¶ Intro / Opening
Hey folks, it's Brett here. Uh just wanted to let you know a couple of things about this episode. One is that we actually had to split up the recording over two sessions. We will kind of come in and tell you when that happens. Um so if there's a little bit of
uh discontinuity there. We apologize. W the uh service that we use had a had a problem and uh we had to do it that way. We were able to salvage the original part of the recording, so I'm glad, you know, we get that. Particularly'cause I thought I had some good jokes. Um and as a very minor point, we recorded the first twenty minutes Friday and uh therefore my prediction was actually in advance of a game and not as you're hearing this uh after that game. And so, you know, I just wanna say
Uh congrats uh to the world champions. Okay, on with the show.
🎵 Music
¶ Welcome and Episode Overview
Hello, and welcome back to Dev Game Club, a weekly podcast in which two veteran game developers look at games from the past. To discuss their relevance and impact today. I'm Brett Duville and I'm joined as always by my co host, a man who's monitoring these events while continuing to seek a peaceful resolution. I mean that really just that describes our whole relationship.
Yeah, that's definitely I'm always monitoring.
You're always you gotta be monitoring. Uh you gotta be on top of monitoring.
Running damage control.
¶ Splinter Cell Series Introduction
You got it. That's yeah, that's what it's all about. We of course are talking about uh not just our relationship but Splinter Cell Chaos Theory from two thousand five. Uh we are uh yeah it's
Wait, who am I in that scenario and who are you in that scenario?
I don't I think that was maybe uh The Japanese ambassador? I can't remember. Oh no, no. It was the North Korean uh it was the North Korean spokesman who was monitoring the events. Who's okay? Yeah, talking about North Korea was monitoring those events. So yeah. Well it does describe our relationship, unfortunately you are North Korea in the So
Great, great.
Yeah. So it's okay, you know. These days who can really tell. So here we are, yes, skipping right skipping right along. Um we are in our fourth episode here with Spinner Cellcast series. So we're gonna hit a few topics and do some takeaways, uh, which of course we always do at the end of a series and
Then we will um we will actually try to catch up on some email. We've had a few, uh a couple a couple relevant to Splinter Cell and one other that was a little a little interesting. Sort of like a review and sort of with a a c a sort of comment. So um So it's uh worth worth reading. Um, we can hit that later. But
¶ Steam Deck and Community Content
Sir, you've been traveling. Initially I thought we were gonna get an idea of what it felt like to play this game on a controller. Uh and unfortunately that didn't pan out. Do you wanna share with folks the uh
Yeah. Well I got I I think uh it was a few hours maybe of playing it on the Steam Deck. Uh I did get it to work. And it was definitely glorious for that short time. Um there was it's not supported obviously for the Steam Deck. They've no one's done any work for that. But there was a good, as people may or may not know, our community um community created uh controller schemes, uh, you know, controller layouts for most games.
especially ones that aren't don't have an official layout. Uh and so somebody had made one for Splinter Cell for the Steam Deck, using even the back buttons and stuff or the the bottom buttons. So everything was there and it was very, very cool. I think that I think you're using the uh R and L four And five for doing your speed, your acceleration, you know, throttle. Are
Are those back buttons? I've never I've never held one of these, so
Oh yeah. Well the steam controller has them too, I believe. But yeah, it'd be your middle and ring finger, you know. Okay on the bottom. You so you you can use all your fingers.
Oh boy.
It's
Practically like having a keyboard.
Exactly. Yeah. But it was the mapping was really good. So I was really excited. But then the next time I went to go play it on the Steam Deck it kept crashing and I couldn't figure out why. So um So yeah, didn't end up doing I I would have definitely finished the game if I had,'cause I brought this team deck with me on on my travels. Uh but uh yeah, didn't didn't get to. So
Oh, I also wanna you don't know this, uh or you may not know this, but we actually had a Discord game club episode come in right under the wire. Uh
Oh I don't I didn't know this.
Yeah, Tuesday night. So for those who
Yeah.
Fill the fill the gap. Uninterrupted service. Uh so our thanks to Bio and Calamity for that. Um they interviewed uh I'm gonna get all of this wrong. It's well I guess it's now OI Um OI is I think is stands for something. But it was Realmsoft and their game uh clockwork. I listened to that whole episode and I'm terrible with those sorts of names, but I will I will look it up.
Realm Soft. It was somebody from Realmsov you're saying.
Uh it was it was an interview with Calamity Bio and three folks from there. So it was
Oh sweet.
Yeah, it was pretty substantial.
Like a developer panel.
Yeah.
There was a whole
Um Uh anyway. Clockwork ambrosia. Yeah, sorry. Th those things don't really go together in my head. So um
Yeah, that's quite a combo of two words.
Yeah, yeah. Uh I don't really yeah, one is
They
the gods. But anyway. Um but yeah, it's a it's a sort of uh yeah, it's definitely it's it's very interesting conversation. So it's worth uh worth chatting. One one is a repeat guest, Michael um, who was on previously, and then uh Nathan, I believe, and Ian were the the three folks who were the interviewees. So
If you're into that thing that was in your feed and again we thank Bio and Calamity for that'cause it was it was a great night to be dark for a week. Um it's uh it is always and they have a couple more for us in the can, so if we We have summer interruptions, um we may have a chance to run those later. So
We shall see.
Yep, but uh look for a link in the show notes to the Discord. Uh and maybe someday you could be a member of Discord Game Club. So anyway, back to um back to Splinter Cell.
¶ Hokkaido: Intimate Level Design
So we've gone to a lot of places, uh seen a lot of things. We're all over East Asia. Um I played Hokkaido and Battery, which is the North Korean mission. You played uh battery and the first part of soul. So we'll get to all of that. Let's start with
And we're mostly gonna talk about the the levels we played because of just kind of moments that that stick out in there or things that felt different and changed. And then I kind of have a minor topic we can finish off with. But uh but let's go. Tell tell us about Hokkaido.
Yeah, I mean I I'm definitely a fan of um of those sorts of levels. I I I really appreciated the mm trying to think back of some of the ones that I don't know. As opposed to, say, uh Metal Gear, which we compare it to the most Um the location hopping is much m you know, much more akin to h hitman in that way, which is which I pr I prefer. And it just allows each level to have its own character and identity and stuff and
Um we both I think didn't really love the displace because it was just an office building. It made it made narrative sense to Oh wow. Okay. Yeah, we're just getting right in there.
You know, well, you know, New York's been on in the news a lot, and so, you know, the the sort of uh hey, what is this place? Um kind of spin uh a lot. Nixon five, I hope. Um I don't I don't know. We're recording this well before that actually occurs. So I could be entirely wrong. By the time this
All right. Keeping track of that little. Anyway, yeah, so um so I just I you know, Hokkaido had a great sense of place, a great identity. I also, for lack of a better term, it felt like a obviously a more intimate level. Um because it was, you know, um living quarters and there were there were civilians there that you actually had to pr you know make sure you didn't
Make sure you didn't yeah.
So you really f I really felt like I was trespassing, you know what I mean? And you're and you're like in these houses, you know, in these homes and sneaking under the floorboards or oh and they had the nightingale. The nightingale.
Yeah.
Which is like I feel like somebody was was probably we need we need to go to Japan just so we can have those floors. Yeah. Because ninjas. Uh remember ninjas, you know, and
That was actually the name of a um a book series. uh that was it was set it was set in that kind of time and and it came out in the first book came out in two thousand two. Um so that is one. It's uh Leon Hearn. Uh so it's sort of a sort of a fantasy Japan, but it has has ninjas in the Nightingale. The first book is called Across the Nightingale Floor.
So I I think that that may have had some influence. I don't know. I it it could have gone it could have been they could have just sourced from the same material as well. It could could be either, but
When I first heard the term and I and when they said it I was like, Oh, I know exactly what that is. Yeah. Although their nightingale was a little more nightingale than I expected. I thought it was just like kind of a squeaky floor, but um it was very funny that one point I was like, I think I literally just heard a nightingale. Um
Yeah. Oh my gosh, you imagine living in a in a in a house that had a an owl floor?
I can't.
That's that's gotta be uh the subject of a video game now. Um Yeah, I mean ninjas, right? Like uh ninja, it's it's a So a small a small admission. When I was a young lad, I was obsessed with ninja. I had a ninja costume.
Oh boy.
The tabby tabby? Tabby shoes? No, where?
Yeah, I think it's tabby. I think it's T A G I. Yeah. I mean it's probably Tob.
The boots, Tobby, yeah um I had stars, I had you know, unshar you know, unsharp unsharpened um dull uh Wagasaki and Katana, like
This this is a lot because one of my closest friends growing up was also one of the one of those ninja kids who had all that stuff.
Uh it's a subscription to the to this m I don't remember the name of the magazine, but it was like Ninja Magazine. It was like where you So I was into it. So nightingale floors were not new to me. Um uh you know, but Th he is a tech ninja, right?
