Stealth Issues

Stealth Issues, or Why Gears of War Nearly Killed Me

Finally playing through Gears of War has been a distressing experience. Not because of the incredibly creepy music or intense sound effects. Also not because I’ve been playing it alone in the middle of the night and our fridge has a tendency to unexpectedly emit a loud bang. The trauma I’ve experienced has instead sprung from my non-confrontational style of play.

My revelation came during Gears of War when I realised I’d played through most of the game using the longshot rifle almost exclusively. I saw my team members run up ahead and use the chainsaw bayonet on the Locust Horde with apparent glee. I saw my team run up to the enemy and bash their alien heads in with the butt of their weapons. Of course, I saw all this from the comfort of a small rock wall miles back, looking through the scope of my sniper-style rifle. My panic would increase to near hysterical levels when I was overrun with swarms of those annoying little monkey creatures and my slow-loading, long range gun was practically useless.

In levels where the sniper rifle wasn’t available, the next best scoped gun would be snatched up so I could put at least a tiny bit of distance between me and the Horde. Unfortunately, Gears of War doesn’t seem to have been designed with me in mind and a lot of the action is close range (and alarmingly unexpected).

Halo, Perfect Dark Zero, Far Cry, Gears of War – these are all first person shooter (or near enough) combat games which I try and turn into stealth based action no matter what the situation calls for. This habit could stem from the fact that I’ve spent a large part of the last few years playing games like Splinter Cell and Hitman - games that encourage you to slip past the enemy unnoticed. I think my enjoyment of stealth games comes from the fact that I like to be rewarded with safety and to an extent, a lack of close range combat if I’ve been sneaky and clever enough. This fits nicely into my theory that girls are naturally more cunning and deceptive by nature, so why shouldn’t this transfer over onto gameplay style?

My other immediate self diagnosis is that as a female, I have issues with too much violence and gore. On the contrary, and at the risk of sounding slightly deranged, I love blowing up things and watching the gore splatter everywhere. It’s just that I’d prefer the violence and gore to be happening to the other characters. Not me. And preferably as I’m tucked away in some camouflaged nook hundreds of metres away.

For the record, if you haven’t already guessed it, I don’t enjoy online team-based multiplayer games. Having no control over the pace of the action stresses me out. If I suspect another guard is around and I want to make Agent 47 stand in a cupboard for another minute, he’ll damn well wait. If I did enjoy online multiplayer games however, I imagine I’d be one of those bastard snipers who sits up high and mercilessly picks off players one by one. Capture the flag? I’d rather have a perfect headshot any day. For the good of both my temper and my potential teammates, I tend to keep myself offline.

The other part of me suspects this stubborn and flawed covert style comes about because I’m fairly stealthy by nature. My housemates are constantly yelling at me to make more noise as I enter or exit a room (It’s true, she is always appearing and disappearing suddenly and mysteriously – Ed). I would change my ways, but it doesn’t bother me how soft my footsteps are. If Sam Fisher can come and go unnoticed, why can’t I?

My only real problem is that as I continue to rely on stealth based tactics, my ability to cope with close range combat is going down the drain. I really should have seen this coming a long time ago. After accidentally throwing my sniper rifle out a tiny window into the courtyard below, I refused to finish the first level of Hitman: Blood Money and had to sheepishly ask my flatmate to get me onto the next mission. I have an unhealthy addiction to Splinter Cell and as a 12 year old, I would insist on renting Val Kilmer’s 'The Saint' each time I went to the video store.

The warning signs were always there, I just refused to see them.