Splinter Cell: Blacklist

[IamLEAM1983]

We're all North Americans, here. I'm from Quebec, the rest of you guys are in deep with the US of A. Regardless of where we come from, the United States have forged at least some part of our culture or our sense of identity. You might take it for granted seeing as you're, well, Americans, but this is no small thing for me. I'm a guy who speaks French, reads Molière and Balzac and was asked to talk about Descartes in his native French, back in college. All the same, I watch Dexter and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in their native English, most of my personal TV schedule is watched in Shakespeare's tongue, and my IRL friends and I speak “Frenglish” to one another, gleefully moving back and forth between Quebec's joual and the RoC and America's slang.

What I'm getting at is I'm kind of used to movie and book plots where America sort of equals the entire world, and America blowing up means the end of the world. I'm used to a deeply US-centric view of the world, especially as far as my video games are concerned. The development team might come from Montreal and Shanghai, the narrative focus has to come from down south if it has any chance of selling or gaining cultural relevance. An author of whom I came perilously close to following the classes once summarized our situation by saying we're the White Niggers of America – people who cling to a Francophone Catholic background while ogling Marilyn Monroe and learning to idolize Marlon Brando. I could further simplify this in saying that even though I deeply identify with French and the francophone culture, I still fundamentally am American. Not officially or geographically. Not even politically – but culturally.

With all the US businesses creeping up north and the number of relatives I have in places like Florida or Connecticut, I tend to consider Quebec as less of a Canadian province and more as an unofficial extra American State. Which, by the way, it almost was.

Where am I going with this? Well, Splinter Cell : Blacklist is another contender in the list of the ages-old trope of Needing to Save the Free World. It's a great game and its mechanics are quite solid, but I'm missing the Sam Fisher we barely had time to get to know, in Conviction. I'm missing the part where the lines were blurred, where alliances were sketchy, and where high-tech espionage really did feel like it had observable stakes propelling it.

The early titles in the series established Fisher as a long-standing Navy veteran, a gruff man with an equally coarse sense of humor and a gift for sticking to the shadows. He'd seen action in virtually every theater in the nineties, to the point where the US government picks him up for Third Echelon, a secret surveillance program that taps from every letter agency and task force in the book in order to put together extremely sensitive and highly deniable ops. From the initial game all the way to 2006's Double Agent, Sam would skulk around sensitive corners of the globe, shooting out lightbulbs, sticky-shocking patrolling guards and strategically deploying acrobatic and Krav Maga-inspired moves in order to dispense of his targets silently and efficiently. The first game was a completionist's dream project, ending the level at the first alarm to be triggered and all but requiring of you that you remain an absolute shadow, a modern-day ninja with silenced firearms in lieu and place of tanto knives and shuriken.

Double Agent shook up the standard, pushing you into Sam's shoes as he's forced to infiltrate a particularly well-armed Secessionist militia. Forced to work with both Langley and your new terrorist-cell buddies, you had to choose where your loyalties lied, all the while knowing that your handlers weren't just steering you along for the greater good, anymore. You were a puppet, and your strings were being pulled.

Sam gave very clear signs of not liking this one bit.

Then, after several drafts, Conviction knocked on our doors in 2010. Initially, Conviction was intended as some sort of modern-day Assassin's Creed title, pushing Sam out of the comfort zones of letter agencies and terrorist cells, and into the wide and open public. Disavowed by Third Echelon, hunted down by your former peers and motivated by the need for revenge, you had to piece together who was responsible for the apparent murder of your daughter and somehow right the wrongs you'd been made to endure. You were supposed to have literally nothing to work with, to be forced to rely on your wits and your situational awareness. From the grizzled Army crew cut he'd always sported, Sam went for the “shaggy hobo” look, taking cues from Viggo Mortensen's appearance in The Road.

Someone at Ubisoft apparently didn't agree with this. A faster-paced, Hollywoodian tone was deemed more accessible. The series already revolved around marking out your targets and patiently waiting for a window of opportunity, tacking Altair and Ezio's crowd-navigating and rooftop-carousing onto Sam's skulking mechanics seemed like too much work for too little payoff. While this was disappointing, Conviction did introduce us to the highly nifty “Mark and Execute” feature. With it, Sam could tag up to three enemies and, if properly located, pop out of cover in a Jason Bourne moment, stylishly popping all three targets in one flourish. I personally used it more as a kind of Baddie Bookmark, which made it easier for me to keep track of open routes.

