The Class of '98 | Stealth Game History
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 พ.ย. 2024
- In this episode, we take a look at three stealth-based games that popularised the Stealth Genre, laid the foundations for modern Stealth Games design and changed the world of videogames in general. Meet The Class of '98.
A History of Stealth Games [Part 1]: • Proto-Stealth | Stealt...
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ONLINE SOURCES
Gamesdbase: "Tenchu: Stealth Assassins Game Manual" gamesdbase.com/...
GameFAQS: "Tenchu: Stealth Assassins" www.gamefaqs.co...
Gamasutra: "Postmortem: Thief The Dark Project" www.gamasutra.c...
Gambit: "The Looking Glass Studios Podcast" gambit.mit.edu/...
Replacement Docs: "Metal Gear Solid Game Manual" www.replacement...
Thief: The Dark Wiki: "Thief The Dark Project Game Manual" thief.wikia.com...
TH-cam SOURCES
"Xcalizorz: Metal Gear Solid" • Metal Gear Solid
"oni rockman: Tenchu Stealth Assassins Ayame Playthrough 1080p HD" • Playlist
"oni rockman: Tenchu Stealth Assassins Rikkimaru Playthrough 1080p HD" • Playlist
![2D Stealth [Part 1] | Stealth Game History](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/15nf5S_w0SA/mqdefault.jpg)
![2D Stealth [Part 1] | Stealth Game History](/img/tr.png)
One of the saddest aspects to modern AAA gaming is how little notes they take from the original Thief games. No arrow markers, no excessive hud breaking your immersion...everything within the design had purpose to communicate information to the player in an extremely believable way. It’s insane how deep yet effortless the gameplay systems are in those games and how barely anyone else has been able to replicate it.
Excellent.
And Thief. Sigh. Thief. My favourite game.
I feel like tenchu is often overlooked. It's the first game really to use high ground as safety like dishonored or assassin's creed. It has so many useful tools like grapple hook, rice, mines, caltrops, smoke bombs, teleportation, disguise, dog bone, sleeping gas, decoys etc which all can be used for emergent gameplay (much much more than thief and really any other game I can think of imo). It even has a very competent level editor. There's a game "rittai ninja katsugeki' in that's just tenchu custom levels. Something that holds the game back extremely though is the archaic controls and render distance. I wasn't born yet so I have no nostalgia for any of these games from 1998, but I love all three of these games and tenchu happens to be my favorite.
Right? Is weird how far ahead Tenchu was.
That is why for me 1998 is the best year in gaming history.. Titles like Resident evil, Thief, Tenchu, MetalgearSolid and many more proves it.
It was a good year for gaming! I'm still not sure I can pick my favourite year, though.
Yes finally!!! Part two! Keep it up!
I hope they will bring back Tenchu one day.
Man that would actually be pretty cool.
I believe sekiro was originally intended to be a new tenchu game
Glad to see you got the second video out! Hope you got my message before.
I have been trying to figure out why exactly 1998 was the year of stealth convergence and it's so strange to think about why it was deemed necessary to have this category right in the middle of difficulties with 3D games. Of course, ultimately it's good for us, but it is an anomaly in the history of genre development.
On Thief, I did talk with Eric Brosius about some of the sound design in the game. He gave me a nice overview on his approaches, and the fact that he placed all non-dynamic sounds in the environment himself. I think those touches really give Thief it's life further into the game, making it a lot more than a "simulation".
I did indeed, thanks! I honestly think that devs were more experimental with 3D gaming at this stage and 1998 just happened to be the year the stealth-based stuff came out. It's also important not to forget Abe's Odyssee, which arrived in 1997 and fits the criteria for a Stealth Genre title, as well as the earlier Proto-Stealth games. So the "Class of '98" wasn't entirely without precedent!
Stealth Docs Are you planning to cover Abe's Odyssey in the redone first part or in part 3?
Possibly Part 3. The Part 1 remake won't happen for awhile, just because I want to build up a bigger range of videos and my research is turning up more Proto-Stealth titles that need yet more research! I've always had something in mind for Abe's Odyssee, though, so don't worry. Its time in the spotlight will come...
you did it again.
yet another , intellectual complex detailed and immersive video retrospecting the history of stealth gaming.
i must say that less than a few more things can make me more happy than this kind of video made by someone as talented and "effortful" as you , without leaving a stone unturned or a mechanic out of lecture you did amazing job at compiling everything these games contributed to the stealth genre. i will say this ironically but.. "cant wait for the next episode".
