Topic: FEATURES: Whither Now, Samus Aran?

[KDR_11k]

The solitude and puzzle-solving aspects of the game feel enough like stealth already.

Not really. The defining characteristics of stealth are IMO
1. You cannot see when you will mess up (can a guard see me at that distance? at this?)
2. When you mess up once (get hit by a vision cone) you have a near 100% chance of losing
3. You cannot remove threats in order to make an area safe for traversal

This generates a tension where you can never feel safe because the threats are always around and always instantly lethal (you can afford getting a shot to the face but get spotted once and it's all over) and you can never really be sure where the limit is for safe movement. The difference to non-stealth gameplay is that in non-stealth you can eliminate most threats, you can see what will harm you because it has to touch you and you can often survive plenty of hits.

That's why I keep saying I'd accept stealth if enemies shot lasers from their eyes and didn't trigger alarms (hurting you instead but nothing like teleporting to the beginning of the level or making some parts unaccessible until you hide for a while). Of course I'd also settle for the shotgun option: Just make it feasible to kill everything that tries to see you or gets spawned by the alarm.

[Halbred]

KDR, have you ever played a Metal Gear Solid game? There are always multiple ways to make an area safe for traversal. In MGS4, I enjoy nothing more than nullifying all the threats in a particular area, then wandering around at my leisure, picking up items and doing funny things with the corpses. Twin Snakes and MGS2 also give you this freedom. There's a camera over there? Shoot it out, or throw a chaff grenade. Break some necks, pile the bodies in lockers or behind a stack of boxes.

And stealth gameplay does not mean "you've been seen--INSTA-KILL!"

[UltimatePartyBear]

It often comes close enough.  I could never get into Thief, for example, because I couldn't put up a fight if I screwed up.  Then there are all the non-stealth games that have stealth sections that don't let you even try to fight or run if you're seen, like Zelda.  It's a conundrum, because if I'm tough enough to kill everything in my way, why bother sneaking around?  The game either forces you to sneak some of the time with instant failure or setbacks, or it makes you too weak not to sneak.  Very few games have successfully balanced the two extremes, and I don't know of any non-stealth games that do it right in their forced stealth sections.

Regardless, KDR's first point is the biggest strike against stealth.  It's too hard to figure out what enemies and cameras can "see" in stealth games.  I've played games in which I could hide in plain sight in one room but not in the shadows in another room.  Various games have tried all kinds of hide-o-meters and vision cone minimap displays, but nothing really intuitive, limiting the appeal of the genre.  Even though I like the occasional stealth game, I don't think it would be possible to add significant stealth gameplay to an existing non-stealth franchise without alienating a very large chunk of the fanbase.

[KDR_11k]

Hell, Phantom Hourglass tried to work around the view issue with visible view cones. The catch? The phantoms could actually see further and wider than the visible cone!

[mantidor]

It often comes close enough.  I could never get into Thief, for example, because I couldn't put up a fight if I screwed up. 

Well, that was kind of the point, if you can fight easily then why sneak up at all? Fighting was made crappy so you would try to avoid it as much as possible, but once you were in an impossible situation you still had the opportunity to use it as a last resort.

Stealth adds a lot of suspense and tension, and that is something great for games like Metroid, but I admit trying to find a balance between action, exploration and/or sneaking up is pretty hard and few games if any have done it.With the exception of Metroid of course, minus the stealth part. The highlight of the stealth portion of ZM was for me the same as the article. Metroid is also a game about progression and growing, so regaining your armor and becoming this invincible tank after you were killed with one shot was a pretty amazing feeling.

[KDR_11k]

The problem is that so many games go out of their way to let the player survive multiple hits so he can mess up without having to start over but in stealth parts you lose if you get seen even once.

[Stogi]

Stealth Samus just doesn't feel right...

I'd rather have a brand new Nintendo developed stealth game about robbing museums and other places with priceless art.

[Nick DiMola]

I'd rather have a brand new Nintendo developed stealth game about robbing museums and other places with priceless art.

Interesting...

[Zyrtsuryu]

Hello all. This is my first post here. I'm Zyrtsuryu, and you might recognize me from a certain Metroid website's Fan Fiction area. I won't mention the URL, because that would be shameless plugging. 

But seriously; I read the feature and I think it is excellent. Like any true fan, I was a little discouraged when I heard there was no Metroid news from E3 this year, but thems the breaks.

The first Metroid I played was the original, and I was probably only 6 or 7 years old. Needless to say, I became frustrated constantly and soon labeled the game as the Super-Hard Demon Game featuring Lion Guy with a Gun.

So my first Metroid game that I made any real progress in was Echoes. I bought the game so I could play it upstairs in my room with my new TV. You see, I was absolutely enchanted by the game's scan feature. I played a demo once in Walmart with a grimy, broken controller and loved every minute of it.

