Ubisoft has confidently stated that Sam Fisher's ops are "blacker than black". That's to say, if the guys from Black Ops were to see Fisher pulling off one of his super-murky, goggle-suited ops, they'd whistle, then turn to each other and comment appreciatively on the deep, forbidding blackness of the ops they had just witnessed.
How does a man get that special kind of bluey blackness into his ops? He runs around stabbing people in the neck. That's Killing In Motion, and we'll come back to that.
Fisher is up against a pretty black list, too. A group of nations who've reacted to America's global military presence by beginning a terrorist procession of increasingly rude atrocities. It's just the kind of threat that America likes, because it means it can put aside those nagging introspective doubts about its cripplingly expensive role as GloboCop, and launch a bigger, better War on Terror.
The Killing In Motion system lets Sam spring across the maps like an exuberant death puppy, slashing as he vaults, and using the execute system every so often to tag and take down multiple enemies, in a slow-motion bullet carnival. Ubisoft games are cross-pollinating each other quite richly at the moment, and the Active Sprint system is reminiscent of Assassin's Creed's semi-automated movement. Fisher can negotiate uneven terrains without too much button-tapping.
Being in charge of the Third Echelon gives you casual access to the latest tech. Micro-Triotor drones can be used to mark or distract enemies, or scout ahead. You can even detonate it with the force of a grenade, which is a Micro-Triotor's way of panicking.
The Snake Cam gets an upgrade, and the buzz-kill Sticky Shockers make a welcome return. At the other end of the tech spectrum, the ferocious Karambit knife features heavily in the promotional material, slicing effortlessly through a series of terrorist jugulars as part of the Killing In Motion sequences.
At first reveal, there were some rumours that this might be a prequel. After all, recent Fisher adventures have him pegged as an outsider, rather than BFFs with the President. But that's a possibility that's excluded by the echelon upgrade - Third Echelon has been closed down as an unhelpful "rogue intelligence agency". Nature abhors a vacuum, and you can't just go around not having echelons - the deep and bluey blackness of Fisher's latest ops are "Fourth Echelon". That's an echelon increase of 33%.
It's a physically demanding process that requires the actors to get involved, recording their physical movement, facial expressions and voice acting at the same time. Which means the role has suddenly become a little demanding for 62-year-old Ironside. That didn't stop him coming out to show his support for the new guy, Eric Johnson.
14 comments so far...
Bezza89 on 25 Jun '12 said:
Looks great, just wish they would grow some balls and have a different main character, because they wont change the games name for fear of it not selling.
Clanger67 on 25 Jun '12 said:
Looks great but it isn't SC anymore.You won't even get to hear the proper Sam either.What remains that is true and faithful to the originals ? and by that i don't mean don't move with the times.Just makes me sad that so many promising series' have all gone the way of the Dodo.
krisskross on 25 Jun '12 said:
^ Completely agree, it looks good from the footage but you just know there won't be much challenge in it and that one button can do virtually everything so that its "accessible"
It all plays very slick but all the cool moves etc won't be hard to complete and that's what saddens me. If you want to make it more actiony then at least include some serious challenge into accomplishing those cool scenes because the player will enjoy it more when they successfully manage it! Dammit games industry stop crossing genres in order to make sales 
Clanger67 on 25 Jun '12 said:
Codename21 on 25 Jun '12 said:
As much as I loved the (original) Splinter Cell series, I have a problem with this (and perhaps the last 2 entries into the series) seriously, forgetting game play changes for a second here; but, who the f**k is writing the scripts these days, seriously?!
*SPOILERS*
Double Agent - Your daughter is killed - your angry about it and uncover some sort of conspiracy by becoming a double agent and something something something, american separation group angry something....it didn't really make much sense...
Conviction - Your daughter was killed - you're angry about it, you decide to kill everybody involved in the conspiracy, but your daughter ISNT really dead, it was all a conspiracy to uncover another conspiracy discovered by your former Boss/Handler who you may (or may not have) shot at the end of Double Agent....but forget about that, lets just attack the White House directly because the only way to "escalate" in these sorts of plots now is to threaten the President of the US-of-A...
