6th installment of splinter cell was supposed to be the best one yet, much to my disappointment it's by far the worst
Blacklist turned out to be such a game, while the previous games conviction featured the first plot revolving taking over the white house/America type of scenario. This games seems to take this "America is being attacked" genre to the maximum. the classic Hollywood battle of good against bad in a series of battles in most of which the good loses, but then finally the good wins in a climactic battle.
Plot-wise this is the worst of the series by a landslide, it's no longer a stealth based backward channels type of game where you try to do your mission by sneaking, but a pure action games with some stealth elements, it forces you to fight waves of enemies, sometimes in actual side missions in an arcade-action style game-play.
The entire opening sequence i found kind of insulting, using as few words as possible to tell me "super smart terrorists are good destroy the united states, the president recruits Sam fisher to stop them".
The game mechanics as far as in between missions are stale, boring and immersion void as you travel between a few rooms on your airplane trying to upgrade equipment that looks the same and do side missions to earn you money for slightly better weapons.
If we look at the battle system i have to point out it's artificially limited, the pistol range at start is about 10 meters far, after which it is rendered useless, there are no longer many sneak routes as there were in the first Splinter cell installments to clear / get to the objective, but only 1 way to do so. the only choice you have is how you kill the enemies.
The upgrade system is unrealistic, you have a state of the art plane, but every weapons costs tens of thousands of dollars to purchase, giving you only minor stat increases while you gain more money to buy a better weapon shirt that make you a little bit more stealthy.
This is a long fall from the game Splinter Cell double agent, which actually a very engaging in between mission world, engaging characters, immersive environment and an actually splinter cell / espionage feel to it.
If you haven't played any splinter cell games, the above game would probably be the game for you to pick up instead of this one.
Blacklist turns out to be just another game wit ha cheesy plot, generic action game system filled with artificial limitations and artificial incentives that keep you going to upgrade the next piece of gear which bestially the same but absorbs a bit more damage, and makes you a bit more silent.
as far as generic action game shooters go, this one is not good at all and gets a 5, by comparison to that score, action games that got a very bad score like Resident evil 6 are actually better action / immersion-wise.
So if it's action you're looking for, i advise to check other action games or co-op games.
To sum up my disappointment:
A console ported game which is designed for sub teenagers, sub teenagers because teenagers deserve much more challenging and interesting games than this.
----------------------------
A few words about the entire series:
As a long time Tom Clancy fan, and Splinter cell fan, playing Tom clancy titles since he formed the company and after he sold his brand name to ubisoft.
Tom Clancy managed to create the first of the ghost recon series (Ghost recon with both of it's installments), the rainbow six series in which he created really accurate and tactical shooters that suited for fans looking for a touch of realism in the counter terror world (rainbow six 1 though 3 - raven shield).
Among other games his studio created the first splinter cell, which was really known for the usage of lights and shadows and stealth oriented environment and espionage theme, filled with suspense and sneaking.
I played all the above games and much to my disappointment most of today's "tom Clancy" titles him are void of his name and substance, focusing on aggressive hype oriented marketing, console oriented audience, much like a blockbuster movie would do. I can only hope Watch dogs would be a decent as, but judging from the constant hype building postponing of the release date it's probably made to fit the above standards for maximum profit, which is a shame, since after a few months Ubisoft usually abandons their games and game support, as seen in the rainbow six series and ghost recon series.