Splinter Cell: Blacklist

SHORT VERSION: Underneath the many small flaws and irritations, SplinterCell:Blacklist is still "OK" in the end, and sometimes even enjoyable. I can recommend it at the sale price.

LONG VERSION: Sorry, but I will have to go against consensus and say this is no better than SplinterCell:Conviction, which was average in my opinion. The intro video is great, but the rest of the game does not hold up quite as well.

As with the last game, the campaign story is decent - very much like a typical Hollywood action movie, and most enjoyable if you don't try to think too hard. Gameplay mechanics are OK - fairly solid and very conventional. There are the typical minor issues and inconsistencies, but nothing too bad. As usual you observe the predefined enemy patrols, and sneak past when a gap inevitably appears. If you follow this rule successfully, you are never forced to improvise (unless its scripted). Level design is still too tight and linear, offering no real freedom in how to approach an objective, but this is normal for mainstream console games. I do miss the greater freedom of movement games like IGI 2, Stalker, and ARMA offer though, when you are infiltrating enemy positions. At least the visual detail in some areas was quite good. There is also the usual over emphasis on cover in the level design. Whether you are sneaking or shooting, you will spend most of your time glued to cover and pressing a key to dash to the next conveniently placed cover object. I can put up with this, but it gets repetitive quickly - the market is already saturated with cover based shooters.

Sam's new voice actor and model are less likable. He used to be mature, calm, witty and cynical, but now he comes across like a smug jerk. And they made him younger and heavier - he looks like a steroid-pumped rip-off Commander Shepherd from Mass Effect. He also looks angry all the time and delivers so many lame pep-talk statements with a cold suave voice. I liked the main villain more! The setup of Sam's new team is less believable - A small group of super elite ex-teens with total freedom, subject to absolutely no bureaucracy, with "license to kill", who report directly to the US president? come on! Also, the depiction of technology is so full of BS, even by SplinterCell standards, that it is immersion breaking. The computer interface the protagonists use looks more like gibberish alien tech from Starwars than something from real life. It seems the devs tried too hard to impress gamers who they assume are just as dull-minded and tech illiterate as them. Most video games lack plausibility to varying extents, but Blacklist is one of the worst offenders.

The control scheme has been changed since last game, and for the worse. Who thought binding "Use", "Open/Smash Door", "Climb/Vault" and "Move to next cover" all to 1 button was a good idea? (you cannot change this). This is not a game breaking flaw, but is it really asking too much to let us use separate buttons for everything on our 100+ key controllers (aka keyboards). Controls feel a bit sluggish and sometimes even unresponsive. The 3rd person camera feels wrong - too much randomly changing perspective and mouse sensitivity. Night vision is near useless, might as well turn up gamma on my monitor. Alt-tab no longer works (at least not for me in Dx11). I did not have many of these problems in SplinterCell:Conviction.

SplinterCell:Blacklist is now obsessed with social networking, "unlockables" and "achievements" - I don't want this rammed down my throat all the time, I just want to play the game. There are ridiculous OTT cyber themed backgrounds in the menu that do nothing but irritate and make it difficult to read what is on screen. Pre-rendered cutscenes permanently have an annoying animated "loading" animation in the foreground. As usual there is a rubbish checkpoint save system: If you reload after getting killed, you may get spawned somewhere you never passed through. Want to load from before a cutscene you missed due to a no-video bug? Nope. Watch it over-compressed on youtube. FOV is often far too low, so if you get motion sick easily, don't play this game. Why did they not add a FOV slider like in FarCry3? And why did they remove the black-and-white screen effect to show you were in the shadows? It was much more intuitive than the silly LED that now lights up on Sam's back. As expected, AI detection is quite arcade or inconsistent - if you scramble (loudly) to the next cover object in plain sight, no one sees or hears you, but if a dog barks at you (while you are hidden), everyone in the area instantly telepathically knows where you are. Like in FarCry3, dogs are much more formidable foes than professional bad guys with assault rifles. Unlike in ChaosTheory, ambient noises are not realistically taken into account when AI hear you. With all these things, its all about thinking (without higher thought) like a console gamer and sticking to the scripted and contrived rules of the game even if they go against common sense. The decent orchestral soundtrack of SplinterCell Conviction has been replaced by some bland electronic bass dross - all noise and no soul, like in FarCry3 - there's no accounting for taste.

