Halo: Combat Evolved

It’s crazy to believe that Halo: Combat Evolved began as a third-person shooter for the Mac. Developed by Bungie, the original game arguably took console first-person shooters to the next level with giant sandbox levels that facilitated multiple approaches, an incredible soundtrack and massive battles. Sure, the level design and story could have been better, but as many gamers’ first introduction to Master Chief, it was perfect.

Bathhouse – Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

Of the many places that Sam Fisher has infiltrated, you wouldn’t think a bathhouse in Tokyo would provide many challenges. Nevertheless, Chaos Theory’s Bathhouse mission, which involves gaining entry into the location and discovering Douglas Shetland’s contact, is surprisingly tense. After Fisher eavesdrops on the conversation, he’ll then need to survive a battle between the I-SDF and mercenaries before subsequently neutralizing Shetland’s bombs. On the plus side, at least the player can decide to stab or throw Shetland off the roof instead of shooting him since Sam finds it more courteous (we think).

Phantom Express – Cuphead

Cuphead is no stranger when it comes to frantic firefights and grueling duels against towering behemoths of bosses, and the Phantom Express is most certainly no different in this regard. Set as an endless train ride, players have to remain confined to the wooden platform while chipping away at the ghostly phantom and dodging his attacks. Subsequent phases of the fight also require you to maneuver the wooden platform while attacking the increasingly deadlier attacks of the boss. Paying due attention to so much happening on screen can definitely induce sheer panic in most players, which makes this level so damn stressful.

30. Burnout 3: Takedown

To say that Burnout 3: Takedown did away with the tropes that racing games were known for would be an understatement. Its aggressive driving gameplay, where Takedowns formed the core and driving into oncoming traffic kept your Boost meter topped, was a massive change of pace. This was something that anyone could pick up and it immediately felt fun. The fact that it featured a full career mode, split-screen support, multiplayer and some incredible visuals also didn’t hurt.

The Cayo Perico Heist – Grand Theft Auto Online 

GTA Online’s Cayo Perico expansion sees players planning a multi-staged heist in the tropical island of Cayo Perico. To have a decent shot at completing the heist, players will need to do a lot of pre-mission preparation including but not limited to choosing the right weaponry as well as the right men to help you in your missions. In addition to this, players will also have to make many micro-decisions during the heist to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible. For instance, you might want to sneak into El Rubio’s compound the old-fashioned way – waiting for an opportunity when enemies are looking away. But if you venture off the beaten path, this part can be completely bypassed by jumping into the water and swimming to the location. This level of flexibility is what ultimately makes the Cayo Perico Heist one of the best missions in Grand Theft Auto Online.

Hollow Knight 

Team Cherry’s take on the increasingly popular souls like genre has been met with great critical and commercial acclaim, and for all the right reasons. The world of Hallownest strikes a careful balance between being joyful and daunting, and in addition to this – the game has excellent art direction, music, platforming, and level. It’s a really well-rounded and complete package, which is available across all platforms at just a fraction of the cost of contemporaries.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

The Metal Gear Solid franchise had always been known for its cinematic story-telling and excellent stealth mechanics. But Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater took things in a somewhat different direction, removing the series’ signature radar and emphasizing the environment as one’s greatest tool. Camouflage, CQC mechanics and even some light survival mechanics also added to the feeling of being behind enemy lines while delivering the signature characterization and complex plot that fans loved.

Games like Assassin’s Creed, Wolfenstein, and lots of things in between, all have nice stealth mechanics within them, but they’re not actually stealth games that require the use of it outside of perhaps a handful of predetermined stealth-based sections. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with choice, as it can garner a much larger audience and make the game far more money by not alienating those who don’t really care for stealth. But on the flip side of that, we often see games that have stealth all borrow heavily from each other and you end up with relatively similar shallow-to-moderately deep stealth mechanics in all of these action adventure games. as a result of that fans of the stealth genre often have to go back to games that are over a decade old to really get that satisfying rush that only comes after a carefully orchestrated series of events all play out the way you want them to by not being discovered for long stretches of time.

Patience, extensive planning, and executing backup plans when things go awry to maintain the mission objective are all things that only a truly deep stealth game can deliver with that special sort of delayed gratification. One of, if not the best example of a true, unrelenting stealth game with the depth that stealth fans deserve is of course Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. It was a game that to this day remains largely unmatched in terms of how deep stealth can go and how many different ways it can be approached within its systems. Slithering in and out of darkness, learning complicated enemy patrol patterns, finding new ways to evade the eyes and ears of those enemies are approached with such dedication and variety that the game really makes you feel like a spy.