The game's central gimmick, after all, had always been the need to remain unnoticed. Killing mooks willy-nilly doesn't exactly feel conducive to this. Considering, the series always included entirely viable non-lethal solutions and consistently offered you the opportunity to avoid confrontations altogether. If hiding meant you had to use your silenced pistol to shoot out lightbulbs, you could do that.

Blacklist, released last year, popped on the gaming scene's collective radar with a singular disadvantage. Michael Ironside had always provided Fisher's gruff, elderly, slightly cheeky and oh-so-threatening whispers, hissed threats and grunts of effort. The first official line involved the actor saying he simply felt too old for the role, even if mocap had never exactly been in his requirements. Ironside was Sam Fisher's Sound Booth half, the vocal Ego balancing the motion capture's panther-like Id. The bottom line is he could've stayed.

Later, however, news broke out that he'd heard about Fisher returning to the series' roots and dropping back inside the proverbial grid. This apparently disappointed him, and he claimed he didn't want to voice Fisher if there were no challenges remaining in that character. The end result is that this is a new Sam Fisher and an almost entirely new cast – but it still isn't a reboot or a remake.

This, to put it mildly, is confusing. On one hand, Eric Johnson provides a nice sense of cohesion to the character, as he both mocaps and voices Fisher. On the other, he sounds decades younger than Ironside, to the point where I'm forced to knock the character's apparent age down from the mid-sixties to the mid-forties. When the rest of the game acts like a direct continuation to Blacklist, this is, well – it's a bit odd.

But what's the plot, I hear you ask? Come on – it's Tom Clancy material. Surely you can fill in the blanks without much effort! The gist of it is as follows : a vicious terrorist attack on the American base in Guam sets off the string of attacks planned by the Engineers, a secretive group that seems dedicated to the task of forcefully demanding of the United States that they bring all of their foreign troops home and never deploy to another country as a peacekeeping force, ever again. For every day that goes by in which their insane demands are not met, American holdings will suffer. Sam and his buddy Victor Coste barely make it out of Guam in one piece, the severity of the event forcing President Caldwell to call for the reformation of Third Echelon as – ugh – Fourth Echelon. Sam is forcefully enrolled as the team's commander and is reunited with Anna Grimsdottir, his former handler. They parted on harsh terms during Conviction, and the game seemingly enjoys poking their relationship, professional or platonic, with a sharp stick. Charlie Cole comes onboard as the requisite Douchey Techie, while Jason Briggs serves as the former CIA operative who doubles as a long-distance sniper and co-op avatar. They're all given access to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Bus – I mean, the Paladin – and sent off to try and stop those nasty, nasty foreign TURRISTS.

'Cause 'MURRICA.

In signature Tom Clancy fashion, Fourth Echelon invisibly taps into every letter agency and task force in the book, seamlessly pulling on satellite time and “predictive analytics” to put together mission briefings on the go. It all displays on the snazzy in-game interface referred to as the Strategic Mission Interface, which reveals how Blacklist intends to merge single-player and multi-player elements together. Because if you can't or don't want to play with a buddy, fuck you. You don't get to see the entire story!

Aaaaaand, this is what I hate about modern game design. Far be it from the devs to accomodate lone wolves or people who just have no patience for pulling off multiplayer maps with uncoordinated friends or pubbers, you have to go online. You have to find someone to play with. You have to be connected to the Internet. Yes, the DRM requires it, but hey, that's cool, we have a teensy-weentsy game feature that's totally skippable but that requires that you be able to go online!

I hate modern game design. Seriously. This single-player-slash-multi-player convergence feels utterly and completely lazy, like a stupid means to lengthen the shelf life of a product that honestly doesn't need to be put on life support. Blacklist's main campaign is excellent, and honestly does not require that you reach out of your little corner of the world in the slightest. If that's the case, then why are you forcing the rest on me, Ubisoft?!