All right. You interrogate the there's a guy you interrogate. You may have snuck by him, but there's a guy you interrogate. They actually have a conversation between two guards describing the nighting on the floor.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. But if you interrogate the one guy who's like, Well, I'll stay on the Nightingale floor, it's totally cool. He is so into ninjas. He is like you in this level.
Oh I didn't interrogate her.
Yeah, if you interrogate that guy, he's like, Are you a ninja? He was on the boat that it was in Georgia or whatever, some from some prior game and so like he already knows like no, there was a ninja on this boat I was on. Oh
I remember him saying, talking about that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so when He's so into ninjas and like if you keep interrogating, I think he just starts to repeat the lines, but he's like, Oh man, it would be so cool to be killed by a ninja and like It was really funny. It was really it was a real moment of uh you know, knowing I mean, I'm sure they knew that there were people I'm sure there were people on the team who were like you, you know, and grew up with that kind of'cause that was a total thing in the
In the eighties there's Splitting Ninja movies. Yeah. Yeah. Total cult thing and yeah.
Oh, and the Ninja Turtles, right? I mean I mean the Ninja Turtles. Their first movie's not until like ninety, but you know, same era.
Oh man, not to di you know, not to get off topic, but that announcement for a new Ninja Turtle
Uh Ronan.
By ironically, Team Ninja as like Team Ninja R uh I think it is, yeah. Um which is like what
What? Isn't it the vanquished people?
maybe I got that wrong but yeah
I think it's...
Yeah, we'll have to look it up. Yeah. But um but it's by a studio that does you know oh no, it's by platinum. You're right. No, it's by platinum. Who did who did Metal Gear um
Uh
Revengeance? What what was the name of
Yeah, Little Gear Revenge. I have that
But among many other...
That's one of the ones I haven't played. I have to play that before I play V.
I mean platinum is X cl clover, right? Like yeah, they've done many, many, many um critical uh uh yeah. Anyway, we're off topic.
But well received games for sure. But yeah. Good studio for ninjas. In that game, the new ninja game, it's only one of the turtles, so it ha he has all the weapons of all of the other turtles.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't know which one I haven't watched that. Um
Trailer.
Bye.
Uh I don't remember. I'm I thought it was my Michelangelo, but it might be Raphael.
He was my ninja turtle, Michelangelo. Yep.
Yeah, we've had this conversation.
That's not true. He was Donatello was actually mine. The blue.
Oh really?'Cause he's mine as well. 'Cause he's the nerdy tech guy with the bow staff, yeah. Yep.
Yeah.
Anyway, yeah, the the last run and I believe is based on one of the comic arcs, but um But anyway, yeah, so so it was just the sensible I you know, I feel like they wanted to do a mission set in this location just so they could do a nightingale floor or something. But I just it was just a nice one of the benefits as we've talked about.
with having contrasting locations, which we'll talk about in the next mission, which is very different from Hokkaido. Yeah. In the battery mission, and in in a good way, in my opinion. Yeah, for sure. They're just as a tech ninja that you are, um, that uh you want to go to these places as a player, you know? And this one was so yeah, just so it just stood out.
¶ Hokkaido: Art and Level Flow
Yeah I I love the sort of the the contrast of the the high tech Yeah, displace pers you know, personality free environment. And then this like
Rural.
Well, it felt like rural Japan. It said Hokkaido and I d that's not particularly rural, I don't think. But um
it is. Hokkaido is is is is uh you know, I think they say it in
In the briefing or something.
In this game or no, th it's compared to kind of the Alaska of Japan, I've heard
Okay. No, I'm not my geography on Japan surprises.
Mountains, a lot of a lot of a lot of hiking trails and things.
Well what I liked was just like you had the sort of traditionally made fences Of course you've got the the the paper paper walls, you know, more or less, so the sliding doors and all
Shadow work because Light, you know, shining through the through the um rice paper walls or the
Yeah. Although you can't shoot through them. I was a little bummed by that'cause that's how I was gonna take out what's his name? Milan Ned Nedik. Nevik? Nedik? Nedik, I think. uh, Netage. Um the bad guy. The guy you have to kill in that the one guy you're allowed to kill in that uh in that mission for uh for a hundred percent is is that guy. Um
And I was like, cool. Well, I'm right here in the dark. He just walked past me. He went into this room. He's on the phone. I'll just shoot him. I mean, these walls are paper thin. Uh and uh not so much. I was like, oh no, I sent off all these alarms. Uh I was really annoyed. Um but I get it. I also get it. You know, so that'll really
to a a later topic, I think, just as far as like, yeah, some of the it's just an era where gaminess was still you know, was still um definitely appropriate to to do.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So I yeah, I I I think the lighting in this level is amazing. I think the art direction is amazing and audio Yeah, so it's one of my favorite levels for sure.
I liked it a lot. I was a little lost.
It did get yeah, there are a lot of a lot of similar similarly.
Yeah, the the rooms are very similar, but also like there's a point at which I'm like There has to be another area. Where is it? And I'm looking at the map and I was trying to figure that out. I'm like, and I went all the way back.
A big donut.
Yeah, and and uh I will say I did really appreciate because this is something we, you know, at Bethesda we had found that it was I think part of a design post mortem on Fallout Three, or maybe just feedback to you know, to players' responses was like
Yeah, and a lot of the mission you know, the sort of sub levels, you know, the sort of little dungeons, you kinda have to go in, go all the way to the end and then walk all the way back out. And it was something we really focused on, n you know, level design really focused on for Skyrim was like, No, we wanna find ways to like when you're done
you ha you can basically drop back down to the start somehow. You know, like you climb on into the start, you unlock a door that gets to you slightly all these sort of in varieties. And this one I was like, oh, okay, well if you did it in this order, It actually nicely just drops you out at the beginning and very near the ex-fill point. I really appreciated that design uh and would actually
You know, I kinda like that. I mean, just because it's like, well, that's the most sensible place to exfil or whatever. But, you know, um, at the same time I was like, but I'm also lost because the rooms are similar and So, uh, we had a bit of a technical glitch last night. Uh we are actually, you know, peek behind the scenes. We are twenty four hours out from our first the first whatever, twenty minutes of this recording.
So apologies if this doesn't stitch together super well. Um, we're just gonna kinda pick up from whatever I was saying and uh which was I think about level design and kind of looping around and like back getting back closer to the exit. And how we learned lessons about that even after this game, um, in in some of the games I worked on. But we're just gonna like
leave Hokato uh Hokato be behind and move straight on to battery, which is the next level. And I will again I'll throw over to you because whenever whenever we're talking level design, you know, we should
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, I'm definitely re wrapping my head around what this episode is.
Yeah. I mean I'm so glad'cause there were some good jokes. I'm I'm happy we didn't lose.
And lose it all. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, no, it was definitely not on us. Yeah, it was not our not our fault.
¶ Battery: Military Installation Contrast
So, um yeah, battery, I mean I think when we were talking about Hokkaido, um
I will
sneak my way over into the next level. Mm-hmm. Uh i and and uh The contrast was a my memory was one of the main topics we were hitting there. And that's across the game. I mean, I think um I because I haven't played every single uh single Splinter Cell, you know, I don't know if that if the variety in this game is one of the things that people
really loved about it and why it's still a pretty legendary it's the legendary game in the series so far. Um but I for me, as a as just as a player's perspective, that variety has been one thing I've loved about And I'll talk about soul in a second too, because it it continues on onward with that. Um and hoping to finish myself eventually, so we'll see what the how the ending goes. But
But yeah, battery, I think we both liked as well. And going from Okaido, which was such an intimate, like we were talking about yesterday, such an intimate space and a pedestrian, you know, space. Then going to battery, which is an ultra military, right, you know, um very like hidden you're in North Korea now. You're in a missile battery.
And kinda brutalist, right? I mean it's all like cement.
The complete opposite. Yeah, very brutal
Really.
Very utilitarian. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and um, like a military installation would be when they would build it, right? So it's all yeah, cement and multiple levels and deep in the ground and then, you know, you go up to the the missile batteries themselves and all this kind of stuff. The entrance is is cool. The you know, the entry point is cool. The X fill is cool.
Um there's really that you get to go to'cause, you know, as a as a reminder, we may or may not have talked about it, but you know, a missile was law in the story, a missile was launched from North Korea. um and it uh sunk a uh a cruiser, right uh uh battleship uh that was the y it was a a United States battleship, I think.
Yes it was.
Yeah. And but they didn't know exactly where it came from or if it was intentional or what was going on. And of course, all of this is being orchestrated behind the scenes to create another You know, World War Three. It feels like every Smithersell is about World War Three is just does it happen or not? You know? Yeah. And there's one dude
You have to go to Call of Duty for it to actually happen. So you have to you have to Switch the scenarios entirely.
Right. Well, and then soul, I guess it's debatable on whether it s has happened in soul. But anyway, um So so you get, you know, there's sort of point of origin there. You get to go to the place where the missile came from and s you know, um, basically uh figure out if it came from there or not by overhearing conversations and all this kind of stuff. And then you go to the batteries, the missiles are there, and then there's even a cool moment.