And wish you well Stealth Docs!
Thanks for the kind words! Most of the stuff I had to leave out was to do with each game's development period and key influences, so I'm glad my gameplay analysis was well-received. I'm not going to bite off more than I can chew for the next video! :)
I might get some flak for this, but I agree with the developer. Stealth-based games should not by default always be about being 'stealthy' and many allow for different kinds of gameplay.
Dishonored remains one of my favourite stealth-based games of all time, yet it allows players to tear through enemies like they're made of wet tissue paper. It's a free-form experience and I believe that kind of design is key when you build passive systems players can approach in a number of ways.
Ultimately, I hope the Yandere dev makes the kind of stealth-based game he wants to make. Hopefully others will like it. Thanks for pointing me to this! :)
I knew I'd used 'silencer' instead of 'suppressor', but was too far into production to do anything about it by the time I realised my mistake! I knew someone would pick up on it, too...
It's not too big a deal, as everyone knows what you mean when you say 'silencer' in the context of firearm attachments, but I get that it annoys military types who know much more about that kind of thing than the rest of us. So I'll get it right in future videos.
thanks,
i know its no biggie, no one's gonna cry bout it
but at least u know now :3
E3 was great, the fact that they implemented solid stealth mechanics in Zelda makes me wanna jump and down like a 4 year old girl.
also, before i/you forget for the love of god dont forget Styx Master of Shadows ,cause i dont see it on the timeline.
disappointing that no new Splinter Cell was announced at Ubi's conference but still that Jason guy and his medieval war game was pretty epic XD
whats your thoughts on this year's E3? hype or dype? 'diaper'
3 of my favorite games of ALL TIME. though i love MGS3 and Tenchu 2 and Thief 2 more, but that's like saying i love $500 more than $450.
man am I excited to see this video, was really worried you abandoned this channel. Great videos, will be waiting for the next one.
For anyone who's interested, here's an update on what's coming next and some general gratitude for the attention being shown to my work. Don't say I never keep you informed!
www.patreon.com/posts/splendid-news-5744995
Amazing Doc, keep it up!
Any indications on when the next part will come out? So excited for it!
I'm currently thinking how best to tackle what comes after this, because of that 'creative explosion' I mentioned in the video that occurred in the wake of these three games.
Smaller videos focusing on how individual stealth-based series evolved might be a good way forward, as this one took me awhile to produce. We'll see. :)
Stealth Docs I think smaller video might be good approach, since stealth games exploded into different franchises, from Splinter Cell to Death of Spies.
Since you are going with an era-wise approach, you can look games in console generation time lines, like discuss PS2/Xbox/GameCube era games. Do bunch of videos on this era, then move to next.
Hemang Chauhan Definitely possible. Guess we'll be finding out together! Thanks for watching and subbing.
Love the videos, BUT I gotta know what song you use in the background!
Great video.
Any stealth game that requires combat skills only for a boss (and we know the titles that did this!) battle is not a true stealth game in my book.
3:48 what the hell is that thing in the stairs?
Cultist fire-breathing zombie. Damn things creeped me out.
Zombie? Were there monsters in Tenchu? I only played the second one back in the day, it had 0 supernatural elements but still managed to be a very scary game for its time.
I never played any besides the first, but there were definitely supernatural elements running throughout the series, as I understand it.
How do you not have more views?
Maybe the videos aren't good enough. Who knows? Anyway, I appreciate the people who are still watching. Thanks for dropping by. :)
25:35 i guess 2004 was getting alittle crowded so Hitman Contracts was excluded
That's not a complete timeline; I just filled it in with as many games as I could to make the point. :)
First! Horray! Nice video!
Ta very much!
Good vid. But I have to disagree with you on the level design comparison between Tenchu and MGS. MGS did look better but Tenchu at least the good levels were much larger and more open. The big problem with MGS' level design was that the docks and the part after are the most open parts of the game. The rest of it is a linear taperoll. It's why it bugs me why people bash MGS5 for being incomplete when MGS1 has its fair share of shit that never gets used again or not at all like non human enemies, smacking a wall, and guards seeing footprints. Even the VR missions felt more open than the main game.
