1.5/5 ★ – elk's review of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist.

I've given up hope on this franchise. If the hitman reboots didn't exist, this game would have made me give up on the stealth genre. The seventh generation of consoles and its consequences have been a disaster for the gaming race. what made me love splinter cell? it was engaging level design. It was the heavy, slow, and realistic animations for moving and jumping. The number of options you had for your approach, the simple and comfortable controls. It was Ironside's Sam and the codec crew talking and joking around about the story in the missions. Creating pockets of shadow and sneaking by someone inches next to them in pitch dark, moving slowly and carefully. Interrogating enemies with some of the funniest lines ever said by someone with a knife to a guy's throat. All of those things were what made splinter cell so awesome. None of that is in this game. Instead, have a generic American hero vs terrorist story (at least old games were more unique and had more plot twists. This is literally straight out of a C tier spy movie at the trash can of dollarama) Sam Fisher isn't a heavy, normal human anymore. He controls like an assassin's creed character. I don't feel like a spy. I never feel in control of sam, he's either going too fast or the wrong prompt got chosen because i moved my mouse one centimeter to the left. The game seems to be actively fighting you when you try to sneak around, some areas that seem accessible arent. You cant stray away from the set linear path. Wouldn't want you to miss the badass explosion escape that happens at the end of the level now, would we? It seems to have been made with the panther playstyle mostly in mind, and you may think "oh no you're just saying that cus you died at stealth" no I'm serious. It's actually a huge gap, I know stealth is supposed to be harder but why would I sneak when headshots are better in virtually every way? Disregarding that, I still tried to play through the whole game sneakily. And of course, because of the awesome super cool and absolutely necessary score system, you are at the mercy of the autosave. Get ready to repeat the whole section because all of the cool dark and light elements from like every other game is gone. Shadows do nothing. Shooting out lights is pointless because unless you have high-level stealth gear you will get spotted VERY easily. "Ummm it's realistic" shut your ugly ass up, I hate you. Furthermore, what's the point of having the night vision goggles if they are going to be useless? They literally just put a green filter on. They don't let you see in the dark. They actually make it harder to see, because now everything is green and there's a tech filter over everything, pixelating it. The only reason they kept the goggles was that they are iconic to the series. Sam Fisher is also only here cause he's iconic, otherwise this protagonist has virtually nothing common with Sam. I can excuse Ironside not voicing him but why remove his sense of humor, the way he says his lines.. well darn, everything about him. "But Elk, please understand. You must play the game the way it was designed. With mark and execute and panther mode" Ok. I tried. I didn't have fun. It's not even a gameplay mechanic. It's a reverse gameplay mechanic. They actively take fun away from you with this. Instead of shooting them like a normal human being, you click on them and mark them. Then when you have marked as many as you desire, you click again and a fun quaint little cutscene will play where they all die. So cool. "UMMM This is what you get when you try and simplify a more complex game." But the thing is, it wasn't even that complex. Early splinter cell was linear, had few weapons and gadgets, simple objectives, and following the map was a matter of going where the game would let you. But just in case, now you have a minimap showcasing where every enemy is at all times, you have a quest marker showing you exactly where to go, and an arrow pointing at the enemy whose brain is about to comprehend that he saw a guy dressed in all black in a broad daylight desert. Unless this franchise can get a hitman-tier reboot where against all odds, the greedy company decides to listen to the fans and make a game for them, I consider this series finished. Although, because every game's budget is higher than Finland's GDP, you can't just make a niche game for fun anymore. Either you appeal a little bit to everyone, or you appeal a lot to a small group of people and continuously bleed them dry of their cash. Hitman unfortunately has to make $40 DLCs that are like 3 cosmetic items and a reskin quasi mission in a map that's in the base game. With all the multiplayer stuff they tried to integrate into the main campaign I can see maybe them trying their hardest to push that in a reboot, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. What a sad, miserable series. Started strong, peaked at the 3rd entry, and slowly went downhill ever since. God rest your soul.