Um and I think the structure of the level is interesting because there is some definitely some uh retreading that's happening. Um and you know, which is a little b of the era, a little bit kind of bread and butter for any level design. Make the most of what you have to some degree. And I don't always love the backtracking, but I've done it myself, so I understand why it's there.
And I think I think adding the time limit on top of it also gives a sort of sense of like, well, were you ready for this? Like Yeah.
Yeah, they up the ante for sure. And and it doesn't feel like retreading for retreading's sake for sure. Yeah, which a lot a lot of times it can't. But um
I was worried I was gonna have to go all the way back up the elevator To the very top. To do the whatever, to cancel the or like in invalidate the The invalidate. Deactivate the warhead, I think, was basically what you're doing in that final step. And uh I was glad that it was not all the way up at the top. Um, so it was it was okay, you know, but I don't love a time section like that. Um this was okay. Like it wasn't super tight, you know, and
It's short enough, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. The distance the distance traveled initially to me I was like, I don't know if I can get all the way back up there in that time. But then I went into that one of those control rooms and was like, oh, maybe it's this and it was. And I was like, Oh, thank goodness. I can't I can't imagine if I had to get up the elevator. Although I had cleared up
cleared out the upstairs entirely. Everybody was unconscious. So I I guess it wouldn't wouldn't have added tons of time, but it would have been really close and I would have been like, Oof you know, that's a tough one. So
¶ Timed Challenges and Design Clues
Yeah, sometimes if you th if you think about it when you see how long the timer is, it gives you a big clue about what the designer was intending. It's like well if it's three minutes I think it was three minutes. If it's three minutes
No, it's five minutes. But you say that, Tim.
Ha ha.
And I can remember in Jedi Night there was a level where it's a like a it's one of the big assault ships or something.
Crashing.
um crashing into a planet or something like that and it's all zero gravity because or much of it is zero gravity, I don't remember if it all is. And
Yeah.
worked at LucasArts at the time and my what I heard and I was playing that game on the hardest difficulty. Well, I wanna tell this story because it was it was it was one of those times in game development where I was like Okay, none of us really know what we're doing. Um Because I was playing that game on the hardest difficulty and I I could not you know, get off that ship in twelve minutes or whatever it was supposed to be.
And I was like, this is incredibly hard. Like, what am I missing? And I finally just called QA. And
Wow.
And and what I heard Yeah, what I heard. Well I've I do this all the time when I'm working on games. I did this to I have a friend here, Kevin Kaufman, who's a who's a producer at Bethesda. And he was the lead QA guy when I joined and we were doing Fallout Three and at the end. And I would like call him and be like, I'm having trouble finding this, you know, thirteenth bobblehead. Um
Oh yeah.
Dude, I have I have things to do. Um
Yeah. Irresponsible use of resources is what we're doing.
Oh my god, that was the worst. Anyway, so I uh I I've I discovered that apparently how they set the time on that level for the hardest difficulty was they took the fastest time somebody in QA could do it and subtracted time, made it harder. Than the fastest QA person. I'm like, nobody's gonna finish this. So the second question I asked was, Is there a cheat code to skip this level? Um and thankfully there was. Okay. That is the
Talk about wall mission.
Oh my god, yeah.
I'm pretty sure not to out them, but that might have been so we It was either Matt Matt's level, Matt Todd issue we had on the podcast.
Right.
Forces or it was Jake Stevens's level. Yeah. So one of the two of them I think did that that pretty is it that that is an infamous level. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. You know, I've been burned before, you know, as a
Fair.
Fair I was fair.
¶ Missile Launch & Story Elements
Well, and and you know, the i I think it was a nice heightened tension. So, m you know, if I uh not to deconstruct it too much, but where I was going with that is that you get to go to the missile battery where they shot the missile. It's very you know, just very dark and very brutal, like you said. There's a
There's another missile there too, and you're like
Right, exactly. Well, and you get to see the missile, you you know where the missile came from, the one that you're investigating, and then you also get to see a missile fire.
Yeah, yeah.
Which is a total fantasy fulfillment I think for this genre. Yeah. You know, the the the the military tech genre. And so you kind of you know, you're checking a lot of great boxes in the battery level and you really feel like you are in North Korea. You are so you are in it, like you were behind.
And it's fighting on another ship, right? Yeah, it's like we've just lost hundreds of men. The Gipper. The Gipper. That's the US Ronald Reagan, that's right. Yeah. And he he makes a line, You mean I've got to go win one for the Gipper? Oh
Yeah and yeah and Grimm's like what?
Like
I am old.
Yes, it's true. That's that blind time. Movie in the nineteen fifties, I believe. Yeah.
Yeah.
You rock me kids, look him up.
Yeah. Grim probably doesn't even know why the ship is called the Ronald Reagan. Um
Fair.
Yeah, so so there, you know, and it's on oh you know, it's it's uh the backdrop is that great sunset you see in the other battery. And then, you know, putting a timer moment in a stealth game is definitely pretty cool because I luckily had taken everyone out in that area. Yeah, too. Getting back wasn't f wasn't too bad. But say you were you were not doing that and you that happens, you're like, you have to now sneak your way back.
with the with the clock. So it was a little bit tricky. But there were a lot of great moments in that level and I think it it was another good example for me. Like for instance when you have we I think we wanna deconstruct this moment a little bit more in a second, but you have to actually uh activate the um Uh the rail mechanism for
Right, right.
Yeah. A missile and then you use it actually as your traversal going behind the missile. Right. And that's a super cool idea, right?
It was a s it was a really great idea.
missile battery, what are the kinds of things that would be cool to do as a super spy? That that's definitely one of'em.
¶ Battery: Connective Level Elements
I mean I I will say this was a another level that had a lot of interesting sort of entry points like connections between areas
Totally great.
Yeah. Like get on top of the elevator. Like'cause at first I just went up the elevator. But that draws the guy who's at the desk who's basically monitoring that and it's like, Whoa how can I do that? Like that I could not make that work without killing somebody.
Um
Or probably getting on camera. No, I probably could have done it without getting on camera but
But you can do it without yeah. I didn't I didn't you can hide behind those boxes and get enough time.
Yeah, well I I I tried that. I was like, This is not this this doesn't feel right. Um so I ended Yeah, it was not. Yeah, it was not great. And then so, you know, you can get on top of the elevator and then there's a you know, there's a crawl space or whatever that you can, you know, climb into and like get up to that level. And there's multiple ways you can exit that crawl space.
I think it's like a more of a like ventilation or something, but it's like human height, like so you're basically walking around in the connective tissue of the building. And I just I loved all of that. all the different ways things were connected, all the different ways. All the cameras that were around, some of the cameras were new looking. So I didn't I'm like, I can hear a camera.
What is the camera? And it was more of the modern style that you might see in a like a I don't know, what a department store or something where it's like a camera in a bubble. Like you don't actually see the camera, but it's like behind glass up there on the ceiling. Um, you know, and it's kind of You know, just hard to pick out. Like maybe it's um one way glass type thing, so you can't actually see the camera. Yeah. Um so I definitely was like, I hear it.
Where but where is it? And I finally discovered at one point and I was like literally right under it. I'm like, Oh, it's right here and I looked up and I'm like, Oh, it's a different model. It's another camera. type of camera. That was that was a super cool moment for me. But yeah, all that connective tissue was was really, really good. Um and It felt, you know, even though it didn't feel like a heavily fortified as heavily fortified as it you might expect.
it still felt like there's a lot of different elements to this. Like there's a little barracks room, you know, with two guys sleeping in it, to each other s like sneaking by and, you know, there's an office of an officer and, you know, all these different guards at different sort of stations and guys watching the loading dock or the loading bay or whatever. I mean just like every it was a storage unit area, just so much cool, cool stuff.
that sounds generic when I talk about it in a way, but also just really, really works. And especially in comparison with um in contrast with Hokkaido, it's like, and this feels really different, you know. So it's um really
Yeah. Yeah, I mean i you wanna fe I mean this because of the conceit of this franchise, you want to feel like you are in spaces in places you're not supposed to be. Mm-hmm. And you want to be in and among the things that are the key signature elements of those spaces. Right. And so in this They had the storage areas where there were multiple missiles sitting there waiting to be used and you're sneaking around those, right? And so you get kind of up close and personal
And you I just love that you got to go to the launch pad of the missile that was launched, right? Yeah. Deconstruct the mystery about what happened. And then you also find out more about the story in that. the North Koreans didn't actually even fire it, right? They were also confused. And it's, you know, the hackers and all that kind of stuff isn't really what was going on there. Which was started in the first mission, right? All of this, you know, threads back to the those dreaded kernels.
Yeah.
That's it.
