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Splinter Cell: Blacklist |OT| Warning: May Contain Trace Amounts Of Stealth

demolitio

Member
After playing a little bit of Blacklist mode in MP, I can safely say I'll be sticking to Classic SvM unless I'm extremely bored. That was like a completely different game whereas Classic SvM actually plays like SvM should.

If they didn't have Classic, I think I'd be pretty pissed off...lol
 
Lovely haha, 2 hours waiting for it to download, and then....day 1 patch, 1.7 gb, that I had to go find myself. Thanks Uplay. Excited to play though, I like how on first start up it just throws you straight into the game (even though all the settings were wrong haha). Vic looks kinda different too, but whatever, think I'm just going to have to accept that right now or not bother moving on. Not looking forward to seeing what Grim looks like though haha.
 

Kureizu

Member
I really want a DF face off of this game. I'm thinking of picking this up on PS3 but I'd really like to know if the framerate is good enough first.
 
I'm really enjoying the single player on realistic. 60 fps Splinter Cell is fantastic. The challenge is pretty good.

Twitch.tv/krappadizzle if anyone wants to see the PC version in action. I'm primarily playing a ghost/panther run atm and am having a lot of fun.
 

highrider

Banned
For what it's worth my son is playing through the ps3 version and I have it on xbox. The campaign visuals and performance seemed pretty comparable on both versions.
 
Game seems pretty decent so far, but it's really annoying when the game forces you into some sort of set piece or forced non-stealth moment at the end of seemingly every mission...
Sam Fisher doesn't really seem like the character from all the other games, not just because of the voice, he just acts totally differently. He's kind of a dick at times...

Also the dogs are annoying as hell haha...
 

Ashtar

Member
Got Dang this game is hard, I've already died like 5 times and I'm only on the first stage, I'm trying to ghost my way through on the medium difficulty smh I'm getting my butt handed to me by these islamo-facist. I guess Sam has gotten more brittle in his old age because he can barely take a bullet without dying
 

ufo8mycat

Member
Just picked up this game.

Heard from a couple of people that the series has returned to its stealth origins.

That was enough for me to pick it up.

Heard the stealth in the game is really fun, enjoyable and rewarding

How are people finding the stealth?
 
Also the dogs are annoying as hell haha...

I get anxious every time I hear a dog barking in the game, knowing full well that I'm most likely going to screw up trying to distract it.

lol at people buying the WiiU version. why?

i have the PS3 version and it runs well enough, and the multiplayer runs really smooth.

No need to laugh at people's choices; Wii U version is competent, Ubisoft just needs to sort out their connection issues. For me, it was either Wii U or PC, and while my PC could run it just fine, I've stopped buying Ubisoft PC games due to the obnoxious UPlay client. At least on consoles, it just automatically connects in the background and I don't have to worry about leaving a second client running.
 
Just picked up this game.

Heard from a couple of people that the series has returned to its stealth origins.

That was enough for me to pick it up.

Heard the stealth in the game is really fun, enjoyable and rewarding

How are people finding the stealth?

Its alright.

edit:playing pure panther (stealth killing my way through game)
 

glaurung

Member
After seeing the Giantbomb quick look, I decided to get this game on PC some time in the future. For a fraction of a second I contemplated PS3, but even the 360 version looks like complete ass.

Worst case scenario: they are using a modified Ghost Recon Future Soldier engine, which is most likely the poorest game engine ever devised.

Edit: as far as I know, the PC launch has been a disaster. Game does not work for 80% of people.
 
After seeing the Giantbomb quick look, I decided to get this game on PC some time in the future. For a fraction of a second I contemplated PS3, but even the 360 version looks like complete ass.

Worst case scenario: they are using a modified Ghost Recon Future Soldier engine, which is most likely the poorest game engine ever devised.

Edit: as far as I know, the PC launch has been a disaster. Game does not work for 80% of people.
I agree, I saw the quick look and couldn't believe how bad it looked on 360, definitely cemented by choice of PC for this. I didn't realize the PC version was so problematic though.
 