I do like MGS but mainly for the story.
You hit the nail on the head with Thief however.
Thanks! I think I was trying to draw attention to how the dev team under Kojima worked within the limitations of the platform (the PS1) to create partitioned environments for MGS, rather than bad-mouth the level design of Tenchu.
This was a trick Kojima learned much earlier when the first Metal Gear was being developed back in the 80s, as the engine could only support a limited number of bullets/soldiers on screen at any one time. MG2 followed a similar template. Basically, Konami had the experience of developing two Metal Gear games prior to MGS, while Acquire had only ever tried to make one Tenchu game - and that shows.
Level design and technical approach are two different things in my mind. While Tenchu has some great mission designs, these suffer on a technical level as a result of the PS1's hardware limitations. Tenchu was both ambitious and - in terms of its design - brilliant; I don't think anyone can take that away from it. Sometimes it helps to compare games in terms of how they were built, rather than how they were designed.
Maybe I didn't make this distinction clear enough. Anyway, I appreciate your thoughts and I agree that MGS is far from perfect! I haven't yet found a game that's immune to criticism. :)
Stealth Docs
Fair enough. I am glad you had the balls to respond to me rather than just leave my comment be and act like I wasn't worth your time. So thank you.
I would've responded sooner, but the last week has been stupidly busy. I want people to challenge the things I discuss if they have another opinion or think I've got something wrong. Luckily, I'm still small enough to be able to read every comment.
Nobody's tried to make a channel dedicated to Stealth Game analysis before (at least as far as I know), so in many ways I'm just fumbling through the dark here, picking up bits and pieces of the jigsaw that seem interesting. Hope you'll offer your thoughts on more of my work in future!
Stealth Docs
Yeah. I'd probably want to be small time too so I can respond to everyone.
Yeah, theres not a lot of people who do what you do so its fascinating. I'll watch more your vids soon. You are the first person who went in depth on Tenchu's stealth despite not even being a reviewer.
i love how Friday The 13th will utilize both offensive stealth(for jason) and evasive stealth(for teens)
its cool to see a *stealth vs stealth* game while some other games make it *action vs stealth* like in spies vs mercs mode or that batman arkham online game. th-cam.com/video/2vZNU3bHVtw/w-d-xo.html you think what im thinking?
always more than a thousand views , yet always less than 50 comments , interesting.
btw heres a real comment question, what part of your week you dedicate to editing these? evenings? wekkends? nights?
All of the above, as and when I can.
and how do you tackle recording issues?
do you have an isolated office or room exclusively for script reading? away from noise i mean
oh my god , have you seen this? th-cam.com/video/YkQ_PD155PM/w-d-xo.html
COOLIO
I can't help but to hate Metal Gear Solid because I have such appreciation for Looking Glass' simulation-based design philosophy. MGS is such a simplistic arcade experience that is barely an evolution from its late 80's predecessors, and in contrast Thief is alien technology from the future. But really the reason for my dislike for MGS was its relative popularity due to the popularity of the new platform it was released on.
So this cringy animé pac-man with boss fights and 4th wall jokes became the quintessential "stealth" -game of 1998, and ran guns blazing past the superior sneaker into the public spotlight. I suppose it's fitting in a strangely poetic way.
I don't take sides; objectively, both Thief and Metal Gear were important when it came to shaping the future of the stealth genre, but for very different reasons.
That said, I would contend the assertion that Metal Gear Solid was 'barely an evolution', given the way in which it adapted its narrative and gameplay components to the 3D space.
I can appreciate just about any stealth-based series for what it brings to the genre. I daresay that without Metal Gear doing as well as it did at release, Looking Glass would've been less inclined to believe Thief could become a popular series in its own right. Perhaps without Metal Gear they'd have cut their losses and never made Thief II: The Metal Age - but who can say for sure.
Anyway, thanks for watching!
Sure. Hey, when you get to more modern takes on the genre, you could cover Alien: Isolation as well. It's got some unique interesting aspects when it comes to stealth, because of how dynamic and unpredictable its AI is. I did a full ghost-playthrough of the game on my channel.
