With the impending release of Splinter Cell Conviction i thought this would be a good time to name the five things a game needs to be a competaent stealth title.

1.Atmosphere- One of the key aspects to a great stealth experience is rooted in the environment and settings of the game. If you don't feel like your in the action your not going to able to maximize your stealth experience, titles that come to mind who have reached these goals easily come to mind, the MGS series, SOCOM, Fallout3, and Splinter Cell to just name a few.

2.Tight Gameplay- If you feel like your driving around a truck instead of tenderly sliding past your foes it's going to immediatley ruin your day. Finnese is a crucial area that must not be overlooked. The MGS series has had its deal of gameplay issues over the years that did hamper what was an otherwise amazing experience, yet titles like Splinter Cell have been well controlled from the start.

3.CQC(close quarters combat)- If you can't get behind an enemy and have some sort of bag of techniques at your disposal your going to die real quick, and that sure doesn't feel like your a bad ass spie does it? Well it doesn't, hand to hand combat is the main weapon of anyone in the covert ops profesion, I think we all know MGS 3 set the bar for CQC, and MGS4 perfected it, but their not the only ones, Tenchu has also been a very good example.

4.Gear- Night Vision, grenandes, silencers, combat knives, kevlar vests, these are just a few examples of must have gear for any clandestine mission. Without the right tools and weapons an easy mission can quickly turn into suicide, again MGS, and SOCOM have set the examples.

5. Camouflage- Easily this is the most important of all. Without the ability to sneak in and out of enemy camps and hot zones with general ease, you won't survive long, from SOCOM and MGS, to Splinter Cell, this has always been one of their top priorities. Camo is the right hand of stealth itself, these five reasons are what makes the difference between a common cutthroat and an elite covert agent.

Project Needlmouse has finaly been unvailed! Its been 16 years since Sonic and Knuckles, but the Sonic Team is finaly going back to their roots, with the long awaited sequel Sonic the Hedghog 4: Episode 1, after all these years and countless blasphemies later, that fast little hedghog we all love is coming back in glorious 2D, well HD 2D to be exact. Can Sega finaly redeem themselves or will this be just another giant disappointment? Somehow this time it feels right, i think this is the big one we've all been waiting almost 2 decades for. Finaly about a generation of kids later, all of our little brothers, sisters or cousins will finaly get what were talking about when we talk of our fond yet fleeting memories of Sonics past greatness. Sega don't let us down now.

I first took notice to Pandemic in 2004 for their Star Wars Battlefront game they made with Lucas Arts. The very next year they released a cult classic and one of my favorite games Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, toted by most of the gaming press as just another GTA clone, but oh did it suprise! But that is only part of the story, and i think it appropriate to start at its beginings.

Pandemic Studios was founded in Santa Monica, California in the year 1998, it was formed by an investment from Activision.

Its President was Josh Resnick and the CEO was Andrew Goldman. Their first project was Battlezone 2 and other not to stellar projects.

In 2004 they released an original IP Full Spectrum Warrior, nothing groundbreaking but it made enough of a splash to get Pandemic into the spotlight. The same year they partnerd with Lucas Arts to release their first big hit Star Wars Battlefront, with a hit sequal the following year. Yet inbetween they released in almost total silence, Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, a sandbox third-person shooter set in modern North Korea, you play as one of three Mercs each tailerd to a specific play style. What once looked like a mere GTA clone outdid its larger rival with fast and close quarters fighting augmented with a drop anywhere any time system for ammo reloads or a nice big tank. It was a major success and they followed it with another fairly successful IP later that year, Destroy All Humans!, you play as Crypto an alien sent to earth to "Research" human society, which quickly turned into a sandbox like experiance, destroying everything in your path with crazy alien weapons and even your own flying suacer. All seemed to be going pretty well when on October 11th, 2007 it was announced that EA was to incorporate both Bioware and Pandemic into their corporation by January of the following year. Later in 2008 their much awaited sequal to Mercenaries, Mercenaries 2" World in Flames, set in modern Venezuala" With a large outrcy from the country, but to no avail" It was not what fans had been waiting for. Chopy gameplay, bad co-op and a loose story all amounted to not much of a game at all. In 2009 they would release what soon turned into their swan song, Saboteur. Closly fallowing its release Pandemic announced its liquidation by the end of the year. While its current projects like Mercs Inc. go on hold the industry loses a truly individual stuidio and their stellar teams around the world. We will miss you Pandemic, truly we all will.

I've asked myself this same question several times and it seems from GS news that Episode 3 is delayed by the age of Valves current game engine "Source". Some say if episode 3 wants to contend it will need a significant upgrade in the graphics department. Source has been the mainstay of Valve since 2004 and has flourished since. So the argument is weather this 6 year old engine can compete, with such enginces as RockStar and Bioware use today. This hypothosis seems most likely and i don't expect or would even imagine its release without Valve uleashing a new engine in the interim. What do you my fellow gamespotters think in this matter?

I was elated to hear of Rockstars intention to creat a sequal to their cult hit Red Dead Revolver. I enjoyed the game but its flaws were very obvious, and the story became stale in a hurry. I came to ask myself, "Can you pull of a Western themed game?" Well their is the minor succsses of the Call of Juarez games but it still didn't quite nail it. The most probable cause of Revolvers failure was Rockstars then total devotion to Grand Theft Auto lVs production and release. Now it seems like the time has truly come, Rockstar is very intent on Redemtion proving its namesake true and bring us the Western game we've all been dreaming for.

To be as frank as possible i love both these games, except it seems Bethesda put more of their time and hearts into Fallout 3 an IP which they bought the rights to, not their own creation like Oblivion was. I can almost make this point with just three letters, DLC. Fallout 3 got five great pieces of DLC, while Oblivion got a short little adventure (Nights of the Nine) and a weird expantion pack (Shivering Isles). Why did Oblivion get almost nothing in terms of DLC while Fallout 3 had a great and wonderful harvest. Yet on another note Fallout 3s stealth mechanics and lockpicking seemed broken and tedious next to Oblivions amazing stealth abibilities, you almost can't sneak anywhere without a bunch of Stealth Boys. To be pithy and not drag this on i would like to ask all you Gamespotters out there to give your thoughts to this argument, to fill in or out anything i might have missed or left out. Please give us your opinions to shed better light onto this matter. Classic7

Just beat Super Mario Bros. in 15 minutes. The world record is five minutes, so i think mines atleast pretty good.

The Guy you love to hate Liquid Snake

Period