Thief 2 has been the best stealth game for 10 years now
I have no doubt that Splinter Cell: Conviction will be a great game. But I may never pick it up, because to me, Thief 2 is the be all and end all of stealth games.
I'm biased, i guess. I played Thief 2 when I had a lot of time on my hands and I was able to become really immersed in the Thief 2 world. I also prefer shooting arrows instead of bullets. In saying that, I think subsequent Thief games haven't been as good, although I'm still holding out hope for the next iteration that Eidos is currently developing.
Thief 2 is also the game that introduced me to the Splinter Cell series, and that is the only black mark I hold against an otherwise fantastic game. I have seen other people playing Splinter Cell games, and they always look pretty good. I also enjoy sitting in the dark, waiting for my next victim to come around in the looping circuit the developer has set for it. Who doesn't like feeling like a badass ninja? The thing is, when I tried playing the game for myself in Splinter Cell: Double Agent, about 5 years after playing Thief 2, I just couldn't get into it.
Maybe it's because I'm not a big fan of the modern military setting, which is also why I never got into the Modern Warfare games. Maybe it's because I spent about 30 minutes in the missile silo in the first mission, wandering around with no clue where to go. Or maybe its because the wide array of gadgets confuse me so much. In Thief 2, you douse lights with water arrows, quieten footsteps with moss arrows, and climb up stuff with vine arrows. It even has a fiber optic camera equivalent in a fancy fake eye. Simple right? I still think I stopped the launch of the missile purely by luck, as I still have no idea how the decryption tool works in Splinter Cell. Technology! Come to think of it, maybe I don't like Splinter Cell because of all the technology. Garrett, the protagonist in Thief, fought against technology, and this is what I do in Splinter Cell.
Ultimately though, both games are stealth games. And in my opinion, the stealth mechanic has not been improved on since Thief 2. That's 10 whole years of the same old sneaking around according to a light sensor.
Thief 2 got it right. If you're seen or heard by an enemy, chances are you're dead. The mechanic worked to perfection, with lots of sneaking around in shadows and avoiding marble or metal floors. You judged your stealthiness by a light crystal on the HUD, and shot moss arrows to cross noisy surfaces, or just crossed over in the eaves.
Splinter Cell Double Agent does all this, and does it very competently. But it doesn't seem to have brought anything new to the stealth mechanic. You still stick to the shadows, judging visibility by a light meter, and I don't know if it factors in footstep noise, but if it does there is certainly no way of lightening the sound. For those reason, all the Splinter Cell games are, are merely Thief: Modern Warfare in my eyes. They offer nothing in the stealth genre that Thief 2 hasn't done already.
Perhaps the stealth mechanic was perfected by Thief 2, but I doubt it. Surely there are ways in which it can be improved upon. Assassin's Creed had some stealth, but there wasn't much sneaking around in shadows. All the world's greatest assassin could do was blend into crowds and hide in haystacks. Sure, that's a new mechanic, but it's not really stealth.
I guess I just want to be able to hide in the dark and kill dudes without being reminded of what a great game Thief 2 was. Is that too much to ask?
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