The massy kernel or the mass kernels, they call them. There's so much, yeah, connective tissue with the story as well, you know. So it it is like, oh, everything's tying together. You also get some wish fulfillment of like, you know, as a person who's not.
super nationalistic aggro kill'em all. Um it's like, no, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna disable these missiles. Like I'm just gonna I'm gonna go, you know, just like rip the wires out of this one, you know, next to the one that already launched.
confirmed the original launch, the one that took down the the first ship, you know, and and then I'm you know, I'm gonna find all this information about the you can actually do it with the other ones too. It's kinda hard to avoid the cameras, but the ones that are kind of lined up in that long day.
You can also disable one or two of those. Um, maybe just one. So it's just like, Yeah, that's cool. Like I'm I'm also gonna go in here and just do some some fun sabotage. One of those is an objective, but the other one's just kind of like if you do it, you do it. And they they comment on it and you move on. So It's good stuff. It sounded like he was more doing it so it would explode in the base, which I was like, Oh, I'm not sure that's what I thought was gonna happen, but uh but you know.
They yeah, there's some snark about that, I think. Yeah.
¶ Frustrating Metric Design
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Uh so one one thing that was a little rough was While it was really, really cool, and I definitely had the idea immediately to do it, to climb across the ceiling on that track. In fact, I think they even tell you that.
Um or m no, you can interrogate someone and and they're like, Well you would have to you would have to go in when the missiles go. Yeah. So I interrogated someone to to find out what I needed to do basically. And He's like, Well the you know, the gate will open for the missile.
And it's like a separate off the off the ground opening that you're supposed to walk through this track on. But I went to like b basically where the missile was loaded from off of this truck and I couldn't reach the thing above me. I spent so much time in that room and I think you did too. Of like what am I like, it's it looks like I should be able to do this thing. Why can't I do this thing? Um so it was it was a room that I spent way more time in.
than I would have expected, um, especially because I had the information. Like that it was pretty clear what I was supposed to do, and yet I couldn't do it. And the key was that you actually need to go over you need to go to the front of the truck and climb up onto the truck's roof and jump up. And I was like, that's not necessary. Like
Anywhere along here. You know what the player's doing. Anywhere along here is fine. Like I don't know, cheat your physics or whatever. Cheat your normal jump height. Just let us do it. Because we know what we're supposed to be doing. So that one that one
That one got to me a little bit'cause I spent a lot of time going around that room like, Huh, maybe I missed a room. I mean, I did find a computer for a secondary objective because I explored you know, I broadened out my search and it was like, Well, maybe I missed something in a prior room and that sort of thing but it was it was a little uh a little frustrating'cause
Cool idea and it just stymied me to actually execute it, even though I knew what to do. Like I wasn't wrong about what to do. So I don't know. A bit of a bit of a weird one. That's one of the cases where like the gaminess of like this is how high people can jump and like
reading the environment in that way, you know, was was frustrating'cause it also won't let you jump to the space that you could go through, even though there are crates nearby that with a running jump, you should be able to jump and grab on. Yeah. So it was just like all the things there. I was like, what is going on? you know. So yeah, it was it was frustrating.
¶ Metrics, Telegraphing, and Playtesting
Yeah, and there's a lot of things going to unpack it a little bit on my side. Like there's a lot of things going on there that of that era we were still. Um, because the fidelity was getting better, and especially for this game, as we talked about, still kind of holds up in a lot of ways. There were pitfalls that we I think we st we still make them today, but I still think, you know, we didn't know about them as much then.
And, you know, they they did have a flashing red light up there in that tunnel. So it seemed like they were pointing you in that direction. As soon as you come in the room you can see that light. So you're like, okay, that's probably where I'm going. Yeah. And I didn't do the interrogation, but it's a little bit frustrating to me that that was an interrogation because not every
Right. Um, but I you know, I did come up with the same plan that you did. But there's this I guess kind of in the you know, coming from the where how saus the sausage is made in perspective, when it comes to level design. you know, metrics are they're they're gonna have metrics. Um, and one of the things that we learned over time is that, you know, you really need to define your metrics early on so you can
Um, once you know what your sandbox is, you can build your levels around that. So there's m you know, minimal rework later if you had to change a metric, right? Like changing a metric late in production is a nightmare. Um, so and then they're also trying to make it look like a high fidelity play, so they put those crates there, right? Or they make the truck look really intricate, or you know, part of the problem with that particular sequence is that on the back of the truck is the missile.
carrier uh bracket that
Also look.
You can kind of cheese your way onto, you know, and stand on, and you're like, Well, I'm clearly I can reach this. pipe, you know, this track. Cause I've cheesed my way onto this thing. And and to your point. And then the other thing is that this is not a sandbox mechanics kind of game, right? Like every every movement that you make is a contextual you know, contextually tagged and coded, you know, um
So
Jumping from the crates, I did the same thing. I was like, this should work in my modern gaming head.
Yeah.
But this game is not one of those. In fact, Hitman even today still doesn't do that. They're all contextual movement as well. So yeah, traversal is very much like it's a binary thing.
Which is very common of the era, you know, even some of the games like um Like Sands of Time, for example, like everything is, you know, what could I reach from here? You know, and it's like It's not really systemic, you know. Um, and that's true of a lot of games in in that franchise and and in games like that. Um, the thing I think that was really frustrating about is like so often there's multiple ways to do a thing.
And this was like, no, you have to do this one thing, but also from this one place. Like, this is the one thing you can do to get past there isn't some other way to get past this barrier. So it was very like, what is like, what am I doing?
And that's where the that's where the metric Yeah, and that's where the the less contextual systems would eventually evolve. Again, I haven't played the most. Mm, I don't think I played the most recent Splinter Cell that had been r released. I don't know if they move
To more of a
sandbox, you know, traversal system. But anyway, my point on my final point on the metrics part is what we and speaking for myself because I made this I made this mistake all the time. In fact, when I streamed that m some of the the levels I worked on um, you know, the other month, it's like you probably saw some of these errors being made then too. Where the telegraphing of communicating these metrics to the player is really critical. And what we found out over time was that.
Not only do you need the metrics of what a jump height is or how high in this case it's like I need the metric was you need to stand on top. It was measured for the top of the truck roof. Right.
Right.
That is the correct metric to grab this this track, this pipe. But you also need metrics for what not to do. So you need to you need to make a space for you can't build anything within this right, you know, zone.
For that's pretty clear.
You need the minimum and you need the maximum. And in between, you can have nothing that looks like it should be usable within that. Like nothing. And to your point, the hole you go into, that looks in metric to me. Yeah. Like I should be able to jump up to that and pull myself into the hole without using track. It's very close if it's not. Yeah. It's probably not to metric, but it's it's in that no man's land where
With the run and jump, it's extremely clever.
It it shouldn't it shouldn't have been that close, right?
Boxes are are really only there to hide you so that you can turn the lights off in the room.
Right. But they had an in inadvertent
Yeah, inadvertently.
Yeah. Down downstream effect of oh, I can also stand on them. Yep. Um and jump over to the track that way. And that that also looked like it was in metric. So Yeah, it's just this sort of like make sure you you have metrics but also you know what you can't build where and make sure nothing isn't and you learn that.
I mean that's a great point. That's not something I would have thought of. I mean Yeah. I mean I definitely can see the
It's a hard way. Yeah.
Yeah, I well I can definitely see they like, oh, you shouldn't have to know to back this far away so that the alarm goes off so that you can snipe the open window just to pick a a random example from Mysteries of the Sith. Um but like I would not have I would not like'cause I don't do level design, I would not thought of like, oh yeah, you actually need the
Not allowed metrics. You have it has to be this, but also you can't be this. Like this is not allowed. You know, so that's that's a really good thing to call out.
And and really the one of the main ways in my experience you find that stuff is playtesting. Right. Um, when you see people struggle the way we struggled, we both did the same things and struggled in the same way. So you know that at least fifty percent of the players who played this in a playtesting sense.
uh depending on how much playtesting they did. And what by playtesting to r remind everybody when we talk about that, we're not talking about QA. We're talking about fresh sized playtesters who are Hopefully off the street players who are playing this and trying to play it as if they were playing the game, so you get feedback that way. Yeah, QA doesn't count. QA is.
People people who are on the team like know the metrics.
Продолжение следует...
They can just see us like to them that isn't high enough. And they and they just look at it and they know. But you need somebody who doesn't know. Yeah,'cause QA knows that distance as well, so QA would be like, No, this is fine. Like it's clearly not in metric, you know, or whatever. Um, whereas for us it was not clear at all. Um, and uh especially because the missile itself had been lifted up to that. I'm also I mean it's also a thing where it's like
Come on, Sam. You can't give me a little more here. Like
It's so close.
Just I only need you to jump a little bit more. I know like you're an older white guy and white men can't jump and all that stuff, but come on, man. Um so yeah. You can you can like back your way down this pipe. like for a minute and like and breathe every but you can't just give me that little extra bit to get up to
so long it's like he's definitely could have jumped that high. Now your your white man can't white man can't jump joke makes me think I would love to see Woody Harrelson as Sam Fisher in Splinter Cell.
