Introduction
Stolen – PS2
Being an ex-chef, we thought Nick Haywood would like a slice of Stolen… (That’s STOLLEN for the cake/chef gag to work- Nick)… See, stroppy, isn’t he?
Sometimes you can actually see the thought processes that go into the creation of game. Not so often with really innovative products that do something new, but with those games that slot neatly into a genre you can see exactly what the level designers, artists and programmers were thinking when they sat down and started thrashing out the game you’re playing.
A cynical person might think that the thought processes behind Stolen have gone roughly along the lines of ‘We need to cash in on the Sam Fisher/Splinter Cell/Stealth thing but ripping off Sam won’t sell so let’s use a chick instead of a guy but then she’ll look too much like Lara so we’ll dress her in black and throw her into a near future world. That way we can use lots of techie bits and everyone will love all the extra gadgets and gizmos we can give her and we’ll all be happy…’ I’m not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing, ripping off the best bits of other games is fine, doing it well benefits the gamer, but have the developers done this well?
Well, to put it bluntly, Stolen has been true to it's title and taken ideas from Splinter Cell, Thief, Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid and just about any other platform/sneaky game you can mention. That's not a crime in itself, after all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But the real crime is that Stolen’s implementation of those ideas is just so cack-handed as to make you glad you’ve played the others and perhaps even drive you back to them.