If I was going to suggest any new mechanic, I would have to say an explosion of the scan visor. Everything should be scannable, and it should take a kind of mystery-solving turn, with the player scanning certain things and using the logbook to record notes. The scan objects should not be placed directly along the path of the game in plain sight. I think Samus should have to explore off the beaten path (perhaps in an open world) and find the key to unlock a new area or a new weapon, what have you.

[Stogi]

Do you really want to be stuck in scan mode the entire game though?

[Crimm]

What if scanning didn't take very long?  What if you could simply look at most items and the data on it would pop up on the side unobtrusively?

[Jonnyboy117]

Yeah, I think the progress bar for scanning needs to go.  It doesn't add anything to the game, and I really doubt it's a technical necessity (e.g. loading time to bring up the text).

[Yoshidious]

Hello all. This is my first post here. I'm Zyrtsuryu, and you might recognize me from a certain Metroid website's Fan Fiction area. I won't mention the URL, because that would be shameless plugging. 

Welcome to our forums, it pleases me to hear that you enjoyed reading the feature.

Regarding the scan visor, I found its use in Metroid Prime to be quite satisfying, combining gameplay hints with unorthodox storytelling to create an even more immersive, cohersive experience. In the latter Prime games I found that its novelty had worn off somewhat, and this was only compounded by the obtrusiveness of the sluggish progress bar. So I would agree that scanning would have to be a greatly more fluid process if it were expanded to a large degree, but I see no reason why this could not be done.

I still believe the indirect, piecemeal narrative derived from well-written logbook entries is the best way to tell a story in Metroid while maintaining the sense of isolation that the series is known for, so in that sense I would support more extensive scanning, with the proviso that it be better incorporated into gameplay than it was in the Prime trilogy. 

[Nick DiMola]

I think the scan bar is a worthwhile addition in certain places in the game. During some bosses, you had to put yourself in harms way to get the scan data and that's cool. If it was instant, the novelty of getting the scan would be gone. Otherwise I agree, lose it; it really just wastes my time in parts where I don't have to weigh out the possible consequences.

Also, Greg your new avatar scares the crap out of me.

[Yoshidious]

I think the scan bar is a worthwhile addition in certain places in the game. During some bosses, you had to put yourself in harms way to get the scan data and that's cool. If it was instant, the novelty of getting the scan would be gone. Otherwise I agree, lose it; it really just wastes my time in parts where I don't have to weigh out the possible consequences.

Also, Greg your new avatar scares the crap out of me.

Where the progress bar could be rationalised on gameplay grounds, such as in the case of discovering a boss' weakness, I agree that it was quite satisfactory. As for my avatar, I'm just following Nintendo's lead: putting more smiles on more faces

[DAaaMan64]

OH I figured it was like a Joker reference.

[Yoshidious]

Don't get me wrong, I'm totally pumped for The Dark Knight (not out here 'til this weekend, NO SPOILAZ PLEASE)

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Arthur defeats the Knight in mortal combat.

[Halbred]

I'm all for more Scan Visor functionality. I didn't like the "collect 'em all" aspect of scans in Echoes, though. Getting to the end of the game only to find that I didn't scan that one boss' detached head three times was really irksome.

I did love how the story in Metroid Prime 1 was told through logbook entries. Very moody, and really hammered home the idea of something terrible happening in the past.

[KDR_11k]

I liked it in Prime 1 but in Prime 3 I didn't even read the story entries anymore, always postponing it for "later". Though the heavy use of story sequences in Prime 3 was something I didn't like anyway.

[Stogi]

Agreed.

I don't understand why the logbooks have to be in text. There is so much impressive technology in the world of Prime, yet when it comes to data, it's all in text. Where's the holographic display depicting a story with the all important built in narrator? Where's the holographic display depicting the creature that recorded it before it died?

There was one instance in Prime 3 where you heard some crazy **** from a transmission and it was a secret of some sort. What gives?

Which brings me to my next point: I think more of the story should be told through transmissions. I always like that in games. Finding out knowledge that your not suppose to know by uncovering or eaves dropping on a transmission from a henchmen to the boss man. That ****'s great.

[KDR_11k]

I think it's not done that often because it's easy to miss and having the player not notice your big plot twist might hurt the game...

[Stogi]

That's solved easy enough. Just make it so the player can't forward through the plot twist.

[Ceric]

Agreed.

I don't understand why the logbooks have to be in text. There is so much impressive technology in the world of Prime, yet when it comes to data, it's all in text. Where's the holographic display depicting a story with the all important built in narrator? Where's the holographic display depicting the creature that recorded it before it died?

There was one instance in Prime 3 where you heard some crazy **** from a transmission and it was a secret of some sort. What gives?

Which brings me to my next point: I think more of the story should be told through transmissions. I always like that in games. Finding out knowledge that your not suppose to know by uncovering or eaves dropping on a transmission from a henchmen to the boss man. That ****'s great.

I will argue that text will maintain itself as the clearest, easiest, cheapest medium to deliver information for many more generations.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

You can't beat Sega arcade voice acting.