The sneaking section in Sin. The fighting in Thief: Deadly Shadows. The stealth parts of No One Lives Forever. The puzzles in Ninja Gaiden. The racing sections in Giants.

What have all the above things got in common? Weak aspects to great games. I’m all for a bit of variety but sometimes it feels like a developer is banging a square peg into a round hole with efforts like this. A stealth level shoe-horned into an action game almost always feels horrible, ditto the puzzles in a kickass fighter like Ninja Gaiden.

There are exceptions - Chronicles of Riddick got both action and stealth spot on, but then they plainly made both a strong focus during development rather than adding in one of the other as an afterthought. Similarly, occasionally a nice diversion is welcome. The fun mini games in Jade Empire are a perfect example but they’re so minor that they don’t have to be anything but decent (which they more than are).

The lesson in this briefest of articles? It’s in the title. I’m all for developers trying something a bit different (look at Ritual and FAKK2 or Raven and Xmen Legends), just don’t do it half way through a game in a genre you’re already good at unless you’re really sure it fits. Otherwise it just becomes a jarringly weak link in an otherwise strong chain.