As for multiplayer: "The Splinter Cell Blacklist service is not available. Please try again later."

Overall this is by no means a 'bad game'. None of the flaws are game breaking, and if you can live with all the irritations I mentioned, you will probably enjoy it. Otherwise, you should put Ubisoft, Uplay, and this game on your blacklist.

I'm sure it's great if you are a hardcore gamer, but my wife and I played for 5 hours on rookie and couldn't get through a single mission. We aren't pro gamers but definitely aren't noobs either. When I play a game I play it to enjoy it, not to make me want to throw my controller through my TV. I play most games on normal or hard without a problem. Splinter cel conviction we played a lot on hard, and found it to be a lot of fun, and barely ever failed a mission. Gears of war I play on hard, halo, tons of shooters. The AI actually quite stupid on rookie, but that doesn't change the fact that taking out 6 heavily armed mercs with a wimpy gun that takes 10 straight head shots to kill and having no place to sneak behind them is a rather difficult task. Don't get me wrong, some parts of the game are so retardedly easy I could nearly play it blindfolded, but that doesn't really compensate properly. Thank goodness I bought at Costco so I can return this no fun game.

In spite of Conviction being dreck, this follows it, even leaving in the daughter, although we get good drama from the calls to her. A group known as The Engineers threatens terrorist attacks on US soil if they do not pull out of overseas bases. Thus, the charismatic villain does what he should, and bring up a debate. This is not a personal story, albeit there are flashes of such it never takes over, and they got the Bourne copying out of their system… hey, I love that franchise, but it does not mix with this. The plot moves fast, is highly detailed, not completely avoiding clichés. Tom Clancy(R.I.P.) lived to see the release of this, and it lives up to his legacy: mature, realistic, political spy thriller that follows the current climate.

This is the first of these to not have Michael Ironside, and it is a great loss. Recast(in part to allow motion capture by the same man) is Bland, er, I mean, Sam, Fischer(Johnson, driven, some Jack Bauer going on). While it's not his fault, that is still what we ended up with. No, he does well, albeit sounding too young. We have some cool dialog, with humor, banter, and clear relationships. The characters are archetypes, such as the nerd, who is sometimes annoying as the comic relief. Several return from earlier. Everyone is super-serious all the time, Grim isn't just the name of one of the characters, it's the mood of every one of them. The controls are somewhat stiff and not intuitive or fluid. Problems(a few, yes, still, there shouldn't be any at all) arise because one key can do more than one thing, in the same situation.

No, this isn't on par with the first four. Nevertheless, it is pretty good. The levels are organic and cool(reuse of some areas within one mission, and using someone who worked with the bad guys, gets monotonous), based on actual locations around the Middle East and the West, such as a water plant, a mansion, and, of course, in and on the outside of, a train(if it ain't broke). They allow linear progression through some areas, then opening up to ones that have multiple paths, and you choose whether, and how much to, blowing enemies up and away, or sneaking. You have a number of tools focused on the latter, and the former is enabled via the third-person-shooter elements of this. Go direct or use acrobatics: scale walls and go in through an upper window, or climb through a large room via a system of pipes. From up there, you can use one-handed equipment, unless a nearby foe is countering it(!). That means your pistol, stun gun/crossbow and gadgets, the last-mentioned two allowing use of sleeping gas, noisemakers and sticky-shocker. Of course, not your two-handed. These can be restocked at the relatively frequent boxes, or replaced with those of the fallen.

