Ultimate Stealth: Triple Pack - PlayStation 3

This Square Enix compilation contains three stealth games:

• Deus Ex: Human Revolution

  In a near future dominated by chaos, conspiracies, and biomechanical augmentations, society is divided by various organizations fighting for supremacy, and large corporations extending their power beyond those of governments. An ideological war is growing between people who accept the biotechnological progress and people who fight it. A human revolution is coming.

  Adam Jensen is a thirty-four-year-old ex-SWAT member from Detroit, enrolled by a powerful biotechnology company named Sarif Industries. His job is to ensure the scientists' private security and safeguard the secrets of the company's projects. The first day after his hiring, Adam Jensen is about to attend a meeting with David Sarif, the founder and CEO of Sarif Industries, when suddenly a red alert is issued in the company laboratories. A troop of mercenaries, apparently working for Belltower Associates, breaks in and kills several scientists. After having neutralized some of the mercenaries, Adam is severely injured by one of them. He has no choice but to be enhanced with biomechanical augmentations to save his life. His goal is now to discover what were the motivations of the attackers and unravel a greater conspiracy behind their actions.

  Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the third game in the Deus Ex series. The events of the game take place in the year 2027, twenty-five years before those described in the first game. Like the first installment, the game is a hybrid of a 3D shooter with a stealth angle and role-playing. All styles of play can be adopted to succeed in the missions, from a totally furtive mode (some bonuses are granted in case the player character hasn't been detected during the whole mission) to the most brutal one. The player's decisions may have an impact on the storyline.

  The game offers a vast array of weapons and biomechanical augmentations (hacking, social, stealth, sight, armor, combat skill enhancements, etc.). Various amounts of experience points are awarded for completing main or secondary quests, avoiding or eliminating enemies, hacking, reading electronic books, and discovering secret passages. After having accumulated a certain quantity of experience points, the player is awarded a "praxis kit", which can be manually used to learn or improve an augmentation. These kits can also be found during exploration or purchased in clinics.

  Role-playing elements include, besides augmentations and general character-building, exploration of non-hostile areas and dialogue with non-playable characters. During certain crucial moments, the player will have to participate in a "conversation battle" with a key character, selecting the correct psychological approach and influencing subsequent plot events.

  A few modifications have been made to the shooting gameplay, emphasizing its tactical aspect. The third-person cover system is integrated into otherwise fully first-person gameplay. Enemies often appear in groups led by a commander; taking out the latter may demoralize enemies, making them easier targets. Though the game still contains health-restoring items, the protagonist's health regenerates itself over time.

• Hitman: Absolution

  Hitman: Absolution is the fifth game in the stealth assassin series starring Agent 47 as the protagonist. The story continues after the events of the previous game, Hitman: Blood Money. Diana Burnwood, Agent 47's handler with the International Contract Agency, goes rogue and sets up a sabotage operation that risks exposing the entire agency. Benjamin Travis reforms the agency and puts a hit on Burnwood, tasking Agent 47 to kill her and bring back the teenage girl Victoria that is in her care. Early on in the game he tracks down Diana, but hesitates when he has the opportunity to kill her. From there, the story unfolds into a larger conspiracy that puts the girl Victoria in the center. Compared to the previous game, 47 now often has an emotional bond with the victims and he becomes hunted himself as well.

  Rather than independent missions, they are now linked together with sections where 47 travels from one location to another. The basic gameplay is still present. He often has to infiltrate locations to take out a specific target and disappear again. Points are scored by completing primary and secondary objectives, along with the chosen method. Choosing a careful approach based on stealth and non-lethal kills is always rewarded more. After missions a ranking is shown and it is compared to players worldwide. In addition there are separate challenges to complete, such as using a certain amount of different weapons or disguises. Points are used to access upgrades that enhance Agent 47's skills, such as less visibility when hiding, more accuracy when shooting, less time to strangle opponents or faster melee combat. When the operation goes wrong, full out shooting is also possible, but will not lead to the best reward.

  The core gameplay is still based around looking for cover, taking out and dragging people out of sight, and some acrobatic maneuvers. Certain parts of the environment can be used to jump or to hang on a ledge, but not everything. A feature called Instinct shows whether a certain part can be used or not. Instinct is gathered through actions in the game. It can also be used to activate Point Shooting. This mechanic allows Agent 47 to stop time, mark the opponents, and then continue to fire and kill quickly in succession. Another Instinct feature is the ability to look through walls to see the location of enemies and their movement pattern. A further use is bluff. When wearing a disguise, certain characters may still recognize him, especially when he gets too close. In those situations a bluff can be made as a last resort that eats up a lot of Instinct. Agent 47 will then make a move that throws them off so they lose their suspicion.

  His main weapon is the signature Silverballer pistol with a silencer. Two of them can be equipped and used together. Weapons left behind by enemies can also be picked up and used. In addition there is room for gadgets such as a piano string, but also items found in the environment such as bottles, bricks, hammers, knives etc. They are used to kill or can be thrown to create a distraction. As enemies often patrol in groups, they need to be isolated and their movement needs to be studied. Strangled enemies can either be killed or just be rendered unconscious. To avoid alarms, they always need to be hidden, out of sight.

