Well, this is an old thread, but then, it's a quiet forum, so I think I'll bump it to say the following, which has probably all been said before, but what the heck:
- It would be very nice if the game took a leaf from Splinter Cell's book, and gave the ability to swing a choked/chloroformed/throat-slit/stunned enemy straight onto one's back by holding down the attack key through the animation -- having our man laying his victim out on the ground in front of him every time he catches someone unrealistically inflates the difficulty.
- A connected issue to this would be removing the 'stowing weapon' animation when you try picking up a body while armed. The extra fraction-of-a-second this adds to the picking-up animation is frequently the difference between life and death, and there is no real reason for it. Perhaps keep the 'stowing animation' if the character is holding a
rifle, but please abandon it for one-handed equipment and weaponry -- in real life, he could use his other arm to begin the lifting process at the same time he's stowing his pistol/knife/etc. You wouldn't necessarily have to 'blend' animations like that if it's too much of a technical nuisance -- just making the weapon vanish from his hand would work fine.
- It would be pretty neat to have many more 'contextual body-hiding spots' -- at the moment, there's just the backs of trucks, but it would be great to be able to roll people under beds, and stuff corpses into barrels (perhaps one could be prohibited from putting
unconscious people in barrels, since they aren't as pliant as corpses). You wouldn't necessarily need to make new animations to do this -- add a context menu option to the hidingplace and use a quick fadeout like you do when stowing a body in a truck.
Speaking of context menus -- I'd REALLY LIKE to be able to pick up a body with a keypress, rather then the very awkward "hold down the use key and whisk my right hand over to the arrow keys to scroll down to wherever 'PICK UP BODY' is every time I want to move a body" process. Splinter Cell resolves this by opening the use-key menu with 'pick up body' already selected -- that way a quick keypress will immediately lift a body, but holding the key down will keep the menu open for 'normal' use. I wonder if it might be useful to have a quicker-but-noisier 'DRAG body' option, but I can't say I've thought that one through much, heh.
I like Death To Spies, it shows loads of promise; a few good tweaks to smooth out the process and it'll be even better.