This retains the mechanics of hiding in the dark and in silence, as premiered in Thief. You note patrol paths and guard posts, keeping in mind that they can change when you return to the most saved checkpoint(yes, those get frustrating) and often intersect, and plan how you approach it. They check *everywhere*, and investigate(even when they don't see you do it) if something is toggled… a lightswitch, the state of a door(open/closed), and this means both that you have to be careful and maybe take that extra second or two to leave things the way you found them, risking being seen as you do… *and* it's a way you can lure someone away from where they were, to bypass them altogether. The sidemissions are samey, and made to be, and thus really feel, skippable. They're there to grind. The coop elements can be awkward. They do also give fun experiences. The graphics look great without requiring too much, and you can almost always turn the camera 360 degrees.

The multiplayer is addictive. There are 5 modes and 6 settings(including a decimated hospital, a Uranium mine and a silo). "Blacklist" and "Classic"(the same, though with almost no light, making it "hide and seek" with lethal results!), the most popular, focus on hacking or defending consoles, the three of which have to be taken one at a time, meaning it gets tougher the closer you are to victory. You have to hide in the area while it's underway, with you and fellow players(teamwork is key!) protecting you. There aren't that many playing today. You are at the mercy of the matchmaking when playing online, unless you set up a private match and/or invite friends. There aren't that many, certainly not enough to keep you around, things to buy and upgrade, unlike something like Assassin's Creed III, perhaps part of why it's less active today. Customizing up to three(in addition to the original 3, so you always have choices) for both sides(and for SP) does enable you to make very different setups, with stats(stealth, speed, armor, etc.), and specific features and counters.

The Spies are fast, agile, climbing walls, hiding and striking from there. Their 10 firearms are largely SMGs. They have defensive, hiding or "tricking" items to use... EMP, smoke grenades, cloaking. Conversely, the Mercs use destructive, revealing or disabling ones… proximity mines, tracking vision that detects electronic signals, and a small, flown drone that can explode. They run around each with an assault rifle, a shotgun or even a light machinegun(!), 15 total. Pitting the two against each other challenges and gives some strength to both. Sections and situations favor one over the other, such as camping, with only minor issues following. And they're not limited to using their own team's type in the dynamic and frantic Team Deathmatch, where diverse abilities are constantly in play, and it can be over in mere minutes.

There is a lot of disturbing content and some bloody violence in this. I recommend this to any fan of the series and of the genre. 7/10

Splinter Cell: Blacklist has something for everyone. It brings the best bits from Conviction and Chaos Theory to appease seasoned fans, and allows more freedom of choice, appealing to action gamers in general.

You are allowed one of three ways to approach a mission; Ghost (non-lethal stealth), Panther (lethal stealth), or Assault (cause as much carnage as possible). Whichever you choose, finding cover and playing tactically is vital to success.

Blacklist presents a different Sam Fisher than we're used to seeing. Gone are the witty one-liners, instead he goes about his business with stone-cold efficiency. His obvious resentment of pretty much everything paints the game with a dark overtone.

A terrorist cell creates a list of planned attacks against the US, called The Blacklist. It makes no secret of when the attacks will happen, but "where" and "what" are unknown, causing fear and hysteria. The President calls in Fisher and assigns him his own counter-terrorism unit, and told they can do whatever they need to do to get the job done.

The single player campaign is really fun but a little too short, but there are several co-op side missions to play.

The major downside to this game is definitely the Spies vs. Mercs multiplayer game. Spies vs. Mercs is so incredibly unfun and pointless. It dosen't build upon any of the strengths of the rest of the game and is a complete waste of time. I really hope they get rid of Spies vs. Mercs in any future Splinter Cell game. Instead they can concentrate on adding more co op missions and making the single player campaign longer.

Blacklist is a great addition to the series.

Clearly a good splinter cell, but i still dont like the action part of the game. I prefer to kill nobody and stay completely silent. We can with this game to do this alleluiah!. The story was pretty good too. They have the terrorist story and the story between Sam Fisher and his daughter. I clearly enjoyed to see this "emotion" part of the game and make the story engaging and interesting and want to keep up. This splinter cell is still a very good stealth game for sure.