Oh my god.
Playing playing Sam Fisher, uh you know, uh
So, you know, make it happen. Um
Oh right. Yes, we need yeah, we need to discuss that later. Um I haven't read that mail yet but
Yeah. I I I read and replied, but uh uh basically on our behalf. Okay, we're at we're at like
¶ Seoul: War Zone Insertion
I don't know, almost fifty minutes. So let's move on to soul. Um
I'll do it I'll do it
I think we're gonna get to email because um You know, we've we've got to do takeaways as well as well. So we'll catch up on email next time.
I I have a feeling we're not fully done with s not not as far as we're we're not gonna play more, but I think we are not done with Splinter Cell entirely, if you know what I mean. So um so yeah, we I think We can do the email later, I guess, if you want to. For sure. Yeah. I still really would love to try some sort of multiplayer, but um but there's no time limit on that. We can like I think just
No, we might be able to do it um when I'm back. So
We can do it we can do it in between other game episodes. So anyway
It's just gonna be on your channel. So the fact that it's not, you know, directly associated and then the window of this. I mean, some people listen sometime afterwards. So, you know, uh, as one of our emails actually says, it's like, Oh, I've been going and playing through some you know, listening to some older episodes and
I have this observation. Um, and they're like, Oh yeah, cool. You know, that's from like four years ago and that other one is from like seven years ago or whatever. So, you know, it's like, Okay. Um
Well you won't know what that email is.
Yeah, not today.
Sorry. Soul, it w I won't take long because um, you know, I won't go details uh any into any details, but a couple of interesting things about it. One, it continues the contrast and I think the fantasy fulfillment. So I don't know if they officially say it's World War Three, but a war does eventually break out after the battery events and North Korea does choose to finally invade South Korea.
It's actually part of the information you get towards the end of that mission that they or or actually no, there's a guy you can interrogate. Like a colonel or something who's the head of the base. And if you interrogate him, he he actually gives you the strength of their forces, and it's like three times what Uh, I forget his name, but the guy Lambert, I think, is his name. Um, and Lambert's like, whoa, those numbers are three times what we expect.
estimation are so it's clear that the North Koreans are actually amass ready to m to as to assault South Korea. Yeah. Um from from that discussion in the in the um In the battery mission, if if you interrogate that person. So which is another thing I like is like there's additional story. You know, if you go and get it, you know, um it's it does.
I love that stuff, yeah. Um yeah, and it's it's a little it's definitely weird playing this game with this particular story right now.
Right.
For sure. Um and I guess, you know, within the within a certain plus or minus decades perspective, there's gonna be certain world powers who are gonna always be in the car.
Oh, yeah.
Unless you go sci-fi you can't really avoid it.
Yeah, no, it's really tricky. Yeah. I mean we already talked about the politics on an episode or two ago and Sorry.
Um but Seoul so Seoul you are inserted into the war zone in in Seoul in South Korea. So They have invaded and you are behind enemy lines and well, behind the yeah, enemy lines I guess if you're you're behind the front lines. Um And insert it. And there's some clever things they do with that, but you know, things are on fire. The the ambient um audio is selling the sense of a war around you. You're still in
the scale and scope of traditional of the rest the rest of the levels. So the levels are still the hallways are, you know, the hallways and stuff. There are some spaces where you have to Where if you don't jump right, you will fall to your death, you know? So they give you a sense of, oh, I'm up pretty high. Right. They've done that before, but so you're in a city, right? You're in a city.
The the displaced one is is like that as well.
Yeah.
¶ Seoul's Dynamic Objective Reversal
And um and you know, for listeners who haven't played, basically what's happened is th which strains credulity a little bit, is that the Your handlers have basically had the South Korean army bolstered by the American army pull back in Seoul. to leave you in a building which the North Koreans will pass by in order to pursue the South Koreans and and the American forces.
leaving you behind enemy lines. Just to be clear, like that's a I don't think that that's a thing that happens. I mean, keep in mind,
You don't know that.
But we have to do this thing where we allow, you know, twenty thousand troops or whatever to like retreat in order to allow one man to be you know it's
It's in his yeah, but it's cover it's cover. It's another form of cover.
Uh I get it.
So in defense though, in its defense, as a fantasy fulfillment and a video game. The fact that that that much effort goes into this one dude getting put behind enemy lines, you feel like a a bad A, you know, like a
It's like he's a ninja, Tim.
He's a ninja. He's a he's a white military tech ninja. Yeah. Um and so w that mission is really again a complete the battery mission is very quiet, right? And very like you're not supposed to be here. And it's amazing that you're there'cause you're so in deep. And this is the complete opposite of Hokkaido and the battery. You're now in a war zone. There's fire, there's you know, there's things, electrical, um electrical hazards because you know, elect uh electrical lines
Because yeah, yeah, bu or buildings have been shut up or whatever or bombed and
Yeah.
Uh the infrastructure is imperiled.
It's very it's a very cool. you know, juxtaposition to everything else. And then a weird thing happens. They there's actually a to be continued moment in the middle of the mission. Essentially the flow of it is just like the mission ended. So it's actually the first part of Soul is pretty short.
And you get into this elevator and I think you go up to the roof and you get a it's all you know it's it's very metal gear in that way. It's like, you know, you get the the two B continued. And they play a CGI high you know, high high high res CG cutscene of this plane. I won't go into the details and it gets shot down and then you continue the mission. And they haven't done that at all in any other mission.
Which I kinda now wish they had done that more often. But it was a cool moment. And it's like basically they're just setting up that, oh, soul, as far as your goals are concerned, has completely changed because you have to now go rescue the information from this. um this crashed plane.
Yeah, I was gonna say it's it seems like an escalation of their dynamic objectives. Like every mission we've been in up to
Yeah.
It's the thing in the middle where it's like, Oh, we didn't plan for this, but You know, a lot of it, you know, runs is secondary objectives. But sometimes it's like, Uh oh, that guy got killed. Well try to get the guy who sh who killed him, you know, and you can't. Or oh my god, they shot a missile like in in battery or whatever. So you they're There have even been major story beats. Sometimes it's just like, oh, you're on the ship and look at that. There's a manifest or whatever.
you know, g find five of them and it's like, okay, that's that's cool, but that is new, like or, oh, we didn't expect that this room would be shut off on the ship. That is your path, you know, to whatever. You're gonna have to find a way to drain that chamber. You know, there's always these like
you know, conditions on the ground thing. But this is like a step above where they're like, okay, well now we're getting towards the end of the game. Let's really let's make a really big dynamic objective change. Um, which seems really cool. Um it makes me like Think, oh man, I wish I wish I had more time to play that because I'm leaving shortly, so uh I will not, but maybe when I get back.
It's yeah, I mean it's it it's it's very cool, it's an escalation and it's also a surprise. because they hadn't I I'm I'm s you know, I'm I might sound like I'm I'm being critical because it hadn't happened before, but I think they probably also wanted it to be a surprise, right? Of like, oh what? You know, what's going on? I thought we because they give you the sense that you have accomplished your goal because you do accomplish the goal, right? Which is uploading the data to the airplane.
Oh. And shoot it down and it's like, Oh no
Right, exactly. You're like we did it, which is already a cool thing'cause they're doing a mid air
Not to bring in the Star Wars of it all, but isn't that basically what happens at the end of Rogue One?
Uh yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Sort of right. It's like we have to do that. That's a total trope. Yeah. It's like, oh no, but it's the same sort of thing. It's like this is sort of like spies into this base. Like we get to this point and then things break loose. It's like, well, these people gotta go do this well and then they have this. Like it's just the classic um, you know, turnaround of like, Oh no, like
You thought you were gonna do that. Oh, unfortunately this happened. And uh, you know, you have that uh uh what's that what's that called? Um Hal would always talk about it. Hal Barr would. Uh I don't know, it'll come to me, I'll put it in the show notes or something. But uh just l as it's not setback, but there's a another sort of technical narrative term for it or s or plot plot making term for it that he would use all the time.
Not the second act twist.
No, no, no. This was more like yeah, no, I uh it'll come to me. But um
You know, it's not it's it's mu it's more of a uh
Yeah, sure.
That's how they are.
But there is a specific yeah.
Yeah, yeah, how would no. Yeah. It's yeah, so it's just a nice surprise and it ups the ante and it it feels like a war zone and and it also was even just a cool concept of uploading data dynamically to a jet flying over. Right.
Uncapturable information. That couldn't be captured. It's in the briefing. It's not broadcast, it's point to point. I'm like that's still a broadcast that's still
We needed to get into Bluetooth range. Yeah. That's right.
They needed to pair Sam with the plane. Um there's something going on in his tri tripartite goggles. Um they had to uh I had to pair'em with the plane. I can just imagine if you were in a you know, a commercial jetliner and like suddenly you you hear all this spy stuff because you know, some spy on the ground's headset has connected to the plane's Wi Fi. Um
Um I and I will s the other thing I'll mention is that they introduced drones uh in that level. Oh
Okay.
level, the second part of the level, somewhere in there, they introduced drones. So un you know, unmanned.
