Taffers & Takedowns: A [Stealth Games] Thread

WACriminal

WHAT'S ALL THIS, THEN?

Are you looking for a genre of games that challenges your reflexes, your tactical thinking, your creativity, your resource management, and occasionally your patience -- all at once? Well feast your eyes on the stealth genre, my friend. Here, you'll find all those things and more.

I'm intrigued. What are some good examples of stealth games?

Glad you asked. We'll start with arguably the grand-daddy of the entire genre, the Thief series.



The concept's simple, and elegant in its execution. You're a thief. You sneak into a place and you take things from that place. There is an over-arching plotline (a pretty good one), but the moment-to-moment gameplay focuses on figuring out how to use your limited resources to reach and remove valuable articles (coins, jewelry, silverware, precious objects and artwork) from around the map. You'll be sneaking past guards, distracting guards, knocking out guards, and frequently FINDING A GUARD YOU DIDN'T REALIZE WAS RIGHT THERE JUST AROUND THE CORNER AND HE HEARD YOUR FOOTSTEPS HOLY SHi guess it's time for a quick reload, then. If you're looking for a great game that forces you to consider sound, light, mobility, resources, and timing in your dishonest endeavors, this might be a place to start. There are 3 Thief games. I've only played the third one, Deadly Shadows, and it's pretty good. I've heard the first two are enjoyable, and it's just a shame the series hasn't had any recent entries.

Actually, I wanted something a little more chill.

In that case, check out Card Thief.



Card Thief is a mobile game available on iOS and Android. Play takes place on a 3x3 grid, with one card (including the player) in each space of that grid. Each turn, choose a path at least two squares long to move through, expending stealth points as you move. Each card you cross will be removed from the board, replaced with a new card from the current level's deck. Survive the entire (randomly generated) deck, collect the level's loot, and escape through the exit card which appears as the last card in the deck. Rounds can be played in ~10 minutes. The game has a selection of gear for you to choose from, with new items being unlocked through collecting in-game free currency, and upgraded through accomplishing specific feats while heisting.

I like the art style on Card Thief, but I was hoping for something that wasn't turn-based.

Maybe you want the side-scrolling masterpiece from Klei Entertainment, Mark of the Ninja.



This game has SO MUCH REPLAY VALUE. Choose different gear loadouts, try pacifist or ghost runs, search for hidden rooms and secrets. This is the only game for which I've ever 100%'d the achievements. The story, music, and atmosphere are top-notch.

But wait, that's about killing people. I wanted to steal shit!

Oh don't worry, there's more. Take Monaco for a spin.



Class-based multiplayer (MULTIPLAYER) heist gameplay. Be the Cleaner and knock the guards out. Be a Gentleman and wear a disguise. Be the Lookout and help your friends keep an eye on the patrolling guards. Be the Pickpocket and have a fucking pet monkey to collect loot for you. It's got a pretty good, Usual Suspects-style heist movie plot that you can either enjoy or completely ignore. Fan-created missions can also be created/downloaded via the game's built-in map editor, but I haven't really done much of that. I hear it's good.

OK, that's all cool. What are you playing right now?

A free, fan-created game called The Dark Mod.



It looks a lot like the Thief series, and that's intentional. The Dark Mod is basically Thief with the serial numbers filed off. It's set in a steampunk-y, mildly magical, vaguely creepy city which is home to a major hammer-based religion and some nature-worshiping pagan folks in addition to all the, you know, normal people. Sound familiar? I've been really getting into TDM lately. It's got all the old tricks -- rope arrows, noisemakers, hidden passages, maps with numerous paths through them, and always that one piece of wildly valuable loot teasing you from the center of a large room surrounded by floodlights and guards. As a free fan project, it's prone to bugs and glitches, but the console commands are pretty good for getting around those.

So, what are you guys playing these days? Any fun stealth game stories you'd like to share with the class?

WACriminal

Follow-up question: Why are my images not working?

EDIT TO FOLLOW-UP QUESTION: I am a dumb. Fixed it.

Konphujun

I feel like the dishonored series is, at the core, a stealth game. Sure, you can go murdery at any point with wildly satisfying results, but I feel that it is best played as a stealth game. The level design is intricate without being overly complex and allows for a variety of approaches and even outcomes depending on how you play. The game world reacts to your choices in a real, tangible way and encourages multiple plays to really experience everything it has to offer.

