Game link: http://splintercell.ubi.com/blacklist/en-us/home/
Steam link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/235600/
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell series was once the number one choice for stealth lovers, but with each subsequent success has come a desire to attract new audiences. Splinter Cell: Conviction was the most recent and exceedingly bold attempt to appeal to a more action-oriented crowd, abandoning the carefully structured and methodical pacing of series highlight Chaos Theory, and adopting a frenetic style where bullets reigned over the auspicious use of shadows. With Splinter Cell: Blacklist, newly formed developer Ubisoft Toronto want to appeal to all, bridging the gap between both distinct playstyles with a plethora of choice that’s embedded into its numerous and accomplished systems. Surprisingly, It’s a formula that works, even if it sometimes lacks the requisite certitude to elevate itself to a higher perch.
This new entry basically takes everything that worked in Conviction, gets rid of what didn’t, and brings back the sneakiness and gadgetry that fans missed. The result is a game where action and stealth support and complement each other perfectly, giving you an unprecedented range of options to deal with any given situation.
At the start, there’s nothing to play until the interrogation ends and Fisher, information secured, must escape. Once that part begins, Fisher is in a new part of the Guantánamo Bay complex, where there are no prisoners or anything else with any political charge. There are just the American guards that he is trying to avoid — they couldn’t possibly understand his sensitive mission — and a camp full of hiding spaces and shadows. It’s on the player to use the geometry of the camp to sneak out, to know when to run, what to climb and how to leave as little trace as possible.
The maps, in both the single-player and coop, are superb, supporting vertical movement in a way that Conviction did not, and providing alternative routes that make bypassing enemies much more of a viable tactic than it has been in any previous version of the game. Sam’s gadgets are very satisfying to deploy, especially the sticky-cam and the Tri-Rotor drone, and none of them spoil the game play by overpowering the player, who must still thread his way through the maps with patience and guile. Going loud is a viable option, however, and much better realized than it was in Conviction, which was bloodthirsty and gun-crazy but essentially non-tactical. An extensive and well thought-out equipment upgrade tree requires the player to find his own compromise between stealth and aggression and it’s Sam’s speed of movement from cover to cover as well as his enhanced defenses and firepower that make Blacklist’s all-out gun play more than just a futile way of dealing with the consequences of mistakes made in stealth mode.
We've seen Ubisoft inject winning formulae into its various franchises to great effect (Assassin's Creed-like towers in Far Cry 3 say hello), but it's been shockingly unsubtle in its approach with Blacklist. This is a shame, because when these sigh-inducing moments pass and you're back into the Splinter Cell experience for realsies it's an utter blast. Your ability to enjoy those moments of greatness will likely correlate to how tied you've been with Sam's back catalogue. So with all of that, I would give this game a score 8 out of 10.
What about you guys ,Should you don the goggles yourself to stop the terrorists, or let what waits in the shadows stay there? Why don't you share your thoughts in the comment section down below
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