4. Syphon Filter
Syphon Filter was released in 1999 for the PlayStation. It received good reviews, spawned several sequels and was ported to numerous different platforms. Nowadays, it would be crippled by its short length, the underdeveloped game mechanics and little choice given to the player. The combat in Syphon Filter is very simple: no matter what gun you have equipped, you can automatically lock onto your enemy and shoot them or hold down a button to use free aim and shoot. However, the free aiming was clunky and gamers would mostly rely on the auto lock aiming system to shoot and kill, and mostly leave the free aiming for shooting windows. This meant that there was very little difference in the experiences using the different guns, they all felt extremely similar. This, to current gamers, would be boring and overly simplistic. Games now try to capture the feeling and difference in power and style of different weapons as gamers now want more realism and depth to the underlying structure of their games. The idea of shooting different guns is not enough any more, the guns need to feel different, to shoot and recoil different. Syphon Filter was promoted as a stealth game. Compared to any current stealth game though, and it suddenly become a lot less apparent. The stealth mechanics are not developed upon and it could be claimed the game does not qualify as a stealth game. As the gaming industry has matured, the expectations from genres and how many features a specific genre should contain has significantly increased. For example, in a stealth game, one now expects sneaky movement mechanics, stealth weaponry and gadgets, camouflage mechanics and stealth based information in their interface. Games like Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell raised the bar for all stealth games and now, Syphon Filter just wouldn't cut it.