Splinter Cell Blacklist is a game of expectations: it meets some, falls short of others and greatly exceeds in places. Like any Splinter Cell game you spend most of your time lurking in the shadows, peeking under doors and trying to either eliminate hostiles or avoid them completely. But Blacklist offers a little more in the way of gameplay that makes the experience that little bit better.
Before I get into the meat of the gameplay I should first address the lacklustre storyline. As you would expect you are out to stop a terrorist organisation, known as the 'Blacklist', from destroying freedom capital of the world - America. The story doesn't matter at all in this game and, I feel, is there as a backdrop just so you're actions and enjoyment of the gameplay isn't unmotivated. You are offered with the choice to kill or spare people throughout the game but these choices seem to have no real consequence and don't really play with your moral compass the way they intended it to. My main problem however is the final part of the game - so naturally there are spoilers ahead so skip to the next paragraph if you want to avoid them.
In the final level you, Sam Fisher, expert spy find yourself unarmed trying to sneak up to the leader of 'Blacklist' just after you took down a troop of armed guards. What really aggravates me is why didn't Sam pick up one of their weapons? It's unrealistic and would have made for a better gameplay finale instead of crawling around a shipping yard waiting for the lights to go out. That being said lets move onto the positives shall we?
Throughout Black List's campaign you are presented with optional missions from each of your crew that involve surviving waves, eliminating targets without being spotted and cooperative missions where a second player will enter the role of 'Briggs'
Splinter Cell offers more in the way of solo missions however; when playing through the myriad of assignments you are often presented with dead drops, laptops and high value targets to pick up which entitles you to some bonus cash at the end of the mission which can then be spent on your single player or multiplayer loadouts.
Speaking of the multiplayer Spies vs. Mercs is back! I loved this mode in Double Agent and SvM has returned better than ever! For those of you unaware of this mode it has two rounds; one where you play for the spy team, where you must be stealthy and hack three terminals for information, and the mercenary team where you must defend these terminals. The balance here is perfect as both teams can dominate if they know how to utilize their class. The mercs being very tanky can deal out damage with ease to the spies but their shortcomings is in movement, they can't take cover are are generally quite sluggish. The spies are, as you'd imagine, the reverse of this; nimble, fast and very stealthy with the only real way to effectively kill the opposing team being up close and personal.
Blacklist may fall short in the way of plot but greatly makes up for it in single and multiplayer gameplay, meaning I'd recommend it to anyone looking for an enjoyable gaming experience that doesn't focus on storytelling.