Right, sure.
com combatants, uh which for the time was, you know, not as common Military games. Now it's everywhere. But
Yeah, yeah. Well in in games and in life. So um yeah, so that's a whole thing. Um
¶ Scoring and Player Intent
Yeah, I just had one other tiny topic and then we'll we'll go to takeaways and that was the so I actually a hundred percent did another couple well, another level and got very close on a th a third level. Um I did a hundred percent on Hokkaido. The the fun thing about that was one of the secondary objectives was to check out the um
the uh license plates of the vehicles kind of in the yard that you kind of pass through at the beginning of the mission. And one of them's easy enough to get up to and scan. It's in dark and all like but the other one is actually blocked by a dude who's leaning up against the car. And you can't get to him. Like I mean you could probably there's probably a way to knock him out with somebody has said like you can use the sticky camera to to knock somebody out. Um
But I you know, I don't typically do that. I just go in and do the the chokeout from behind. But you can't get that close to that guy'cause you're he's backed up against a plane. If you get close enough from either direction, he sees you.
And I'm like, did you, did you really quick, did you ever use the whistle?
Oh, I forgot you can whistle. Well I f
I forgot all the time, but it goes back to last episode one of our
That's probably another way you could do it. Yeah.
Uh one of our topics from last episode was just there's almost too many things you can do in the game.
Yeah, actually uh that's that one of my takeaways is has something to do with that. Um the yeah, so I just at a certain point I'm like, well I've tried this a few different ways. I don't know what to do about it. So I'm just gonna move on and I can always come back'cause that is another thing about the levels, is like you can just retraverse at any point backwards. Like there's almost never a ramp where it's like you can't go back from
Which I also kind of like about the levels. There's like you can do things in multiple ways. You can also just like oh if you didn't figure something out but you have an idea, you can go back. I mean, I actually did that in battery at one point. I don't remember why. Um so so things like that. Um
So
The cool thing about that was when at the end I I was dumped out back to that space. That guy had moved because the guy had just run through to escape to his helicopter. And he was basically there like trying to cover his retreat, but he had moved into a different position.
And I just basically like snuck up behind the car and now that guy couldn't see me anymore. I just like took the information right then, which was very out of order. It felt very strange. I think you probably were supposed to do something like do the whistle. Um, never even occurred to me. Uh but I got I got to get it that way and I was like, Okay, that was cool. Um
The other one that I got very close on, I got ninety-five percent on battery. And this was one where at the end I was like, Why did I only get ninety-five percent? I've done everything. Then I go to the stats screen and it's one of the stats is bodies found. And in that office I mentioned where there's the colonel or whatever, the guys who the who's the head of this base, he's on his computer. I've knocked out all the guys in the room next to him and
He's like surrounded by lights. Like there's no way I mean, I definitely tried, like, well, what if I shoot at this fluorescent light? Okay, well, he gets up, but then he knows somebody's there because he he hears all this noise from the gun, the from the bullet hitting right above his head. So that doesn't work. So I finally ended up picking up like some, you know, some soda can or whatever it is and throwing it into a corner to attract him, but I left a body where he would see it.
to pull him to the body once he got nearer the soda can. So like I meticulously planned this out of like, okay, I'm gonna hide right where I threw the soda can, I'm gonna follow the soda can in basically. And then he's gonna get there and he's gonna walk past me'cause he's he's gonna see his guard who's supposed to be right standing outside his office.
And then I choked him out. That's how you know, there's a computer in there which has one of the secondary objectives and I'm like, ah, this is gonna be perfect. And I like I do that and then then I do the whole rest of the mission and And at the end I'm like, Oh no. Like no it's not like anybody knew Like the fact that that body was found seems meaningless to me. Like as a player, I'm like, well, yeah, but I knocked him out.
Like five seconds later. So like, what difference does it make if we found that body? He was knocked out too. He didn't have he couldn't tell anybody. He didn't raise an alarm. I don't know. It felt it was one of those cases where it's like, okay, I get the gaminess of like there's a stat. And this is a negative stat if you get but I had never really looked at what the stats were. I was just like trying to
you know, role play into it. And to me, like the role playing conflicted with that gamey rule, you know, of like, oh yeah, we deduct five percent for everybody found or whatever, you know, whatever the number is. So I don't know. It was a little A little like, huh? Um a little a little frustrated. I wanted a little grace around that particular one, I guess, is what I'd say.
Yeah. It's a it's another interesting Um uncanny valley slash willing suspension of disbelief problem with with this game being so uh ultra realistic for its time, you know, you're gonna apply game rules to that that realism as well and and and such um versus video games.
Right. Uh you're gonna say, Oh, well this is how it would work in real life because this game feels like real life. Right. And so why is this the rule from a game but we know from a video game reason why it is, but that was just an arbitrary design decision that doesn't equate to
Yeah, and it's it's it's also a hard problem to deduce. Player intention, you know, so I intended to do that, but they can't know that. I mean, there's no way to know that that was something I like set up myself. I could have dragged that guy out of there. In fact If that had been closer to the end of the mission, I probably would have just reloaded and done it a different way. There were multiple
cans or whatever I could have picked up. I could have picked up one can and chased, you know, and then picked up the second can and kind of walked into position. Like I could yeah, I could have just done that. I I mean it would have taken a lot more effort, honestly, because the guy the guy was right there. I was like, oh this is perfect. You know, so it was like Um I really understood the systems. I just und didn't understand the scoring. Yeah.
¶ Unconscious Witness State Innovation
It's interesting'cause to your point on hard problem to solve, it definitely is. Um it dawned on me as you were talking though that um world of assassin the hitman world of assassination games, um, they actually have an additional state that From memory, I don't think they've ever had in that franchise that they added to those games that is an unconscious witness state.
Mm.
So if somebody witnessed something that impacts You know, everything from your score to mainly your score, to be honest. Yeah. And or like Silent Assassin status or something. They are like in an orange state, even if you've knocked them out. Meaning if they were ever to wake up, they would remember
Right.
then they saw you and they saw
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So so they that was their solution of like, okay, we have they've been knocked out, but we added in this additional state that what did they see before they got knocked out?
Right. Up they'll be like, No ruh sound the alarms, you know. I saw yeah, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. I mean that's that is another way to sort of I mean that's That's games in conversation right there. It's like, oh, you know, there's this problem with other, you know, games of this type or even other hitman games, who knows? Um, where this is too
you know, this is too binary, right? Of like you know, there's they're actually like you're like you're pointing out, there's actually multiple states here, you know, and we've set the we've set basically witness as a flag And not paired it with something else, which is what hitman is doing in World of Assassination at this point, which is cool. That's cool. That's a a w a lot of that's a way to think about a lot of things is like actually these variables that are really just off or on.
are are actually interlinked and you could should really think of it as in the case of two as four states, you know, and um you know, if it were three it's eight states, you know, and you might wanna combine them in in that way. So that's that's a cool that's another cool insight that uh See, you should be a designer.
Well, I didn't design that, but I noticed it, you know, and um well and then the UI design in that particular case that they also added in for that that additional state is those unconscious bodies are outlined in orange. Mm uh versus red or
No you know.
So you know even from a distance.
You might want to hide this body, you know, from
you're like, okay, this person cannot be found by somebody else because if they wake up, if they are woken up, which is a thing, right? Um, then they will they will be in an alert state. So it's like, okay, this is orange. Be caution. Be cautious. with his body. Right. Um versus like somebody who's white or red. Uh I guess red is that they're dead, so that doesn't matter. But I don't remember I'm not blanking on my color.
Yeah, yeah.
But because they have a vision mode that allows you to see all.
Oh yeah, that's cool. That's cool. So you actually know right away as well.
You can look and turn that mode on and you're like, Okay, there's an orange guy.
Got it. Got it.
¶ Takeaway: Layering Player Options
All right, well let us now, uh, as I teased mid episode, I guess, again, uh turn to our takeaways. Um, and as is customary, sir, uh we'll go to you first.
Yeah, it's an obvious one that I I mul mentioned multiple times and and and to be honest it's one I mentioned a lot of games that we've played because it's one of my favorite things and it's just another reminder of the importance of layering simple player options and tools upon each other. Mm-hmm. You know, the layering effect. And, you know, any of the immersive sims we've played does this well. This game is near immersive sim level, I think, in a lot of ways. Um
And we do it I you know for just our day to day life, it's one of my favorite things to do as well in in games. And so I um I just really appreciate it and I think I'd always heard that this particular splinter cell was, you know, sort of the apex of that mentality. And unfortunately as the production value goes up for the for the franchise, my memory of blacklist and stuff, it's like
they're m it's becoming more and more cinematic and movie like. So I think the tolerance for simulation goes down for the publishers when you know what I mean. Um
Yeah.
