Hide and Go Sneak - The Rise Of Stealth Gaming

Thanks to Slate for its article discussing why stealth elements are now integrated into some of the most interesting new videogames. The author argues: "10 years after Doom, the rampant weapon-play can start to seem tedious. Kill your enemies, reload, kill some more, reload - man, what a drag. You become a pacifist for the weirdest possible reason: not because the virtual violence seems so awful but because it's so bloody repetitive", before suggesting that, although "many of these games do, in the end, require you to resort to at least some violence", an "unexpected benefit" of stealth titles such as Thief: Deadly Shadows is that "Your aesthetic experience becomes much better. Most lightning-fast 'twitch' shooter games are so fast-paced you barely have time to notice how wonderfully detailed the 3-D world is... Stealth turns gamers into tourists."

Comments

On the other hand...

[th1ckasabr1ck]

10 years after Doom, the rampant weapon-play can start to seem tedious

Yeah, but sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting for someone to walk around the corner so you can sneak by him can be pretty damn tedious also.

For the record, Doom is my favorite game of all time.