Alien: Isolation is definitely on my to-do list along with the dozens of other games I have to do videos on! I may just end up watching your play through, as Alien: Isolation terrified me, but I'll be giving it my best shot when I get around to it. :)
Oh yeah the unpredictability makes it terrifying. I don't mind if you borrow my videos for your footage since I do things without commentary anyway. It's 1080p 60fps.
Thanks! Will cite your channel if I do, though a vid on Alien: Isolation is a long way away. :)
Why do you consider Assassin's Creed to be a stealth game? Sure it's got some stealth elements, but it's not a full on stealth game
Simply put: it fits the narratological and ludological criteria I've used to describe video games belonging to the Stealth Genre. For more on that, see my 'Defining Stealth' video, where I go into some detail on why I chose to break it down this way.
I find it interesting that people often refute Assassins' Creed as a Stealth game, despite its obvious roots in the Tenchu series. Remember that being part of one genre does not mean a game is automatically excluded from other genres; in addition to being a Stealth game, Assassins' Creed could be described as an Open-World Adventure, a Sci-Fi/Fantasy game and a 3D Platformer. Possibly more besides.
I watched that video. I've only played ac2 and Brotherhood so I don't know if that changes anything, but while there are significant sections of the game that are stealth, I wouldn't say that the majority of the gameplay is stealth even if narratively it's a stealth game.
The Passive-to-Active nature of the obstacles (enemies) is what I argue as mattering most when it comes to scrutinising stealth-based gameplay. The Assassins Creed series has demonstrated this in spades. Sure, in some sections of these games you have to overcome enemies in a purely Active state of awareness, but the primary game spaces revolve around stealth-based gameplay; environments where obstacles (enemies) can change from Passive states of awareness to Active states of awareness and vice versa.
I guess that's the whole "what counts as a stealth game". By your definition, Assassin's Creed is definitely a stealth game, a lot of people would not consider it one. It doesn't really feel like a stealth game for most of the game. To each their own
when i say "Assassin's Creed" it does't put the same image in your head as mine, because you only played 2 and B, those were expansions on the combat,narrative of the original 2007 AC game, but all that was added to the stealth was a easier blending mechanic, and more offensive stealth options, which contradicts stealth.
true stealth discourages battle, and much like how Splinter Cell became Conviction , Hitman became Absolution,Metal Gear became Guns of the Patriots, Assassin's Creed, eventually became just another open-word action adventure game, specially since the departure of the original story/setting director which left the company with his license bound to be successful regardless of long-term quality. all you need is good advertising and there's people making tattoos of the unreleased abominations. th-cam.com/video/_tvXYHdWTP0/w-d-xo.html
if you played Assassin's Creed 1 in-depth, taking it seriously,with a kind of researcher's patience, those doubts on your mind would be curated, one thing is "to each their own version of *that*" but another is literally, this does't ***_look_* like it, instead of knowing how it *_feels_* when recontextualized with real and fake stealth games. th-cam.com/video/Y7m6R26RLqc/w-d-xo.html
but since humans really like to categorize all the little minutia in existence to the point of associating sub-genre as illegitimate, it's no surprise people don't give the *title* of AC the credibility of a stealth game when all people do with the game is watch over-hyped cgi trailers while pre-ordering all sorts of rubbish while a shitty movie is made about the thing without ever knowing why the series had such a innovative debut that even Miyamoto and Kojima were impressed.
th-cam.com/video/untLD6z6aqI/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/vEZQ-11HViQ/w-d-xo.html
every stealth game has it's share of mandatory combat sections, but AC's target kills are surrounded by guards that if alerted make the level harder, therefore stealth.
th-cam.com/video/pXqpAIUZbZo/w-d-xo.html
Assassin creed and especially batman are not stealth games
Greetings and thanks for watching! I guess the best way I can respond to this is to point you to one of my other videos, "Defining the Stealth Genre and Stealth Games". While genre is - for the most part - a subjective concept when it comes to gaming, I'd be interested to hear whether you felt the same way about Batman, AC and other games like them after watching that. :)
Batman Arkham games ARE stealth games, Batman's vulnerability to guns in both Predator and combat situations goes to say this is no power fanatasy game.
as for AC.................the first two have heavy emphasis on stealth by being the more challenging and safe way to eliminate your enemies, but anything after AC 2...........who cares
I do! I'll be making videos about all of them, at some point. ;)
rikimeroo
peak gaijin butchering