The PC version is great, they added tons of tessellation, better textures, SSAO, etc. However, on the uplay store version it has a weird DX11 bug where you have to edit the ini file to make it launch in a borderless window or the game won't start. Seems like it should be something easy to fix, doesn't make it really acceptable but the PC port had a ton of obvious work put into it. It's kind of crazy how much better it looks than the console versions. I'd say it's even more noticeable than the difference between the PS2 and 360 versions of Double Agent.
 
Edit: as far as I know, the PC launch has been a disaster. Game does not work for 80% of people.

I had to download the *day one patch*, but it's running fine for me , from the beginning to just finishing the Benghazi mission right there. I was getting 60 with slight dips, switched the texture filtering from x16 to x8, and the txaa from x4 to x2 and now I'm getting 60fps rock solid, no issues, game is running like a dream on ultra/full settings otherwise. I have the benefit (if I want to try and be optimistc haha) of being in the UK though, so just got it this morn instead of the US release date. Perhaps they've ironed out the issues through the week.
 

glaurung

Member
I had to download the *day one patch*, but it's running fine for me From the beginning to just finishing the Benghazi mission right there. I was getting 60 with slight dips, switched the texture filtering from x16 to x8, and the txaa from x4 to x2 and now I'm getting 60fps rock solid, no issues, game is running like a dream on ultra/full settings otherwise. I have the benefit (if I want to try and be optimistc haha) of being in the UK though, so jsut got it this morn instead of the US release date. Perhaps they've ironed out the issues through the week.
Thanks for the update, glad to hear they sorted these PC issues this quickly.
 
Thanks for the update, glad to hear they sorted these PC issues this quickly.

I wouldn't say they've sorted all of them out. I still can't run the game full-screen. It's either "Borderless at full resolution" or "Windowed". I didn't have the start-up crash, so I didn't bother with the videosettings.ini fix. But without that fix, the game runs at 10fps then locks up. Playing "Windowed" it's actually playable! Unfortunately, I can't figure out a way for borderless to be played at a resolution below native, so I have to either play in a 900p window on my 1440p monitor or change the resolution manually. :p Can't wait for that to be fixed.

Anyway, general impressions below...

Glad I figured that all out, because I'm really enjoying the game. I'm playing on Realistic, going for Ghost. I average 90% Ghost, 8% Panther, 2% Wolf. There's no quicksave in the PC version either, but strangely enough, I'm enjoying that. I'm coming from playing Dishonored where I'd quicksave after every knockout/bodyhide. In Blacklist, having to clear one or two areas at a time instead of just one guard at a time feels much more satisfying.

And damn! These levels are huge! I'm averaging 45 minutes to an hour (again Realistic, Ghost, non-lethal style). I'm enjoying Ghost, but I'm also looking forward to going back and playing lethal Panther style. The knockout animations are amazing. Sam feels completely capable and smooth. Feels great to just fast-walk up to a dude and knock him out without breaking stride. One of the other things I appreciate is that a guard can notice you as you sneak up on him, but it's only if he shouts or shoots that it doesn't count as a stealth knockout/kill. Really savor the terror in his eyes before lights out. Heh.

Things to figure out: how to deal with dogs and whether unconscious bodies can killed by dropping or throwing them. (As a note, don't try to drop bodies near windows. Sam will throw them out the window instead. Not sure if that counts as a kill or not).

I'm playing on PC. I joined the Steam Splinter-GAF group and posted my uPlay ID. I'll post it here too: Epyon-MX. I'm down for co-op or SvM, but co-op preferred for now. If you see me on, hit me up.
 
Things to figure out: how to deal with dogs and whether unconscious bodies can killed by dropping or throwing them. (As a note, don't try to drop bodies near windows. Sam will throw them out the window instead. Not sure if that counts as a kill or not).

