I think after GTA, Splinter Cell is my favourite franchise. I really do love it, yet I wasn't so mad keen on the direction they went with Conviction despite it being a good game. It's taken me a while to get round to this one. Reasons? Well, no Michael Ironside for one. At first this was a big deal to me and I now see why gamers get angry with change (DMC 2013 as an example) I'm not sure why Ubisoft wanted to do away with the charismatic and likable Sam Fisher that Ironside built and replace him with Mr generic but that's what they've done. Again I hated this new actor at first but I have got used to him now. It's not bad acting, it's bad writing by Ubisoft if you ask me. Same with Grim. Horrible voice and straight up delivery, rubbish script, awful story.
But I love this game. It's so well designed. A lot more content than previous SC games. Online and coop modes nicely integrated into the game so you can just hop online whenever. You can even play split screen old skool style if you like. The best missions for me are the coop missions especially the ones with Briggs and Grim's hacking missions. If you play the Grim missions solo it reminds me of the Chaos Theory design. You have to get the 3 targets without any saving or checkpoints. This is how I used to play CT. Stealth bliss. The Kobin missions are like deniable ops from Conviction. Taking out enemies without being detected or reinforcements turn up. Very tense. Not played much of the Spies v Mercs in truth. A few sessions but not my cup of tea really. My mate is hooked big time and swears by it but I like the coop and solo sneaking more.
The campaign is mostly excellent also but it can force you out of your bubble a lot. Wanna play Conviction style? You will be forced to be purely stealth from time to time. Detection and mission over, no killing, no disturbing guards etc. Wanna play pure stealth? Forced into taking down heavily armed enemies with night vision that storm you. The worst mission is the airstrip. You can still be pure stealth but you are given no goggles and just a few grenades so it's boring and time consuming sneaking up on them all, and all those upgrades bought amount to s**t all. Still a great campaign though game wise, offensively poor story wise.
I think Ubisoft got this game mostly right. The Ghost, Panther, Assault style of play options are great. Not bothered with assault yet. I'm a sneaker but it's good to have this option. Makes the campaign very replayable but you can skip the rubbish missions like airstrip and the oil refinery one and just replay the ones that hit the stealth spot like the mansion one or the Chicago mission. But as I say, the coop missions are the best, even the ones you can play solo are better than most of the campaign stuff. So many missions and locations. No recycling of the campaign maps for multiplayer or coop. Always seems to be a new shiny destination to visit. A lot of work went into this game and I will definitely say that this is my favourite SC game since the near perfect Chaos Theory. Forget the awful script, acting and story and embrace a very well made game.