Talked actually talked about this probably with Clinton and Far Cry because Far Cry, you know, six versus Far Cry two are pretty different games, even though they have some similar Right. But yeah, I just just know this is just I think they've they did such a great job at layering that and then throwing in the level design to boot in leveraging those layers of options for players. Um and it's generally room by room for this game because of its scale and scope, of course.
Yeah.
But um and they don't like we talked about with the missile, you know, section, they don't always work work out. But um if we'd played the way that they had intended it, you know, that that one is much more of a binary one. But uh you gave some examples too of of different options like the elevator or whatever. But but just there's so many tools, there's so many cool gadgets, there's so many options. That that was the layering of that is I think really like massive.
Yeah, before I chime in on my first one, which is kind of in an in agreement and one disagreement on that, um, I do want to let people know that if they want to hear more about Tim's favorite things, especially in in
¶ Takeaway: System Guidance & Tutorials
uh context of spy games, uh hunt down my YouTube channel. There's uh there's a little little something for Okay. Yep. Uh huh. Um and yeah, so I I also You said it much more much better in that I just said flexible gadgetry. Um, w by which I meant like there's a lot of stuff that you have
in your equipment that is applicable to multiple problems and all of that. But my and so I I would echo all of what you've said about the sort of systems and being able to use things in different ways and things like that. My mind is I would like to be directed to that more and doing it in a series of tutorial videos, like if you're watching those one after the other,
You know, I'm mostly trying to learn key bindings and we already talked about how that that was not a good way to do that. Um, so this was like, oh yeah, and then there's this advanced stuff that I can't really keep track of because I'm just trying to learn how to play the game in a minimal way. So like it was not the right way to do it. This is I I give the game a a pass for that because of its era and it was we were definitely
Still making that transition to really teaching the player all the mechanics we want them to know about. But it is like a thing that I'm like, oh, and this is why. uh because there's so many cool things in this game that I'm not spending any time with because I haven't been taught how to use them. Um and like you just I mean it just happened like five minutes ago. You're like, did you think the whistle? I'm like, no.
Because nobody ever told me to whistle, right? And like any game today would teach you all of those things, you know, and you'd know like, Oh yeah. I mean'cause that that's an Assassin's Creed thing in their
things now or in Ghost of Tsushima or whatever, like you're in the grasses and like you whistle and they kinda come over and they look at you and you when they get close you hit the button, you know. Um So yeah, I would I would like I I guess I would say I appreciate the guidance that modern games give to these systems um and remind you that you can do them, especially
'Cause you know, often you have uh information on the screen. I don't love having tons of extra HUD clutter for that, but at the same time I would rather have the HUD clutter and know that there are options for me um than not. So yeah. Well
Well, I mean we've yeah, we've talked about it in a Nintendo the Nintendo context, um, with maybe the exception of some opinions we had about Majora's mask, but yeah. Um but Nintendo is the best at it, right? Teaching you before you know you're being taught.
Yeah.
And just by playing the game normally you are learning what your options are and employing them based on the way they're designing the game. And you don't even realize it most of the time.
It's hard to do.
That's very difficult to do, like extremely again, go back and watch that story.
Often the tutorial of Yeah. The tutorialization also often comes very late in a development context. Um, like for example, the last level we built for Republic Commando was the first level of the game, uh, or the first couple levels or whatever it is. And The reason for that is you don't actually know what your game is, you know, really until that point, you know, when you're like, Oh, we're we actually have figured out everything about our game now
We will make that later because we might actually discover things that have to change even very late in development for whatever reason, playtesting, for example, as you as we've mentioned multiple times. So, um, and then of course it's in danger of being cut, which you know, like we talked about with tutorialization here is like that might have happened here, right? Is like this feels like a game where maybe there was
a better or maybe there are better plans for tutorialization. They just weren't realized because it it became untenable in the schedule. So You know, I this is a game where you do have to iterate a lot on the levels, you know, and so um I could see that happening. But anyway, yeah, back back to you, Vitika.
¶ Takeaway: Maintaining Cohesive Tone
Um, my second one is is on the tone uh side of it, which we talked a lot about and I basically just wrote it down as you know, keeping true to a tone. No matter what it is. And the no matter what it is part is like in this particular case it's not gonna be everyone's f you know, flavor.
uh that they like, but um but it is one for me that I like. But the tone of the game, even his humor and the the s the humor that they're trying to do their own version of You know, Metal Gear has its version of humor, which is ridiculous humor, but um but this is a very cohesive tonally a very cohesive game.
Um, you feel the you know, all the locations, the story, the gravity, the characters, you know, it it hits it really well. And my my last echoe, which I'll I'll get later, uh is a partner to this one to some degree. Um, and I I always am a sucker and appreciate when it is so consistently held to. We we probably had similar things to say about Far Cry two. Again, we have you know similar team members worked on both.
And um also had very consistent, you know, um presentation and feel and, you know, just state of being. And every time I start this game up, I'm like, I'm in it. You know, I know where I am, I know who I am, I know why I'm And I'm in a mood because it's so well executed and it's so consistent.
Yeah. No, that's a good point. That's a good point. Yeah, I think it it does that extremely well. Um it's definitely it's like best in class for that, honestly, especially for the era.
¶ Takeaway: Dynamic Objectives
I'm gonna throw in here dynamic objectives because It is a thing that I had not seen a lot of prior to this. Um, I'm trying to like contextualize it in its time and it's like, this feels pretty fresh to me. Like it's not that it hadn't happened. Like I know there are some thief levels where it's like, in this level, like it you discover something, it's like, oh no, you know, it's like that changes what you have to do. But it's like sporadic.
And it doesn't have the r very real sense and in particular grounded in this sort of like mill spec military, you know, tactical planning game, like that the plan does not survive contact with the enemy. And I just love that that is just consistent and it feels like a pillar, you know, to me as we would describe them as like, no, every level has to have a thing. You know, and as you point out, this, you know, this week, soul has like they really elevate that like
You know, and now it's really a thing. You know, it's a really big thing and it motivates a whole sort of level change in a way, you know. So I feel like it was a really big part of them saying, this is what it's like in, you know, this kind of environment.
You know what you know, but recon is always a little stale. You can't know everything, you know, about where you're going or whatever, you know, unless it's literally like the Pentagon that you know the back of your hand in Mission Impossible say. Um
You know, but even that, you know, has a mo has moments where it's like, Oh yeah, but we didn't think like the strain on a human body is gonna cause me to sweat so much that I have to catch my sweat drops. So like the dynamic objectives in this environment The spy, the military theming, all that stuff. It just makes a hundred percent sense. And I hadn't really seen it deployed as well as this anywhere.
Yeah, I mean, I think that for me it fits with the true being true to the tone as well, because it is part of this genre. Yeah. I'm sir super happy you brought up Mission Impossible because I love that franchise, as you know, and every time a new one comes out I rewatch all of them and then I go see the new one. So I'm like all fresh. And that is bread and butter for that franchise.
He and they he and his team have to always adapt because stuff goes stuff goes wrong. Yeah. And something comes up. And that's part of the drama of it. It's like if everything went well, why were we watching the movie? You know? um then you're just watching, you know, basically, you know, military footage from a from a drone or something. Um uh so yeah, that's totally good point. And to put that into the objective design and into the flow of the game.
is a is a you know, a a big revelation for especially for that era'cause it it really does fit well. I'm wondering, I don't know if we'll ever get to ask, but I'm I'm interested to know if That came in because they were feeling from the previous games or at least the first game that there was something missing. You know, when everything was static, you know, the objectives were always static. And maybe maybe that was a revelation. They're like, you know what?
In spy fiction, things aren't always static. So maybe we should add this in for this.
Yeah, I mean it's a huge part I mean when we talk about Octavia, the fact of having to improvise Based on what you have is like is a key is an important part of our game. It's actually not something we specifically designed in. It kind of emerged and we've You know, it's part of the play, you know, um, as it turns out. But um also the term I was looking for earlier was reversal. Um having reversals. Um anyway.
Well dynamic is one of our pillars for Octavia. And and we try to instill it in everything we could. Yeah. But you're right. I mean it's that improvise improvisation was a was a how important it became for the game, which is
Yeah, and at the scale. This happens over the course of the whole match, you know, as like it evolved. Okay. Yeah.
Evolved for us.
Yeah. Anyway, your third one.
¶ Takeaway: Design & Tech Strengths
My third one is leaning into the strengths of the design and tech. And and what I mean by that is um They're This we've talked about this maybe in the first couple episodes, but this game was known to be visually stunning um and technology using technology interesting technology and
And using the engine in interesting ways. And then it was also put on a pedestal for the platforms, especially Xbox, to say, hey, if you want to play a cool looking and designed and artistically designed game on Xbox, you should play this game. Right. But but to go further with that
Not making spaces super big, making uh spaces that only have a few enemies, you know, um leaning into what your limitations are, but also making them your strengths, which oftentimes is not the case. It's like, oh well, this, you know. It it takes discipline, right, to make to make good gameplay out of just one room and then only having two enemies in it. Yeah. Um it takes discipline to make like we talked about with the whole lighting and rendering debate.