For dogs, tri-rotor and sticky shock, but you still run the risk of a guard finding a knocked out dog, i dont think they wake them up. The dogs move around a lot, so sometimes you have a to stalk it in the tri-rotor and just wait for it to be isolated.

I don't think throwing an unconscious body kills it, even off a cliff or anything, i think once you register a knockdown for that enemy, the game "forgets" thats its an entity unless its revived. Not certain about this, but was messing around with this yesterday on the second kobin mission and it seemed to not register any kills after tossing around bodies.
 
Is there anyone who can post PC screenshots ?
14530981579200659456_stumh.png

1080P, max settings(DX11), 4X MSAA. By the way, how does one format a post as to make the photosd appear side by side?
 
I wouldn't say they've sorted all of them out. I still can't run the game full-screen. It's either "Borderless at full resolution" or "Windowed". I didn't have the start-up crash, so I didn't bother with the videosettings.ini fix. But without that fix, the game runs at 10fps then locks up. Playing "Windowed" it's actually playable! Unfortunately, I can't figure out a way for borderless to be played at a resolution below native, so I have to either play in a 900p window on my 1440p monitor or change the resolution manually. :p Can't wait for that to be fixed.

Just to double check man, you have been here and downlaoded this, yes?

Click

Do you mean it literally will not do full screen ie it's not an option on your list, or you can't because the performance? What's your specs? This kind of stuff sucks, I hope you get it sorted quick. Have you got the latest beta drivers if you're on Nvidia, the last set were specifically put out ahead of Blacklist for it.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Man, the PC version, when it works (which I had no issues with), is light years beyond Conviction. It runs like a dream and looks much nicer. Also nice to see the pre-recorded videos looking reasonable (where as the Conviction videos were all poorly compressed 576p files with a choppy framerate).

Game is pretty fun too and the levels seem a lot longer than those in Conviction.
 

Sloane

Banned
Heard the stealth in the game is really fun, enjoyable and rewarding

How are people finding the stealth?
Much better than in Conviction (lol) and Double Agent, best since Chaos Theory. Some of the levels are really good, you can shoot lamps and hide bodies again -- not sure where the "trace amounts of stealth" is coming from, you can play this game without killing anyone for the most part.
 
Man, the PC version, when it works (which I had no issues with), is light years beyond Conviction. It runs like a dream and looks much nicer. Also nice to see the pre-recorded videos looking reasonable (where as the Conviction videos were all poorly compressed 576p files with a choppy framerate).

Game is pretty fun too and the levels seem a lot longer than those in Conviction.

Yeah, the Conviction cutscenes were awful. They would randomly switch between 28 and 30 FPS constantly. On top of the horrible compression viewing them was rather awful.

I loved how the vast majority of the cutscenes in Blacklist are real time so you can see your armor, weapons, and camo. In one of the cutscenes following a mission you have only your pants armor on and it's actually what you had equipped, and on another when handing your weapons back it is actually what you took on the trip. My favorite thing of this nature though was a mission where you lose your armor for a bit but actually keep the face camo on. Was seriously impressed, most games just supplement in a generic rifle and clothing even if that's not what you used.
 

DrSlek

Member
Much better than in Conviction (lol) and Double Agent, best since Chaos Theory. Some of the levels are really good, you can shoot lamps and hide bodies again -- not sure where the "trace amounts of stealth" is coming from, you can play this game without killing anyone for the most part.

Except for the gunship/drone level?
 
For dogs, tri-rotor and sticky shock, but you still run the risk of a guard finding a knocked out dog, i dont think they wake them up. The dogs move around a lot, so sometimes you have a to stalk it in the tri-rotor and just wait for it to be isolated.

I don't think throwing an unconscious body kills it, even off a cliff or anything, i think once you register a knockdown for that enemy, the game "forgets" thats its an entity unless its revived. Not certain about this, but was messing around with this yesterday on the second kobin mission and it seemed to not register any kills after tossing around bodies.

Thanks. That's actually something I miss from Dishonored. If you knockout a guard, but drop him in water, he's dead and the game penalizes you for that.