Honestly, I wouldn't mind that so much if the game were playable in its intended state, on PC. My rig comes desperately close to meeting the Reccomended specs – not the Minimum ones, no – that there is virtually no reason whatsoever for the amount of crashes I've endured, or for the way the online lobby is just so laughably inaccessible. I've paid for the game, fair and square – but I've been forced to crack it.

I've been forced to download a crack. To fix a problem with a game that I bought.

Wrap your heads around that, folks. This is ridiculous, and points to just how shitty and disgraceful the treatment of PC gamers has become, in recent years. “Buy the new consoles or GTFO!” the publishers seem to say. “PC gamers are scrubs!”

Pirates are fixing legitimate games, now. That's just sad. Prior to downloading a crack, I couldn't play for forty-five minutes without the main executable dying on me. If I circuvent the DRM and Ubi's shitty online store, though? Smooth sailing.

I can't facepalm harder. Seriously.

Let's get to the crack-enabled good stuff, though. Assuming you get the game to run and kiss goodbye to half the story 'cause cracks mean no online for you, mista, you're treated to about twelve central story missions and about twenty side missions. The core storyline is pure Splinter Cell stuff, all about skulking in shadows and tazing unsuspecting foes and stuffing their loudly snoring bodies in bins or in shadowy corners. That's when you don't kill them or chuck them off the map or several stories down to their deaths. It's all up to you. Anna's missions are strictly of the “pure stealth” persuasion, emphasizing silent and non-lethal takedowns and smooth room-clearing choreographies of ninja awesomeness. Charlie's missions are simple Horde Mode affairs, each wave throwing larger and larger numbers of non-specific Browns for you to kill (because post-9/11 makes it okay to stalk Istambul by night and choke-hold anyone who doesn't speak English, apparently). Survive long enough and you're extracted. Survive longer and you earn a bonus.

Once Andriy Kobin, the Russo-American gun smuggler from the previous game, joins up with the cast, he throws in some extra single-player-enabled content.

Can't find a partner? Then you can't tap into Jason Briggs' available roster. No online? No trabajo!

*insert frustrated mutterings*

In-between missions, you can call your daughter Sarah on the plane's super-secure phone (because awww, sappiness equals plot development...) or use your newly-earned cash-money to purchase SUPAH HAIGH TECKS versions of your existing gear. Need a new pistol? Charlie's got you covered. New Stealth pants? Charlie. New Rambo shirts? Charlie.

The game analyzes your performance and grants you points based on it. The preferred procedure is complete avoidance and no conflict, with the least profitable approach being the Jason Statham with Infrared Goggles run. In-between the Ghost and Assault runs, there's the potential “Panther” style, where you act more like the Batman and less like a Deniable Ops dude who seriously needs to, well, generally not exist. An upgrade-controlled multiplier is then tacked on and boom, dosh in your pocket.

As you can expect, the Engineers eventually wise up to you. You face off against less and less goons with shitty rifles and no visibility and more armored grunts with their own nightvision goggles. The tougher types need to be taken out from behind, snipers need to be kept in mind, drones can and probably will blow in your face if you're going to try and Geronimo everyone's ass. The environments are littered with secondary routes, hidden goodies and – ugh – co-op only passageways and at the very least, Sam keeps his signature Grim Wisecracker persona. Some of the tools both sides play with feel extremely current, such as quadri- or tri-rotor drones used for reconnaissance or remote pacification. The environments are all very nicely detailed, but this is really Ubisoft checking off places in its list of Places Americans Have Been Brought Up to Think Are Sketchy. Afghanistan, Turkey, Iraq, Columbia, Russia – plus occasional dips into Homeland or Allied territory because, y'know, pathos is needed. Shit needs to happen in the US or the UK.

Generally speaking, the feel of the game is extremely solid. What really needs to be taken away, however, is the fact that Blacklist is symptomatic of the industry's lack of interest towards risk-taking. Like it or not, the series has just fallen back down to the same tried and tested tricks it's used for the past fourteen years, and apparently shied away from any sort of game-changing innovation.

Play it for the entertaining missions and forget the plot, honestly. Play it on the consoles, too – don't give your money to a PC port and a DRM scheme that isn't worth a damn.