Another game I feel is overlooked is Gunpoint. It's a side scrolling game in the vein of Mark of the Ninja, but the writing and level design is top notch.

Invisibles Inc is one I haven't started yet, though I do own it. This thread has motivated me to finally give it a shot! I'll report back with my findings, though the critical acclaim it has gotten leads me to believe I'm going to enjoy the hell out of it.

WACriminal

Konphujun wrote: »

Invisibles Inc is one I haven't started yet, though I do own it. This thread has motivated me to finally give it a shot! I'll report back with my findings, though the critical acclaim it has gotten leads me to believe I'm going to enjoy the hell out of it.

Ooooooh, you are in for a treat.

Also a steep learning curve. But a treat.

knitdan

Deadly Shadows was as controversial in its time as Thi4f was more recently, among fans of the series.

They took away some of the best tools from the first two games (rope arrows!) and made water insta-death when in the previous games Garrett could swim quite well.

Not to mention the Invisible War-ification of play areas.

knitdan

The Dishonored games are probably my favorite stealthy games since the Thief series, and in fact I prefer them to the most recent entry in the latter series.

Just for the simple fact that it's possible to do a no-kill playthrough, but also because it ticks off a lot of the boxes in my personal "Thief-like" criteria.

knitdan

But I really dislike stealth in games where the core gameplay isn't really designed for you to be stealthy. Breath of the Wild is a prime example of this, there's a mission that's not technically required but it might as well be, where you have to sneak around some dudes and there's only one route through and if they spot you it's basically insta-fail. That's bad stealth.

Horizon:Zero Dawn I thought did pretty good stealth without making it the focus of the game or just a contextual gimmick.

WACriminal

knitdan wrote: »

Deadly Shadows was as controversial in its time as Thi4f was more recently, among fans of the series.

They took away some of the best tools from the first two games (rope arrows!) and made water insta-death when in the previous games Garrett could swim quite well.

Not to mention the Invisible War-ification of play areas.

Now that I've played the Dark Mod, I definitely understand how big a deal rope arrows are (although more often than not, I end up doing silly shit with them). But Deadly Shadows also has the Cradle, so it will always have a special place in my heart, even when I eventually go back and play the first two.

knitdan

Other things that were controversial in Deadly Shadows and it now seems silly that they were;

Loot Glint
Third Person Mode

WACriminal

knitdan wrote: »

Other things that were controversial in Deadly Shadows and it now seems silly that they were;

Loot Glint
Third Person Mode

I never use third person, but I actually like loot glint. I don't really find it thrilling gameplay to pick up 20 different cups to make sure they're just props and not loot, lol. That said, I do wish it had a radius of activation, so that it wouldn't glint at you from across the room, but just when you're kindof in its general vicinity. Gives you a reason to look over each shelf/table, but not to put your fingerprints on everything.

WACriminal

Last night, I navigated my way through a relatively enormous map in The Dark Mod. It's called "The Heart of Lone Salvation", and I highly recommend it. I made things harder on myself than I needed to, because I'm a resource hoarder. You start the level with multiples of every arrow type, in addition to some tools like flashbombs and such, but I used very few of them because I kept worrying that I would need them more later.

More difficult, however, was the fact that almost all the guards in the level were wearing helmets. Helmets, you see, prevent them from being knocked out by your blackjack, so the only way to deal with them was to 1) knock them out with a gas arrow, which is costly, 2) kill them, which I don't like to do, or 3) avoid them in a house with lots of electric lights. Nevertheless, I managed to do it. Had to find some back ways through the house many times to get around impassable guard positions, but I got most of the objectives done and visited most of the places in the house.

Near the end, as I was preparing to make my escape, I realized that one particular guard wearing a helmet was precisely positioned as though he was intended to be blackjacked. With a growing, horrible suspicion, I quicksaved and blackjacked him...and he went down.

Turns out it's only a specific type of helmet that can't be blackjacked. A specific type of helmet that literally none of the guards in the entire level were wearing, and I'd just been hobbling myself through a misunderstanding the entire, multi-hour level.

Stealth games.

Joolander

I love the Splinter Cell franchise. It is probably my favorite game series

Yes, it's "Tom Clancy's"

But the gameplay is generally so tight, and punishing in a fun way

Lavender Gooms

I've been stabbing robot dinosaurs from the tall grass for a while now and it still never gets old. All these outfits they've made available to me and the one I wear 95% of the time is the stealth one, because why would I need defense when nothing ever gets to attack me?