Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist
It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact reason why Splinter Cell: Blacklist — the latest in Tom Clancy’s long-running, espionage franchise — fell off the community’s green-tinted radar so soon after launch. Though Ubisoft made the decision to pass over Michael Ironside’s signature night vision googles to newcomer Eric Johnson — the Canadian actor who assumed the role of Sam Fisher’s voice and performance capture — Blacklist picked up the narrative reins from its immediate predecessor, Splinter Cell: Conviction, with style.
The sixth installment brings back several much-loved features from previous titles. Not only does Splinter Cell: Blacklist include the ‘stealth-only’ option for the game’s campaign, but, after a seven year hiatus, Spies vs. Mercs returned for the multiplayer component; which brings its interesting blend of first-person and third-person perspectives to the tactical playing field. In terms of story, the United States comes under threat from a terrorist organisation called ‘The Engineers,’ prompting Fisher to lead the Fourth Echelon against the group in order to protect the Blacklist – a list of US assets that act as the plot’s MacGuffin.
With 14 unique co-op assignments to complete and four different mission types available, Splinter Cell: Blacklist isn’t exactly short of content. Granted, there were several technical issues during its early days on the market — which, for me, materialised in the form of freezing issues on the PlayStation 3 — and though the core campaign wasn’t anything to write home about, the latest entry into Tom Clancy’s prestigious series has the production values of the biggest triple-A title with the intelligence to match.
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