so much. In college, I learned to find the art in art. I love how you take that sort of thinking and apply it to this media.
Here I refer to the Wanted Level Rico can get. He needs to hide and avoid enemies to drop the wanted level, and this can get really intense. Hardly any place is safe once your wanted level gets high enough, the only place that usually works is diving down to the bottom of the sea, but then you have to see what runs out first, your oxygen or the wanted level.
Now I know there isn't any actual stealth and almost every single thing you do makes you wanted by the police and the army, however it forces the player to look for the best places to hide, best sniping positions and exit strategies. Also if forces the player to not cause too much damage or shoot too many soldiers and cops. It forces the player to really work with the tools and the game design.
Well, those are my two cents.
The trouble with stealth in games like Skyrim and Far Cry 3 (in other words, open-world RPG type games) is usually that stealth is overpowered: AI is too dumb to respond effectively to stealth; stealth attacks are obscenely strong; stealth mechanics allow for immersion-breaking silliness like being "hidden" right in front of someone two feet ahead of you who, despite looking directly at you, apparently can't see you despite being in a well-lit area; etc. You could go guns-blazing through Far Cry 3 if you felt like it, or you could just murder everyone in an outpost with one quick rush through the right doorway and a silenced pistol with far less risk taken and less ammo expended. Likewise sniping your way through dungeons in Skyrim once your stealth is above 60 or so. Kinda removes any challenge from the game (until you run into a boss encounter that ignores stealth, in which case it is useless and the difficulty curve inverts).
To be fair, once most combat skills get to 60 or so, dungeons become a breeze aside from Dragon Priests (which are easy on some characters and hard on others). I tend to view characters at that level less as looking for a challenge and more as seeing how much I can accomplish/collect in the world (gather all the priest masks, gather all the Daedric weapons, etc).
I played DX:HR on murderous difficulty and even at that setting, given enough time, everyone goes back to drinking coffee except with one guard less. Why would the designer choose to do this? Is it difficult to script the game so that guards stay in their partially alerted state, or is the reason more to do with it being better gameplay-wise to completely reset the puzzle?
Would blending combat into the stealth sections and blending stealth into the combat sections be a bad design choice?
Yes, I too was disappointed by the lack of Blood Money shout outs. Especially since it utilizes the often underused disguise system. Yes, it gives you the option to go action-heavy and infiltrate the level like Rambo on caffeine pills, but at its core it was a stealth game. More precisely, it was a stealth game where stealth was just another tool. You could skulk in the shadows with minimal interaction with the level if you wanted to, or you could hide in plain sight in a disguise and pantomime your way through a crowd. You would map out patrols, research which disguises worked where, and spot security cameras and work out how to evade them along the way. And if you did manage to get spotted, it wasn't an instant game over and you could still take them out and hide the body in a bin before continuing. Or you could kick down the front door like the Terminator and start a fire fight if you really wanted to, but you were penalized after the level with notoriety and less funds as well as in game with clunky aiming mechanics and heightened suspicion. The mark of the true expert was getting in and getting out quickly, silently killing your targets (or staging them to look like accidents) with a bare minimum body count and leaving nothing behind that could be traced back to you.
Also, I have to point out that stealth and action aren't opposites. For instance, take Splinter Cell: Conviction. The mechanics of that game were build so well that they work fine even if you, for some reason, decide to shoot everything that moves with a machinegun. The action mechanics don't work as good as the stealth mechanics, but they are good enough for you to play as you want and have fun. Okay, the Iraq level was lame, but the problem was the level itself, not the mechanics.
I think that there is a palpable voyeuristic aspect to stealth games, and that this is the major area of appeal. While being vulnerable is a major component of stealth games (as it is generally necessary to make the player take on a vulnerable role in order to justify stealth focused gameplay to begin with), I believe that the reason people enjoy stealth games is that they take the role of an endangered, hidden observer seeing and doing things that others would prevent them from seeing and doing.
The thrill of the possibility of being discovered (and whatever danger that may lead to) is, of course, a major part of the appeal of this role, perhaps even one of the more engaging parts.
Actually, no, the outro was a remix of the overworld music in the original Metal Gear. It's basically the first BGM you hear in the game.
I'm not sure that the voyeuristic possibility is what drives a lot of stealth game players. I can only speak for myself and my circle of friends, but it's not what drives us. For me it's the actual act of being stealthy, slinking through the shadows, and either letting everyone live (Dishonored) or quietly murdering the lot of them. (Mark of the Ninja). In any game where I'm giving the chance I play a rogue archetype, so it's just my thing. I just enjoy the act of being crafty and manipulating the actions of others for personal gain in games.
I think Assassin's Creed does a good job at balancing stealth and pure run and slash. If you want, you can stealth your way to a target, but if the game allows you then there is nothing stopping you from bursting through the front door and trying to fight your way to that target.
Writing outros is hard, man. I sympathize.