One of the main ways that a good stealth game can be achieved and have that tension maintained is to see to it that the player has alternate ways to interact with the world. Namely, by having different ways to view the world that illuminate certain things that might not have been apparent before. Chaos Theory takes this element quite literally with several different gadgets that change Sam’s perception of the various situations he finds himself in. Firstly, the game has a more typical night vision mode that you would expect to see in just about any serious spy game, and it does roughly everything you would expect it to do by Illuminating the world in a general blanketed way that gives you an edge over those who are limited by their simple, normal eyeballs.

This is a tool that Splinter Cell Chaos Theory expects you to use often and you would be crazy not to as it gives you a nice view of your surroundings so you can better calculate your next move. That is where a lot of stealth games today stop, but not Chaos Theory. you also have a rather effective thermal vision mode, that lets you seek out different heat signatures Predator style through various obstructions. This not only gives you the obvious edge of being able to differentiate between living people and inanimate objects, but also lets you see them when they can’t necessarily see you. Also, any object of interest that generates heat will be just as obvious helping you push towards your objectives that much easier.

On top of those two you also have the EMF vision, which gives Sam access to electronic interference signals that are generated by anything that operates on electricity like various surveillance systems, power boxes, and even sensors and lasers that might not be visible to the naked eye. Unlike night vision and thermal goggles though the strong advantages of EMF vision are thoroughly balanced out by the fact that everything else in the world is fairly hard to discern, so you’ll generally be using this while standing still then getting a lay of the land then turning it off in pursuing whatever objective it is you’re on. When this is used in tandem with the optically channeled potentiator or OCP, taking out various electrically powered devices becomes a snap, but still requires you to use your head at the same time. Between those three visual modes, the game comes up with a lot of interesting situations to throw at you. Chaos Theory has many ways to implement them all, especially later in the game where you’ll be cycling between them fairly regularly while figuring out the best course of action.

Not to be outdone by the visual department, Chaos Theory’s general level design is absolutely fantastic and serves as a nice filling to the main content of the game. Levels are large, sprawling, and harbor many paths to take that all present their own advantages and drawbacks to completing objectives and getting to certain points. While most seasoned Splinter Cell fans agree that not every level in the game is created equal, and most of the better ones are front-loaded to the first half of the game, none of them would fall below what any reasonable person would call a good level especially for their time. There are vents, ceilings, basements, and all sorts of other unconventional paths to take in each stage, and they all add up to a wildly varied experience that warrants multiple playthroughs of each one.

Another thing that Splinter Cell gets right that a lot of other stealth games don’t quite excel in is the general writing and characterization of everybody in the game. Sam Fisher often has interesting dialogue with his cohorts on the other side of his communication system that really gives you a nice inside look at who she is as a person a lot better than previous Splinter Cell games did. By the end of Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, because of the writing, you will feel like you know him a lot better than you did at the beginning and thus are far more invested in what happens to him and how the story unfolds. Even the people that Sam interrogates throughout most of the levels have lots of things to say that make those experiences feel much more realistic than similar ones do in most modern stealth games. It’s a real treat to just hang out and listen to the full extent of many of those conversations, and really demonstrates the extra mile to which Ubisoft went to make this one of if not the best Splinter Cell game to date.

While Splinter Cell Chaos Theory was never meant for everyone, and probably has even less mass appeal today than it did when it launched, it’s an absolute masterclass example of stealth done right in video games. If you are a fan of modern stealth games like Metal Gear Solid 5 or Hitman 2 then you owe it to yourself to take it up a notch and play Splinter Cell Chaos Theory.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Note that we’ve kept entries in the feature to one game per series, so don’t go expecting seven Metal Gear Solid games (even though that sounds like a pretty great list).

So with all that said, let’s begin.

METAL GEAR SOLID 5

Might as well kick it off with a Metal Gear Solid game, right? And what a game it is. The Phantom Pain certainly has its issues, of that there is little doubt, and these issues do a lot to bring down its overall quality as a finished product, or as a satisfying entry in the series. But purely from a gameplay perspective, viewed purely on the merits of its stealth mechanics, The Phantom Pain is nearly flawless. Making use of a complex web of systems, MGS5 delivers dynamic, reactive, and emergent stealth gameplay the likes of which we haven’t seen in many games. It is, plain and simple, a stealth masterclass.

The Bank Job – Dishonored: Death of the Outsider

One of the best missions in the game by a country mile, The Bank Job sees Billie Lurk sneaking into the Dolores Michaels Deposit & Loan Bank to retrieve the Twin-bladed Knife. Entry points include via the roof (and some laudanum), through the sewers or by trash disposal. There are multiple ways to access the vault, like releasing the brakes and causing it to crash all the way down the sewers which also conveniently acts as an escape route. It’s ingenuous and a pinnacle of immersive sim gameplay.