Be very, very quiet ... I'm playing an awesome game.

I've enjoyed stealth games since the original "Thief." Now, there's a new one in town, "Horizon Zero Dawn." Basically, it's a girl with a bow and arrow versus robot monsters. Woohoo! Since it's an open world environment, there's plenty of danger all around and you'll find yourself doing things very carefully a lot. Patience is a key factor, since the actual chances of being discovered are fairly slim. Still, I'm glad to see a new game using good stealth mechanics.

I do have to wonder why stealth is so easy now? The old games were brutally tough (which probably wouldn't go over so well these days), but rewarded not only patience but foresight and imagination. Chances of winning on the first try were basically zero. There was a true threat of failure on a consistent basis. I miss the danger.

And that brings up the question of why games are either fairly easy or impossibly difficult (such as the Dark Souls games). What happened to pleasantly hard? With tough games, the likelihood of playing through again rises--because you want to show how good you now are, by repeating the game with fewer dying moments. This still happens, but it's somehow not the same. I loved ghosting a whole level in "Thief" without ever being spotted. That was some great fun!

- M