It forever changed: Cinematic conventions within video games and stealth gameplay. Remember the first time you saw Metal Gear Solid in-action? It was jaw-dropping. It didn't matter that the bodies barely animated and the faces themselves were mushed-together messes of pixels that nodded sporadically to simulate mouth movements... this was a playable movie, dammit. Creator Hideo Kojima would then suitably disappeared up his own jacksie with a fantastically ludicrous plot involving clones, lifelike A.I.s and cancer-preventing blood cell-computers, a devoted fanbase following in tow. Since then the very act of 'directing' your game's cutscenes like a movie became commonplace, with titles like the Devil May Cry series or Platinum Games' many releases employing heavily-stylised camerawork. Not only that, MGS also helped take a genre that had emerged in the first Metal Gear for the NES; stealth. By twinning the likes of the immaculately produced (for the time) cut-scenes along with core gameplay that asked you stay well out the way of guards, instead learning patrol patterns and succeeding through 'tactical espionage action', this completely changed everything you thought you knew about level progression and general video game storytelling in a big way.
