Houseside

I'd like to pick your brain a bit. I recently finished a playthru of the PS3 remaster version of Frontline, and set out to get the Platinum trophy for it. I accomplished that but beating the game on Hard and getting gold medals was insanely tough!

With your experience in level/game design today, how would you revamp a level like Enemy Mine? It is the only level in the game that is purely on-rails, and as such, the key to either surviving (on Hard) or getting a Gold medal is almost purely based on knowing every enemy spawn location like the back of your hand, as well as a healthy dose of luck. This level doesn't hold up well because there aren't any options to fine-tune the analog stick aiming controls, and sometimes the hit detection is wonky and shots don't register. The remaster makes this level even worse than normal because of the new dynamic lighting in place, which enshrouds most areas in dark shadows which makes the enemies way harder to see. It would be interesting to see how this would all be handled if the you and/or the team could have another crack at it.

Also the enemies in the later levels who have the Gewher semi-auto rifles are evil demons on Hard difficulty! They can absolutely destroy your life bar in a second flat and the second to last mission has a machine gun nest event trigger which spawns at least ten to fifteen of these soldiers, which is necessary for a Gold medal. Absolutely a nightmare even on Normal difficulty lol

It's interesting you say this. I always felt like the games would've been cooler if the stealth and espionage aspects were more heavily emphasized. The player could've been incentivized into using stealth optionally as a way to unlock extra goodies (cheats, gag reel videos, multiplayer stuff, etc.) It's a shame even today there aren't many proper fps titles with stealth gameplay in them. It would've been cool for the debriefings to actually have more use, and the player could pick up hidden intel which could reveal enemy layouts, fortifications, armaments, etc. in future missions.