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It’s been all quiet on the Syphon Filter front since then with its developer and originator, Bend, going on to produce portable Uncharted games and also Days Gone, which actually seems to be in the same universe. If you squint hard enough, Deacon actually even looks a little like Logan, too.
Failure in most stealth games simply means trying again (or losing your mind and massacring everything in sight), but not with Invisible, Inc: death is as debilitating and fearmongering as it is in something like XCOM. The stakes are high no matter the mission, so playing strategically is key — you’ll be afraid to fail, but you should be prepared for the inevitability of it. Featuring spine-breaks, heart filleting, and even some old-fashioned decapitations, it could be easy to discount Wrath of Heaven as nothing more than a gorefest, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. It requires a lot of strategy and forward planning, almost like the Hitman of ninja games— you’ll never be able to look at a rice ball the same way again. For all his gadgets and bone-breaking, Batman is at his most effective when he’s stalking his foes from the shadows.
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Bearing that in mind, the most efficient items to steal are gems and jewelry, as they're high in value but low in weight - which means a higher chance to steal, as weight determines difficulty. This means that Shards of Darkness contains plenty of trial and error gameplay, which may frustrate some. For anyone who’s played an old-school stealth game, however, it’s a joy. It doesn’t feel like the stealth genre is on the way out, rather that it’s difficult to find a “straight” stealth title that isn’t interspersed with other conventions, like an open world or open-ended approach that gives the player plenty of choice on how to approach obstacles. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing — adaptation and evolution is part of why Mario is still as beloved as ever. It also has the staple Kojima attention to detail with the boss battle with The End totally avoidable if you just change your PS2’s date settings to make him die of old age.
It’s a damn shame, too, because anyone who’s played the original game will find that Dishonored 2 fixes the annoying quirks and adds a few new ideas of its own. It heavily promotes stealth over other, more straightforward tactics, so whether you’re blinking to rooftops or summoning rats, you can feel like a superpowered assassin. If you couldn’t guess already, it feels awesome. Often compared somewhat superficially to Hotline Miami, Intravenous is instead closer to the Splinter Cell games of old crossed with a top-down perspective. It’s unforgiving and perhaps a little too crude with its storytelling at points, but if you like games where it feels like an inch of progress is a mile, this is an indie gem worth seeking out. Despite being marketed as being designed for Xbox, the Stealth Gen 2 Max actually works on any console as with the simple switch, its USB dongle can change from the standard 2.4GHz wireless signal to Microsoft's own proprietary Xbox Wireless signal. It also supports Blue tooth and you can even have both sources coming through at the same time. Released during a time when dripfeeding content was all the rage in the industry, Hitman was one of the few that actually went about it the right way, releasing new levels with tonnes of replayability and special side distractions to keep you coming until the next batch of content was ready. Assassin’s Creed may continue to grow and expand with each new entry and become less and less about assassinating itself, but its second game represents the series at its purest.
By stretching the tech limitations of its generation of gaming to almost breaking point, Kojima and co. were able to create one of gaming’s most adored franchises with its zenith. Considering the calibre of almost everything with the Metal Gear name, that’s high praise. As a sarcastic little goblin, your abilities are obviously limited — there’s no flitting over buildings in this game. By expanding on the fundamentals introduced in Asylum with a grander scale and more polish, City allows you to approach being The Bat however you like. There’s something undeniably satisfying about the game’s combat, but equally so is stringing up bad guys from lampposts. It’s a shame that its sequel, Mankind Divided, underperformed in so many areas, however, so much so that we may not see a new Deus Ex for quite some time. From one Klei stealth game to another, Mark of the Ninja represents the absolute best in 2D side-scrolling stealth games.
While Manhunt was ahead of its time in many regards, time hasn’t caught up to it too harshly and is still a bloody joy to play. It may even still make you feel a bit queasy, despite its triangular nature. Speech is levelled by buying and selling items, and successfully using the Persuade, Indimidate, and Bribe dialogue options.
With Medievil seeing a remake in 2019, Sony better leaf through the rest of their catalog and unearth this stealth game gem.
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