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Maybe I'm just really picky when it comes to stealth games but CounterSpy is another one I didn't care for all that much. I'm of the opinion that level design is possibly THE most important aspect of a good stealth game. This game, uses randomly generated levels with randomly placed objectives forcing this stealth game to turn into a boring, repetitive, 3rd person shooter.
There are two dominate types of levels. One is the 2-D platforming stealth sections that are pretty good, and the awful shooting gallery sections that make me wonder how stealth/rail shooter ever came up as an idea in the first place.
The platforming sections are what everyone thinks this game is. You can stealthy sneak up on enemies from the front, hang from a ledge and attack them from underneath, or jump up to another platform and come at them from above. Speed is super important too as once you are spotted, or a dead body is spotted, a guard might attempt to radio in an alert which slowly raises the DEFCON level. It's imperative to kill these guards as quickly as possible because if the DEFCON level gets too high, a 1 minute long countdown timer starts until nukes are launched at the moon (god this is stupid). The DEFCON level can also rise from being killed, which is basically saying you have so many lives. To make matters worse, any alerted guard left behind will ALSO raise the DEFCON level so you gotta go back and kill em all.
Arnold voice: "Hang out"
There are two flaws in these sections that I just can't get over though. One is the guards better field of view and the seemingly random way they are alerted. Icons will appear over a guard telling you if they are within alert distance, if they are investigating, or on full alert. These icons are often on the side of the screen since your character should be able to see them, but you can't. This kind of weirds me out as I don't know how many times I've killed a guard only to see 8 icons around the screen suddenly jump to full alert despite these guards being in Australia for how close they are. Other times, I can do the exact same thing without a single person noticing. Did they see me or not? And I can't just leave them to maybe find the dead body, so I gotta go back and kill em all.
For example, there is a random hallway section I've ran into with three guards. I'm at one end, 2 guards are standing next to each in the middle, and the 3rd is at the other end, I pop out of cover and headshot one of the guards in the middle with a silenced pistol thinking the guard next to him will investigate but no. He is oblivious, but the OTHER guard down the hall investigates instead. He walks up to the body and begins to radio in the alert so I pop out again to kill him quickly, THEN the other guard goes on full alert allowing me to kill em all without having to go back. Later on, I run into the same hallway section again but this time decide to kill the guard at the end of the hall first. I headshot him, with the silenced pistol, and EVERY guard is on full alert now despite those other two guards not looking at me or the other guard. What the hell? These examples are in a relatively simple area too. It's even worse and more head scratching when you're in a larger area with dozens of guards. Need to be extra thorough in those sections so I don't gotta go back and kill em all.
I wasn't thorough
The other problem with these platforming sections are the aforementioned randomly placed objectives. The computers you need to raid could be anywhere, forcing you to explore everything and fight everyone. Great stealth games usually provide ways where you can avoid combat entirely and some of these platforming sections actually have passageways that bypass guards. Too bad you might also be bypassing your objective so...gotta go back and kill em all.
The other major level concept is the shooting gallery sections which are awful. Get into cover. Stay there. Pop out to shoot baddies. Move on when they are all dead. Yes, there are explosive barrels and panels that you can shoot to help out but they are the explosions to this Micheal Bay of a level concept. The guards rarely switch cover too. Sometimes there is a rocket guy who shoots a slow moving rocket that can be shot for more BOOMS. Also, they sometimes throw grenades which you can throw back in the VERY unlikely chance it lands next to you. I mean, you remember that kid on your little league team who would always throw a baseball into the dirt 20 feet in front of you or 20 feet over your head? All of these guards were that kid. I kinda feel bad about going back and killing them all.
Sometimes these shooting gallery sections have a 3-D perspective and look like they can be avoided but I was NEVER able to do so. Many of these room have like 8 dudes and you can try to wait 10 minutes for them to all have their back turned so you can sneak by. It will never happen. Sometimes you can go around it in the 2-D area but there is usually guards there too and if you alert one you alert all 8 of those FUCKERS in the shooting gallery. SO I GOTTA GO BACK AND KILL EM ALL.
Every time I saw this room there were 8 dudes in there.
In case my point hasn't been made clear yet, a good stealth game should never force you to have to slaughter everybody. A good stealth game gives you the opportunity to go unseen/undetected and gives you the chance to go back to that state without having to kill everything. CounterSpy offers neither. I'm not gonna complain that it isn't like most AAA stealth games since this is a low budget indie title, but you'd think "stealth game BASICS" would have been adhered too. And it's sad too that the basics of good stealth games would go ignored because this game has a lot of good stuff going for it.
The story is cheeky and lighthearted for a game about nuclear annhilation (Again, they want to nuke the moon). The controls are really good, snappy and fluid, but there is strangely no crouch button (another stealth game staple ignored). Shooting mechanics are basic but fine. There are several enemy varieties with normal dude, armored dude, machine gun dude, rocket dude, and officers who can be taken alive to lower the DEFCON level (which I suck at. Not a game flaw here, I just suck at this). There is even different security camera types making some harder to destroy than others.
But...still...I gotta ignore stealth game basics and go back and kill em all. The LARGEST reason for this flaw is level design, which is exponentially worse due to the randomly generated levels and computer locations. I've never been a big fan of randomly generated levels in games (MAN, I'm just killing it with the future blogpost teasers), but it seems impossible to have a good stealth game with this concept. I don't need to know exactly where my objective is, but I need at least a little idea. Otherwise I'm wondering if I already passed my objective, and I gotta go back and kill em all.
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I reviewed a AAA stealth game that is worse than CounterSpy. Read it here.
