PDA

View Full Version : The return of Sam Fisher - Splinter Cell: Blacklist



Morgarion
2013-09-09, 08:02 AM
Has anyone else played it? I just completed the final missions yesterday evening. Overall, I have to say I'm quite satisfied with it. I think the gameplay is great and it's just a lot of fun to play. In hindsight, the story was trite and unsatisfying. I still think that removing Michael Ironside from his role as the voice of Sam Fisher is a serious misstep for the franchise. Between the voice and the mocap, he's lost all of the age and experience that Ironside brought to the character.

Aside from making Fisher a twenty two year kid with grey hair, my biggest point of confusion actually has to do with the critical community and fan base. I remember Conviction took a lot of flak for 'doing away with' the stealth and focusing on run-and-gun style gameplay. In my own experience, the difference between Conviction and the other Splinter Cell games was that even though the stealthy approach was still the most practicable, they made it easier to try to shoot your way through - it still didn't work very well.

I think that Conviction certainly didn't do much to encourage an approach that Blacklist would call 'Ghost'; between the level layouts and the features/equipment at your disposal, I think most of Conviction almost necessitates a 'Panther' style of play. So what's the big deal?

Exactly. What is the big deal? From what I've seen, most people play Splinter Cell the way that you had to play Conviction anyways. Let's not forget, also, that the point of the game was that Sam Fisher's express intent was to deliver every inch of Third Echelon to hell. A lot of people were upset that you couldn't 'be stealthy' and sneak by your enemies anymore. But who does that to begin with? From what I've seen of how people play Blacklist (i.e. 'stealth approach' youtube walkthroughs), people aren't actually attempting stealth.

JSSheridan
2013-09-09, 09:24 AM
Planning to pick this up during a Black Friday sale or some time.

And I do think not bringing Ironside back to voice Fisher was a mistake.

Thomas Cardew
2013-09-09, 10:07 AM
I haven't played blacklist yet, though I will probably pick it up when it gets much cheaper.

I can't speak for anyone else but I know I tried to sneak past enemies in every version of Splinter Cell I played. I've replayed the first one at least a dozen times with no fatalities. Including Nikoladze who I managed to take out with sticky shocker instead of a bullet :smallcool:. I've played Pandora Tomorrow probably 12+ times with no alarms and only killing when the game FORCES you to kill. (We have no choice Sam, we need to have them dead.) I played Chaos Theory the same way.

You know what I haven't replayed: Conviction. Between the lack of stealth mechanics/options, the focus on forced killing, and the DRM, I don't think I'll ever touch it again. And it's not just the DRM, if I can put up with it once I can put up with it again if the story/gameplay was good enough. Conviction wasn't for me.

I want to be ghost in the night. I want to slip and out and have people never know I was there. Failing that I want only bad hangovers and headaches to be traces. I don't want to be Rambo charging in and murdering the whole base. I don't want to play another shooter, I want to be playing a stealth game.

Domochevsky
2013-09-09, 04:33 PM
Hm... Blacklist. I hear that game got rap for heavily featuring the (100% successful) torture of various dudes (again). Seems a bit suspect. :smallconfused:

Morgarion
2013-09-09, 07:34 PM
Yeah. There was a scene in one of the gameplay trailers with some knifeplay. They removed the sequence and completely redrew the level. I knew about the torture thing, but I was still confused when I got to that part of the game and none of the stuff was where I had expected it to be.