I’ll Probably Not Like Splinter Cell: Blacklist

After seeing numerous great reviews of the new Splinter Cell title, Blacklist, Kotaku’s review gives me enough pause to sit it out.

Sam Fisher is no longer voiced by the Michael Ironside in this title either, which is kind of a big deal considering one of the best qualities of good Splinter Cell titles have been his voice work making the character interesting.

It’s startling just how much difference a voice-actor makes, too. With Fisher’s longtime voice-actor Michael Ironside out of the game, Sam becomes a generic military brotagonist with a shocking quickness. I lost interest in him so immediately and so fully that I had to ask myself: Was Ironside’s charismatic performance singlehandedly keeping this series’ storytelling afloat this whole time?

The last Splinter Cell game I tried to play was Double Agent which had an ugly interface and absolutely terrible gameplay. Shallowing the pool on Sam Fisher and reducing the game to a series of maps-of-badguys challenges that doesn’t even push the limits of the gaming hardware sounds like good money after bad. Fool me once, shame on you, and all that.