Boy, do I miss the high-pitched hum of those night vision goggles.
I have a weird relationship with shooters. I love shooting things, but I’m cursed with terrible reflexes. So, for years, my go-to shooting games were more arcade-style, things like Metal Slug and Contra. While they still required fast reflexes, the punishment for losing was curbed enough that even I could enjoy them. Then one bright sunny day, Splinter Cell entered my life. Here was a game that relied on strategy and planning instead of lightning reflexes and twitchy thumbs.
I remember being impressed by the simple fact that I could shoot out lights in the first Splinter Cell. While it’s unlikely that Splinter Cell is the first franchise to offer this, I distinctly remember being enthralled that I was able to affect the environment. Not to mention the fact that Sam Fisher looked awesome. I mean, come on, Solid Snake has nothing on that full-body black jumpsuit complete with glowing night vision goggles.
Unfortunately, after Chaos Theory I fell out of sync with the franchise, and in my time away, the games have certainly changed quite a bit. I would catch bits and pieces of the game and see an old Sam Fisher sans his trademark suit battling some new set of mega-terrorists, but it hasn’t been until Blacklist emerged that I once again began to take notice.
What caught my eye immediately is what seems to be the marriage of the fluid bouncing-from-enemy-to-enemy combat of the new games with the strike-and-hide attacks that I remember. Sam may not look quite as awesome as my 13-year-old brain made him seem back in the day, but watching the combat in action still looks great.
Another returning feature is the very popular Spies vs. Mercs mode, which I never had the pleasure of experiencing in its heyday. So, while I can’t speak to how faithful it seems to the original version, it looks like it could be a lot of fun. I’ve always been more excited about the co-op missions, which I played many hours of in Chaos Theory. This leads to my only real point of contention for Blacklist: the Wii U version lacks offline co-op.
My best memories of Splinter Cell are summer nights playing split-screen coop with my friend at his mother’s lake house, and it saddens me that I won’t be able to experience that again. It still appears to have online co-op, which is a big plus, but dropping the offline version on the first console able to do split-screen without actually splitting the screen (why, hello GamePad screen!) seems like a lost opportunity.
Luckily, even with such a vital feature missing, Splinter Cell: Blacklist still looks like a good combination of the old tropes I remember with some of the better parts of the newer entries. This will also be my first real foray into Spies vs. Mercs, which I’m excited to finally dip my toe into. Either way, the Splinter Cell formula has always been satisfying, and there’s nothing quite as exciting as perfectly planning and executing a takedown. With any luck, Blacklist will continue this tradition when it launches on August 20.