Poll: Stealth: forced or optional

[Katana314]

OH! More positive about Batman:
It was the first game to get the writing for "We lost him, keep looking" correct. (after being spotted and going back to shadows) In other games, it's usually along the lines of:
"I don't see him, but he's probably still around here. Stay on your toes, people."
or if the game depends on their absolute unknowingness:
"Hmph. Must've been the wind."
The problem with this sort of line is that it's the sort of thing that the novice-sneaker would do in a movie to make for a tense moment; it's okay because we know that person is not very good at sneaking. However, WE want to be that person you never knew was there. The kind of guy where someone turns on the light to find you're already behind them, and BAM.

In Batman, it tries to "reward" you for achieving a successful escape; the mooks are actually nervous about you suddenly disappearing into nowhere:
"Oh, GOD! He just...vanished!"
"Where...where'd he go!?"
"DAMMIT! I lost him...!"
"We gotta FIND him, or we're NEXT."
It had the advantage of the situation: Guards know you're somewhere in the massive room, but no idea where exactly. Other games have some sort of plot-restriction, such as "The Brazilian Government would annihilate us if they had knowledge of an agent." or "They have an alarm. They can call for backup." In Batman, the guards just had an ad-hoc network of 6 or so goons in one room.

 

[Good morning blues]

"Forced stealth" takes me back about ten years when every FPS had a level where you had to sneak through and if an alarm went off the game was over. That was god-awful.

I would tend to think that optional stealth, where you can play however you like, is the best idea, but frankly, I don't think I've ever seen a game do it well. The stealth in a game like Deus Ex or Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines (which I just played) is poorly implemented. In the latter, there are levels where you effectively HAVE to play it by stealth, despite the fact that it's an RPG and since I made a tank I didn't have any sneaking skills. In a game like Splinter Cell, Thief, or Hitman, because the developers have made a stealth-focused game where you are expected to use it at every opportunity, the stealth mechanics tend to be really well-implemented. In any case, games where you can do either tend to implement stealth as "press crouch and stick with melee weapons from behind," which isn't fun.

 

[pirate64]

I like it how MGS does it really you don't have to but you should try unless you want all hell let loose but even if you do mess up you can still fight your way out.