10 Problems With The Metal Gear Series Nobody Wants To Admit

5. Sneaking Should Be Harder

The stealth gaming genre remains a niche, but less of a niche than when Metal Gear was getting going. For the longest time their only serious competitor was the Tenchu series, the feudal Japan ninja games suffering also from bad controls and rock-hard difficulty levels that stopped it from ever crossing over in the same way as Konami's series. But since then, it's become a more crowded sub-genre. Most recently there was Alien Isolation, a first-person sequel to the original Alien horror/sci-fi more par excellence which broke the mould of previous games by focussing not on shooting everything that moves but hiding from that big terrifying xenomorph...which was easier said than done, since it would figure out your tricks and favoured hiding places. In stark contrast, then, to the Metal Gear series which allows you to run into a room away from a stream of guards, and find safe solace in a cardboard box or a locker, which are rarely investigated unless you make a noise. Sneaking is the main mechanic of the Metal Gear games, but it's rarely actually that challenging. The real challenge is shooting in a straight line.