Inauguration Trailer here
I loved Conviction, but it was way too short. Surprised it’s taken Ubi so long to get the next chapter of the franchise out, but I’m game.
That said, Sam is totally out-goggled by DEVGRU in Zero Dark Thirty.
I like the idea of combo kills that the game purports; basically AC’s chain kills through the interface of mark and execute. I also hope they bring back the co-op.
Ubi has cut the “torture scene” that was shown at E3 after negative public reaction.
Ubisoft Toronto has responded to the negative reaction, although it’s still keen to point out the scene wasn’t necessarily representative of Blacklist’s tone. “The first thing I’d say about that is that possibly there was missing context - and in an unabridged snapshot, it seemed like pretty tough material,” said Wilson. “We’ve scaled a lot of that back, and as we’ve gone through the process of development there are always things that you feel are not working as well. Every game does this, and cuts certain things.”
And as for the torture scene itself? “Definitely we are not going to see when the game’s coming out that there are torture scenes in it. That scene is not there any more. I’ve not really heard anyone say they loved it…”
this is probably the first smart decision that they have done with this game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5L81wlwD9PQ#!
I’m confused. There’s a ‘tech enemy’ on a laptop that somehow ‘jams’ your goggles. (Googles which simply receive incoming light/EM radiation). But somehow this doesn’t ‘jam’ the ability of Sam to fly a tiny death-copter about?
Anyway, as in any SC game, why would you bother firing the guns? The ‘panther’ route is clearly the quickest, quietest and most efficient. I’m surprised that ‘ghost’ still involved strangling everyone. Couldn’t he have just legged it to the stairs?
Reviews have gone live, with pretty high scores across the board. I’ve had this pre-ordered for a while, so I’m glad it turned out well. Anyone else looking forward to this?
I won’t be reviewing this, since I did one of those internal reviews for Ubisoft, but I’m as surprised as anyone. Blacklist is really good.
-Tom
Awesome!
Also, I’m amused that while pretty much every review mentions Chaos Theory and Conviction, not a single one I’ve read talks about Double Agent.
I’m very much looking forward to it since I really liked Conviction. I’ve learned that this is not something you say in polite company, however.
I was a fan of the early Splinter Cells, but after Conviction, I’ve completely lost interest. The bad guys talking was so off-putting to me, I hate the very idea of being Sam Fischer now.
In that case, you’ll be glad to know that Sam Fisher is basically dead. Without Michael Ironsides, it’s a whole new guy in Blacklist who I don’t care one whit about. Instead, the gameplay is the star of Blacklist.
-Tom
Don’t have time to read reviews right now, but how long is the SP? Because as much as I loved Conviction, I can blow through that story in about 2-3 hours.
I haven’t really enjoyed the series since Chaos Theory, which I felt had both great single player and co-op gameplay. Is Blacklist back on that track or is it still the more action-focused Conviction style? Mainly I want to see the return of the co-op Chaos Theory-esque campaign.
Woolen, Blacklist is, for better or worse, as long as you want it to be, and that’s without even getting into the multiplayer. It’s a leveling game, with incentive to replay and explore missions to buy and upgrade gear. But if you just want to blow through the storyline, it depends entirely on how difficult you want the game to be. I’d say it took me about ten to fifteen hours at normal difficulty.
-TomIt is very co-op oriented, with a clear divide among action-oriented and stealth-oriented missions. They do some really cool things to encourage different approaches for different missions.
-Tom
So there’s co-op akin to Chaos Theory? I loved that, even though it was a whore to get working.
Yep. Basically, you have four “handlers” who give you missions independent of the storyline. Each handler offers a different type of mission with its own gameplay style. One of them is the same sort of co-op as Chaos Theory. There’s even co-op horde mode.
-TomThat is actually good to hear. The idea that I will never again hear “You got away from us in Insert name of last level here FISCHER. But we’ll get you this time” makes me happy.
Sweet. Well I guess I’ll have to check it out since I got it free when I upgraded my video card.