Ted Dedon

In 1998, Konami resurrected its old, relatively established franchise, Metal Gear. This time there was a new idea in mind, an idea that was certainly one to remember. Hideo Kojima -- the world-renown game developer -- and his team crafted what was to become one of the most critically acclaimed and highly revered games ever made. Not only was this game just good from the critical standpoint, it created an entire genre that would soon become one of the fastest growing and most prominent that the next generation of consoles would see. This game was called Metal Gear Solid. Originally released on the Sony Playstation and later ported to the PC Metal Gear Solid quickly became the front-and-center game at the moment due to the rave reviews and incredible fan buzz. Almost as soon as it came out it was directly heralded as one of the best games ever made. Still to this very day that statement holds true on every account.

The reason Metal Gear Solid is still remembered today is generally due to its amazing characters, story, and overall direction. The game stars the charismatic, silent but deadly, super soldier Solid Snake. Throughout the game he encounters many memorable characters and fights infamous villains through some of the most intense boss battles that were ever witnessed in a videogame up until that point. The story itself was also quite a feat; it rivaled that of most story-driven adventure or role playing games of that time but also had the intense stealth-action gameplay to back it up. It was really quite an amazing game.

Metal Gear Solid is credited with this generation's big breakthrough of stealth-action videogames. Games like Hitman, Hitman 2, and Manhunt all spawned from the basic idea Metal Gear Solid presented in 1998. The genre has been growing at such a rapid rate that even games that are in entirely different genres are using stealth-action as a gameplay element. Some of the more notable cases of games like that are Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and the Shenmue games. The genre is catching on, and is going on the upward spiral as it should. By next generation it really wouldn't be surprising if the genre steps up to the plate in the league of role playing games, shooters, and sports games.

Though there have been a lot of stealth-action games in the last few years, very few of them have been really all that great. Naturally, Kojima and his team released the follow-up to Metal Gear Solid titled Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Sons of Liberty wound up getting rave reviews just as the first one did, and was held in the same regard as the original game. When all was said and done, Sons of Liberty was a worthy sequel to the original Metal Gear Solid which is quite a lofty game to match up to. As said before, there were not many games that stood out as great when the influx of new games started coming out and exploiting the genre. But, there was one game; one game that really stood out.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell was this game's name. The thing that really floored fans was the way that it approached the genre. As opposed to Metal Gear Solid and Sons of Liberty, Splinter Cell was much more focused on the basic gameplay and atmospheric presentation rather than the stories, setting, and characters. Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher was certainly a cool character, but he lacked the depth or mysticism surrounding Solid Snake. Naturally, the game's story didn't quite compete with Metal Gear Solid's or Sons of Liberty's story, but the gameplay of Splinter Cell almost blew both Metal Gear Solid games clear out of the water. There had never been - up until that point - a single game that truly had the stealth-action gameplay fine-tuned that close of perfection. You almost really felt like you were a super spy who was slinking around in the shadows. Splinter Cell - on top of the great gameplay - also had the best graphics and was the most technically impressive console game at that time in 2002. If you were looking for a game to show off whatever system you had (it ended up on all of the systems), that was the game to get.

As soon as Splinter Cell finally hit shelves in November of 2002 for the Xbox, raging debates ensued as to which stealth-action game was the one to rule them all. Splinter Cell rolled in the high reviews, great fan buzz, and overall positive approval by the general public just as Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty did only one year before that. So as you can imagine, the debates were generally at a deadlock when it came to which game was better than the other. It usually just ended up in an agreement to disagree because opinions can't really be proven wrong.