Ah, Mr Fisher - good to see you again. Though we must admit we're a little disappointed that we can see you. OXM is proud to present another of our exhilarating Men Talking Over Actual Gameplay videos, which features brand new footage of the grim-faced Splinter Cell: Blacklist in action.
As our playful introductory jest hopefully suggests, Blacklist has attracted a degree of controversy. According to series fans, there's way too much killing and not enough sneaking in all the footage to date. Game director Patrick Redding addresses this and other subjects in the video - the short answer is that trailers are all about spectacle, not hiding in pitch-black corners, and you shouldn't infer too much about Blacklist's taste for a firefight. Though that spectacular-looking "killing in motion" stuff is pretty key.
Assuming you haven't already, you might want to check out our last chat with Ubisoft Toronto, featuring creative director Maxime Beland. It's a long, revealing read which covers Conviction's troubled development, new Blacklist weapons like the crossbow, and why Michael Ironside won't reprise the role of Sam Fisher. For our thoughts on how the game handles, peruse Jonty's rather sadistic hands-on.
12 comments so far...
RedBelmont on 30 Jan '13 said:
The part in the rain scaling down the side of the building reminded me of Double Agents Shanghai mission, it looks very promising. And hearing spies vs mercs is back has just made my day.
Metalrodent on 30 Jan '13 said:
be nice if we can change loadouts in story mode, was annoying in Hitman Absolution that you unlock all the guns and disguises but can only use them in contracts. You could in Conviction but there was hardly anything worth unlocking besides the silenced pistol upgrades.
PonderingWalrus on 30 Jan '13 said:
This doesn't look remotely like a stealth game but still looks like a lot of fun. I, for one, loved Conviction and am looking forward to Blacklist but I can definitely see why long time Splinter Cell fans are upset.
On another note, does anyone one know if coop/deniable ops are returning? I haven't really been following this game much despite claiming to have interest in it.
battfink83 on 30 Jan '13 said:
another game that looks like its been ruined by this current crop at ubisoft, splinter cell WAS the only other option to stealth fans who didnt like the MGS series, now it looks like another 'lets splatter some instant gratification cool looking hollywood playing COD for twelve hours straight glossiness to it'
sounds a bit harsh but they are ruining everything i loved the company for, awesome games that offered something different to others such as ghost recon and this.
im all for the improvements to the execution of how the mechanics work, but this looks like a linear action orrientated borefest
my hopes for the next rainbow six are dwindling with every ubi game that comes alone, cant wait to see what they do with that one.......
rant over
RedBelmont on 31 Jan '13 said:
I'd have to say I disagree with you there sir. I've played every SS game and consider myself a fan of the series and don't think that the changes to the game, i.e SS Conviction mechanics, ruined the stealth game-play at all. You could still sneak about just as easily, the cover mechanic actually worked and shooting wasn't as clunky as it had been. In the old games if you were spotted on a harder difficulty you pretty much had to re-start from a checkpoint, Conviction and the new one, from the looks of it, allow you to be far more versatile. If you want to sneak into a room and carefully plan how to kill everyone in it without getting spotted you could, but the game also let you mix it up and think on the fly if things went nipples up. Not only that the co-op campaign was top notch and as someone mentioned I hope that it will be in Blacklist as well as spies vs mercs.
As for the new Rainbow Six, think it's called Patriots, what I saw looked brilliant and more akin to RS Vegas than Vegas 2. However I did hear a worrying rumor that it had been canned, hope it's not true but it wouldn't surprise me.
CunningSmile on 31 Jan '13 said:
The Tom Clancy stuff is probably Ubi's biggest money spinner after Assassins Creed, they wouldn't can a game in the series. At worst it'll follow Conviction and go off radar for a few years before reappearing in a slightly new form.
battfink83 on 31 Jan '13 said:
i dunno, imo conviction was linear, way to linear for a ss game, didnt enjoy it at all, the slower pace of older games is exactly why the fans scooped them up. ghost recon is another example, slow paced, plan your attacks action, then they bring out that last one........ wow.....
Gazisdaman on 31 Jan '13 said:
Admittedly future soldier was terrible, but i really enjoyed conviction, granted double agent was the first game in the series that I bought but I still consider myself enough of a fan to know what is great about splinter cell and I don't think conviction was lacking in it, still perhaps its just the accessibility and fluidity that I enjoy about conviction and I did like the freedom of the previous game, hopefully we will see a compromise between these elements in blacklist.
ItchyRash on 31 Jan '13 said:
I played the recent Ghost Recon and found that's exactly what it excelled in. It was far easier to plan your attacks and play it really stealthy than any of the previous Ghost Recon games. Sure there were times it was all out action but there were whole missions I went undetected and thanks to the drone and sync shot ability I found the stealth really crisp and satisfying.
Because of what I mentioned above I would disagree that Future Soldier was terrible. I really liked Graw 1 & 2 but much preferred this new version.
I would rather Splinter Cell not take the direction it seems to be. I've been a fan since the first one and Conviction didn't feel like much of a change to me. Still managed to play them as I did all the others. The difference being when things went bad I could adapt in this one where as in previous instalments it just wasn't possible. I'm hoping this new one still allows the purists to play their way. But missing Michael Ironside is going to being interesting
Gazisdaman on 31 Jan '13 said:
I played every mission i could stealthily, but I just felt like it didn't deliver on a lot of things, especially for all the time I waited for it.
PaladinRonin on 31 Jan '13 said:
To be fair, from the sounds of it, it does seem as if UbiSoft really have looked at what Convictive did right and wrong. Conviction took the series in a diffrent direction and it appears as if thoese mechanics now stick, such as Mark and Exicute and sticking to the walls, which were some of the great parts of Conviction.
I noticed during that video that Sam picked up the body of the person he killed after falling from the zip-line and hiding it. I'm glad that is back as it was really annoying not being able ot do that in Conviction.
This is starting to make me think that Double Agent is a standalone game in the series. We have not seen a return to any of the mechanics which is dissapointing. I rather liked the Trust metre.
battfink83 on 1 Feb '13 said:
for me chaos theory was what SS is all about, a knife for close quarters, a huge customizable weapon loadout that actually was usable, multiple routes and ways to tackle each and every situation, a vast array of gadgets and epic level design, oh and loadsa lightbulbs! lol
granted it was a little easy but that was only because of sams ace move list, suspended splits anyone?