It takes discipline to make a room that has one light in it and have it be interesting. Right. And like what happens if that light is shot out? What happens if it stays on? You know, there's there's all these discipline based that are also often um Partners to production realities of like, well, we can't, or technical realities of like, actually, like you said, you know, we can't have.
Three lights, we only can have one. So you better design around it. But uh but sometimes that feels like a a limitation or a crutch. And I think in this game, every time they have some of those discipline based limitations or technologies that they're trying to lean into, they make it a advantage. rather than a disadvantage. Um, some other obvious ones is like the way they use cloth or some of those other th those other whiz bang things, but it really for me is more of a cohesive statement of
of knowing what your limitations and strengths are and making sure that those are the front front and center in your design. Um is is also hard to do and hard to stick to your guns on. Yeah. Because everyone always wants to do more. Um and and add more and go bigger and But sometimes, you know, you need to take away and you need to do less to make it that
Yeah, it almost feels like um sort of puzzle game design in a way, which is by which I mean Yeah. With a puzzle game, you're thinking, okay, I have these elements that are available to the player at this point. What are the combinations, interesting combinations of those elements? Mm-hmm. So for you know, in this case it would be I bet you could actually to sort of illustrate what I'm thinking about, you could probably like draw every room just as like whatever shape rectangle is.
Like, oh, it's a long, thin rectangle, or it's a from the top down, or it's basically a square rectangle. Um, and like, okay, but there's a camera and a guy, and that's all that's in this room that you have to deal with. Um, you know, and maybe a light source, I guess. Yeah, there's always a light source. Um, and like how does that change based on the placement of that camera and that guy and and that light? It's like, okay, you've got those three things.
But that's a lot of different combinations. Like is the guy right under the light, so if you shoot it out, that's bad'cause he'll hear it. Um, you know, or You know, is he too far away from the alarm? So even if he did see you, he probably can't react in time. Or, you know, like you just have all these variables that you can play with and um and that's coming from a small amount of restraint. And I'm thinking of uh
what is the th that's a style of puzzle game where it's like you actually only have like one verb and you like like Stephen Sauce's role has basically you can flip the sausage um and you can move around. Um
So it's a whole you know, it's a whole sort of genre of puzzle um where it's like, Oh, and some levels will add some new element. It's like, well, it's interesting when you add this element and here's why, and et cetera. And this sort of feels a a bit like that, you know, in the way Doom feels like an arcade game if you played it two D, you know, so um like an arcade shooter, you know, so
¶ Takeaway: AI State Clarity
Uh all right. Anyway, w with my final one, um, uh AI state clarity. This is uh I think a master class in that as well. Like you know you know, at any point what the AI is telling you about what their you know sort of internal state is. You know, it's like, oh, they are looking for You know, and some of this is supported by music, but it it's all there in the characters. It's like their animation tells you like they get tenser or less tense.
Um, you know, the way they walk back. I mean they'll they'll say things as well to signal the state changes. That's actually a that's pretty common, but it's pretty common because of this game, you know, or games, you know, in this series probably as well. Um and I think you know I call up.
Yeah.
Their faces change, absolutely, you know, and um and it actually it tends to carry for a while because they they might go into a more relaxed state, but they're not as relaxed as before you showed up, you know. Um so like there's a there's a step down that is not like it's like, no, they're on they're on a little alert now. They're I mean they're They're not like actively seeking you out or anything. That's one of their states and they'll signal when you get there and you'll see it.
Um, it's like, oh, they're you know, they signal like, oh, I know that I'm moving into a dark area, so I am pulling out a flare or my flashlight or whatever. Um, you know, and so that adds a a wrinkle and you have to know Often for me, of course, with my knucklehead approach, it's like I'm learning and reloading. Like, oh no, I didn't know they had lights, um, or whatever. But um but those states are super clear and and part of the gaminess of the game is like being able to read those states.
and act accordingly, uh, react accordingly. Um, you know, if you didn't mean to. I mean it's why I was able to be like make a plan around how I was gonna get this colonel up from behind his desk is cause I knew He would get a certain distance away from a body and see it, you know, and and et cetera. He would go us to a certain closeness to this audio cue.
You know, and so I would know like, oh, I can see what path he's gonna take. Like all that sort that all comes at like the game level, the rules kind of like, oh, okay, I understand the rules behind the AI.
And I it's super important in stealth games. Um, you know, where you have these enemies like that. I mean it's less important in something like where it's all cameras or whatever, but Um, but when you have, you know, enemy combatants in the area that you either wanna avoid, evade, you know, or take down if that's what you wanna do, it's really important to know
how they're gonna move in the world. It's you know, it's the problem, um, to to solve with their AI. So and this one just does it fantastically well in a consistent and believable way. So
Well and I that I would add in too that there's there's two other there's an another critical for this game another critical part of that takeaway for me. So it is a good one. Thanks for bringing it up that They don't do two things that other games do, especially its main competitor, which we've mentioned many times. They do all of this AI state clarity with no UI and HUD and no mini map.
Ja, ja.
You don't get that stuff. You it all has to be in world with the characters, with the audio, with the VO. Um, you know, with the animations and everything, it all has to be in world. And I won't, you know, I'm not being critical of other the other franchises for using those as a crutch. But an exclamation point over someone's head or a question mark over someone's head definitely is clear and it hits you over.
Yeah, that's very trivial.
Unintended, but it's like, okay, yeah, but it also pulls you out of it. Right. It pulls you out of the game. And mini maps is like then you're playing the mini map. Right. You know, as well.
It becomes a map game, as we've said many times, so
Yeah, because a map game especially because of the vision cones and Metal Gears case, right? Like you're looking at the vision cones. Um And the the other the funny it the reason this c pops into my head is because of my Renchi runs in Hitman where I turn all of that off. Yeah. It's interest and then I when I play on my own I have it all on. So I actually play Hitman both ways.
And it still holds up actually without all of that additional stuff. Yeah. But you can see where the usability and the quality of life stuff, you know, goes when you turn it back on.
I mean in in that case, it's more of an additional channel of information. It's information you actually already have. But in other case. Yeah often not information that you have. So
¶ Conclusion and Genre Limitations
For example. So yeah, I really love it for that. Um any honorable mentions to mention?
Uh no, I thought yours were great. No, I don't I didn't have anything else on my list, so
The ours were the ours were good too. Yeah, I love I I did enjoy this game. I was a little I I felt some trepidation coming in, you know, partly because of the the, you know, modern you know, spy game of it all. That that's definitely Yeah. Uh, you know, a thing I struggle with. But uh once I, you know, stopped shooting everybody in the head, I felt a lot better about myself. So
Well your point about detention
Yeah.
Um and the stress that comes with that. It does it you know, it does I mean w we may or may not have made a stealth game. Um There, you know, as a genre, it it does limit its exposure because of that tension. You know. Um it isn't a game for a lot of people. It isn't a game It's just too much. Yeah. You know.
I mean I I played this game in the kind of amount of time that I played Alien Isolation. It's like okay, I can only play Yeah. I mean ver I mean it's very heightened in a very different way with that that horror game, but um but it's a very similar feeling to me like afterwards of like okay I need to not play that for I need to just kind of chill for a bit. Like I'm just gonna go lie down on the couch. I'm gonna pop a book in my hands and et cetera. So uh definitely has that feeling. Um anyway.
Okay, well then to the outro stuff. We are ni we're now at like an hour and a half. So uh we love to get your reviews. Um I get those all for the iOS stuff. You hear me say this every week, but if you're hearing it for the first time, I don't know why you are. Um but uh if we don't read your email your review online uh or on the air rather, please uh please email it to us and your questions at devgameclub at gmail.com.
We're on the web at devgameclub.com and my co host here twitch is at twitch dot TV slash.
Tim Longo Jr. with the JR at the end.
I don't know if you're gonna have a chance this week. You might, I now that you're kinda back.
Yeah, I don't know yet. I'm not gonna commit. But uh if I get back to it going to continue playing the original hit. Yeah. It's been a blast to go back all the way back and start to see I I just had forgotten that literally in the first five minutes of the game you put on a
Uh across the right.
Okay.
Or escape that way. And I was like, Wow, okay, I forgot. They had this from the beginning. Yeah. You know?
It's the it's their big key mechanic, I think, that distinguished them. Um and it's been uh hallmark of the series ever since. Well, if you want to see him dressing up like that, you can uh either follow him there on Twitch or you can check it out. He'll he'll make an announcement in our fan run Discord. There's a link for that in the show notes.
Our intro and outro music was written and performed by the immortal Kirk Hamilton, commission commissioned by friend of the cast Aaron Evers, and our logo, uh our Discord, merch store, lots of things, with help from other mods, uh is uh by Mark Garcia. Have fun claiming you didn't intentionally launch those missiles this week, and good night.
Good night.
🎵 Music