Just to double check man, you have been here and downlaoded this, yes?

Click

Do you mean it literally will not do full screen ie it's not an option on your list, or you can't because the performance? What's your specs? This kind of stuff sucks, I hope you get it sorted quick. Have you got the latest beta drivers if you're on Nvidia, the last set were specifically put out ahead of Blacklist for it.

I'm playing via Steam, so the patch isn't applicable.

The game will boot and "run" in Fullscreen. But it plays at 10fps even with everything set to as low as possible (720p with everything set to low or off). Then it locks up after 30 seconds. Switching it to Windowed lets me play at 900p with Medium settings with no issues and 30+fps steady. My computer's a little older (3.2GHz Core i3, Radeon HD5670(?) 512MB VRAM, 12GB DDR3RAM, Window 8 64 bit), but it plays fine in Windowed. Borderless has only one option: native resolution (1440p) and my computer can't handle that. I do hope it's something that gets patched soon. It's annoying to manually resize my monitor's resolution.
 
I want to get this game for Steam.

Where is the best place to find players that want to play classic Spies vs Mercs? I want to get a group together of people who will communicate.
 
Second level is a drastic improvement over the first. I'm really enjoying it.

However, I absolutely hate the way the animations work in this game. If you move forward a bit, Sam keeps moving until he goes into a rest animation. If you stop moving, he goes into a rest animation. Its kinda awkward to control compared to the precision movement of CT.
 
How did you get screenshots out of Uplay?

Added the Uplay application as a non-steam game and renamed it Splinter Cell: Blacklist. In steam itself I have it set to save uncompressed PNGs to a separate folder which I upload to abload after resizing them if needed.
 

Double D

Member
To the folks that are getting weird frame drops when you have a rig that shouldn't be dropping frames, try turning the SSAO option down a notch. Aside from entering new areas, it's pretty much locked at 60 for me.

770
2500k
1920x1200
All stock.
 

Sober

Member
Much better than in Conviction (lol) and Double Agent, best since Chaos Theory. Some of the levels are really good, you can shoot lamps and hide bodies again -- not sure where the "trace amounts of stealth" is coming from, you can play this game without killing anyone for the most part.
Clearly you didn't follow the development of the game, which makes you a lucky one.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Added the Uplay application as a non-steam game and renamed it Splinter Cell: Blacklist. In steam itself I have it set to save uncompressed PNGs to a separate folder which I upload to abload after resizing them if needed.

Ah, so you can't set the games as individual files like you can Origin. :/
 
Does the game's plot have meat to its bones, or is it a standard video game, straight to dvd kind of story?

I could really use some spy action gaming, but it feels like absolute ages since the last coherent plotline.
 

K.Sabot

Member
Game seems pretty decent so far, but it's really annoying when the game forces you into some sort of set piece or forced non-stealth moment at the end of seemingly every mission...
Sam Fisher doesn't really seem like the character from all the other games, not just because of the voice, he just acts totally differently. He's kind of a dick at times...

Also the dogs are annoying as hell haha...

I love it.

Ghost through a level then reach the cutscene door and suddenly...

Jason Bourne busts through the door and shoots 3 people in the face and the whole building blows up.
 
Acoording to a Miiverse post, there's a patch in Europe for the Wii U version? Can anyone confirm?

EDIT: Wait...the game just came out today in Europe..sigh :/
 

Grisby

Member
Does the game's plot have meat to its bones, or is it a standard video game, straight to dvd kind of story?

I could really use some spy action gaming, but it feels like absolute ages since the last coherent plotline.
It's standard dvd fare. But if your looking for spy action gaming gameplay then it's here.
 

Berg

Member
Acoording to a Miiverse post, there's a patch in Europe for the Wii U version? Can anyone confirm?

EDIT: Wait...the game just came out today in Europe..sigh :/

There was a day one patch for NA. Tho, the multiplayer needs another, lots of complaints about freezing during respawn.
 
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