  Next to the main mission, Contracts can be completed as an asynchronous multiplayer mode. These are custom tasks created by the developer or other players. Anyone can mark a specific target in a level and determine how he ought to be killed, based on a certain weapon or disguise for instance. These challenges can then be taken on by other players. Up to three victims can be assigned to a single Contract.

• Thief

  Thief is a reboot of the Thief series and throws away most of the lore - there are no Pagans, no Hammers and no Watchers. The game starts when Garrett, a master thief, is on a job with his former apprentice Erin. They run into a mysterious ritual from a faction loosely reminiscent on the Mechanists, and due to unfortunate happenings Erin falls right into the middle of it. Garrett blacks out for a year and awakens in the city which changed to a fascist regime in the meantime. Now Garrett has to use his thieving skills in order to find out what is going on (the common people are affected by a strange disease) and eventually stop the usual conspiracy.

  The basic structure is similar to Deadly Shadows: There is a semi-open city hub structured into various districts. Just like in the predecessor, those are divided in loading screens and gradually open up over the course of the game. These can be freely explored until starting a self-contained mission at the designated point. Here lies the main difference to the previous Thief games: instead of sandbox levels, the design is completely modular and can be compared to the Clocktower level in Deadly Shadows. The set-pieces may be relatively open in itself and offer various ways to deal with obstacles or reach the next point of interest, but in the end they result in a choke-point of no return leading to the next area. Movement is also restricted because jumping is only contextual. Rope arrows make their return, but can only be used at a few designated spots. Except for a few minor climbing sequences, the whole game is in first-person.

  Garrett can take on guards in direct combat, the system is based on dodging attacks with a designated button and placing blackjack hits at the right moments, but since he is no fighter he usually has no change against multiple enemies. So his main weapon of choice is stealth. It is based on shadows - the light gem in the interface shows how visible Garrett is - and while breaking sight also plays its role, there is no dedicated cover mechanic like in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. However, Garrett can grab onto corners and peek out to avoid running in front of a guard. This means the majority of the time is spent with observing guard patrols, picking a good time to move behind a guard, performing a blackjack takedown and drag the body into darkness before someone sees it. Like in Human Revolution, the takedown is a context based button press instead of a free swing.

  In contrast to the previous Thief games there is no loot requirement to beat a mission, but of course there is still plenty of stuff to steal which is directly converted into gold. While the majority of small loot items is just lying around or found by opening drawers, there are also unique items which bring extra money. These are usually hidden and require the usage of a new mechanic: Garrett grabs a painting or book shelf and slowly moves his hand until he feels a hidden switch. By pressing a button, it may open up a secret passage, unveil a safe or disable traps. The lockpicking minigame works similar and requires to find the sweet spot by moving the lockpick around. Safes require the combination which has to manually puzzled out by searching the environment for clues and carefully reading near documents.

  Between missions, Garrett can also find much loot in the city by just moving around and keeping his eyes open. However, the most lucrative is to take optional side missions. Here Garrett has to retrieve a certain object - usually it is just a quick burglary within the city, but sometimes they are real self-contained missions. Of course there is a useful usage for money: visiting a shop and stock up on equipment. The obvious choices are depleting resources like Garrett's trademark arrows which can be used for many tasks, e.g. regular arrows for distracting guards or water arrows to extinguish light sources, food items to heal, or smoke bombs. However, there are also various one-time purchases which reward new equipment to interact with the environment, e.g. a razor to cut out valuable painting or a wrench to open up ventilation shafts, or tool upgrades, e.g. a bigger arrow capacity or more sensitive lockpicks. Also available are items which reward passive bonuses. Additionally Garrett has two magical abilities to his disposal: The swoop move works similar to blink in Dishonored and allows to quickly move forward. Focus (similar to instinct in Hitman: Absolution) slows down time and has several useful perks, e.g. faster lockpicking, easier combat or showing all loot in the area. Those perks have to be unlocked with focus points which are also bought with money.

  One of the game's special features are the difficulty modes. While there are the usual three standard types - the highest does not allow for kills or civilian knockouts - the player can also add several other difficulty options, e.g. disabling focus, more expensive resources, slower movement, no kills or knockouts, no quicksave or permadeath. Because those reward bonus points for bragging rights, the difficulty can only be changed when starting a new game. On the other hand there are also several other interface related options which can be disabled at any time, e.g. loot glow, prompts when approaching an interactive item, enemy alert indicators, objective markers, mini map or ammo counter.

  Besides the main campaign, there is also a challenge mode. This mode re-uses some of the game's mission areas and adds special objectives. The modes are Chain & Gain (there is a timer running out which can only be expanded by collecting loot), Chain & Gain Limited (Chain & Gain with an overall time limit) and Special Loot Hunt (finding as much special loot within a time limit by using the "hot and cold" indicators). The goal is a leaderboards high-score.

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