BlackList - Sam Fisher must be 60yrs old now, Third Echelon is dead and disbanded, so the President decides to open a new one called "Fourth Echelon"....it's obviously 1 better than the last one... and the only operative that can be trusted is the geriatric Sam Fisher - nice one guys creative writing there....!
Clanger67 on 25 Jun '12 said:
^^^^^
Really quite funny.Except the geriatric Sam Fisher is now going to have somebody voicing him aged about twenty one (not sure how old he is).
Edit: Sorry he is 32/33.
Bezza89 on 25 Jun '12 said:
The voice actor is alright, he is Luke in Rookie Blue on Universal channel, a canadian cop show. It's not amazing but very watchable. Does no one else think Sam should be Lambert, and the new voice actor who is half Sams age should be a new character allowing for an explanation in a complete dumping of previous games gameplay?? I'm an amateur and what I've said is 50 times more credible than anything UBIsoft can conjour to even try to explain what they've done.
Decent_Jam on 25 Jun '12 said:
The game definitely seems less stealthy, that much is clear. They seem to be targeting their already established Assassin's Creed audience, possibly for all-year-round Ubisoft gaming? (providing the schedules work obviously).
I have only played Conviction, and though I enjoyed it, and actually completed it in single player, which any regular will tell you is unusual for me, I feel like this gung-ho approach loses something.
There's definitely weight to Bezza's argument. Since Sam and Michael are showing their age, why not pass the torch to a young rookie, who still has plenty to learn and who is still very gung-ho, but gradually learns the art and majestic nature of stealth through patience and training. You could get a decent character arc out of that with the right motivations and writing.
Doesn't look like one I'm particularly interested in, immediate impressions make me think that you'll have to think less tactically and just do whatever you fancy, if you go loud - who cares? Quick work for your infeasible ninja-like skills...
EDIT: I forgot to say but GREAT article. I want to read things like this about pretty much every game I'm considering buying, there's a real sense of what the game is like here, just from the words. Reviews are all well and good, but largely I've made my choice by then, following the development process with things like this after a hands on (presumably?) are absolutely what the doctor ordered.
Clanger67 on 25 Jun '12 said:
Yeah but like you said in the first post they aren't gonna change the name.If they also change Sam that will probably alienate the remaining people who just want the new action SC.
Plus i wasn't calling the voice bloke i knew he had been on some TV stuff,but Ubis. excuse for not using Ironside is he is sixty and the schedule will be a bit too much.
Hasn't stopped Sam though has it.
CunningSmile on 25 Jun '12 said:
Does anyone know if the story picks up from the end of conviction? The whole conspiracy by a group that sounds like a Japanese sweet was left dangling after foiling the assassination.
Spiderless on 26 Jun '12 said:
Anyone else feel a little shocked by the start of the gameplay video? Fisher carrying a dead/mortally wounded guy into a tent with his mates and then while they mourn/feel a little sad about his death, Fisher murders them all stone dead. But don't worry, they're terrorists!
I know the series has always had a lot of murdering in it but I'm sure Fisher had a little bit of a conscience in the old games, for example when Morgenholt gets tortured in the first level of Chaos Theory, Sam seems upset and angry about it.
I'm not really looking forward to Blacklist at all.
Clanger67 on 26 Jun '12 said:
Thing is though in the beginning of the series you could go through the whole game without pretty much murdering anyone.But now the series is all action so MDK.
Bezza89 on 26 Jun '12 said:
Yeah it's like finding out Lambert is dead - who in their right mind would a) play double agent and kill lambert first time and not for an achievement, and b) in canon why would Sam kill his best friend when he can easily overcome all the bad guys - especially if in later games he can do backflips on their necks etc.
This looks great, but it needs a different angle on it, as I said and was brilliantly added to before - Fisher the boss, new guy gungho and learns to be stealth master. UBI are tards.
Spiderless on 26 Jun '12 said:
Never did understand that in Conviction, I remember it being quite casually mentioned/skipped over "oh and you killed Lambert, now about that other stuff..." as if they knew it was stupid and just hoped you didn't notice.
I like your idea of Fisher being boss chap and having a new splinter cell. However I expect they've already done a lot of the voice work with 'Fisher' in it, so I think it should be his daughter, only (because they've got a male voice actor) she had a sex change. Problem solved.