Well this has forced my hand a little but seeing as the Sale is around the corner and I've got some free time before popping doing the boozer to watch Italy make England look silly again, so here goes. Should you buy Splinter Cell: Blacklist now or possibly wait for a lower discount during the sale? Well that's a tricky one as it has been -75% off before I believe but then again this might saw things in your favour if you intend to play it and not just have it as a +1.
So what's the jist? Well after the event of Conviction and all is right in the word of Sam Fisher (well as much can be for a grisly bear type of man) he's back to his normal spy like 9-5 job. Whilst at a US Air Force Base in Guam with his old buddy Victor Coste and his new clichéd hacker colleague Charlie Cole a terrorist attack occurs leaving Victor seriously injured. Sam and Charlie along with former CIA superstar Isaac Briggs and long time love her, hate her handler Anna Grimsdottir as assembled into a task force by the President to seek out the group claiming responsibility for the attack, a group calling themselves 'The Engineers'. Of course with Third Echelon being as bent as a nine bob note and disbanded after the last game the only thing left to do is set up a new department, yep you guessed it Forth Echelon.
This sets Sam and the gang on a series of globe trotting adventures from their trusty hub come transport aircraft the Paladin. This is actually more like a Mass Effect style hub where you can chat to your crew, customise and upgrade your weaponry, gadgets and suit (even down to the colour of your goggle lights!). This is also where you will find the various people who offer side missions as well but more on that a little later.
Levels do play out like mini sandboxes. Though while not open (really there is only 2 or 3 entry points and sometimes only one way to do things) you can adopt various playstyles, in fact the game scores and ranks you on it. Ghost for the sneaky get in get out and not disturb a mouse style. Panther for the more get in close, stalk and hunt down foes. And then there's Assault for those with short attention spans who like to blow stuff up (can be fun but not this series strength to be honest). You can also mix and match these as well though trying to ghost in after you set the alarms off isn't going to work obviously.
For your arsenal you have a bevy of pistols for your side arm slot, various sub machine guns, shotguns, assault rifles and the like for you loud option gun and a stun gun or crossbow for your non lethal/stealthy weapon. Gadgets though is where the selection and playstyles can really be tweaked. You can only equip a set amount of gadgets (I think 3 from the start but as you upgrade your suit you get more ammunition and more slots). The types of gadgets range from distraction like stick noise makers, cover like smoke screens, observation like a rotor drone (can upgrade this too in an awesome way) and sticky cameras and the usual lethal options like grenades and such. There's a lot of gadgets and can get you out of a jam or make sneaking though undetected a piece of cake. Sam still can peak under doors and mark targets along with the mark and execute mechanic from Conviction has returned.
Side content is a bit of a mixed bag. Your colleagues on the Paladin offer you missions. Grim gives you sneaking missions which I really liked, Charlie gives you wave defence/horde mode missions which I loathed, Briggs is where the co-op campaign missions are and these were a blast with a buddy and later on another person abroad the Paladin offers a kills all the dudes series of mission which were a bit up and down.
Story is not too bad considering how flat some of the plots in the series has been. It felt like something along the lines of a series of 24 but waay more action focused (saying that one of the cast was in 24 which might be why it comes to mind). Gameplay, while not the slower paced plan and strike mechanics of Chaos Theory I found it much more enjoyable than the action packed Conviction. It's like a combination of all the mechanics from in the series to date which chances for player expression and small deviation. Some levels offer a little more flexibility and the side missions being smaller areas and non story driven offer more flexibility.
Port performance is just crazy. It's an Unreal Engine 2.5 game with a hefty amount of modification and a few Nvidia bells and whistles but I could easily get 120fps at 1920x1080 with 4xTXAA and all the Nvidia settings turned up on a 4670K and a 780 without too much messing and it downsampled really well. Didn't really need that much CPU power as none of my cores got above 40% when I was monitoring so even with an older CPU and GPU combination you should be able to get a decent level of performance. It also has a DX9 render but crashed when I tried to use GeDoSaTo wit it but Durante has been pumping out the updates so might work now.
The new voice for Sam works well though Michael Ironside will always hold a special place in my heart. Price to content at the current price is good value for money I feel as the main campaign is about 8-10 hours and with the co-op campaign and the side missions you should get in and around 14-16 hours worth of play here. I haven'y played too much of the Multiplayer but it's brought back the 3 vs 3 Spies vs Mercs modes. They're not too bad but how the state of the community is now I don't know.
Also Sober's OT has waaaaay more detail than I can cram in to this post off the top of me head so if you're interested you should go check it out.
So should you by Splinter Cell: Blacklist? Well that's up to you ultimately. If you're a series fan it's a return to form, though while not the highs of Chaos Theory it much more back to the key focus of the first handful of games.
I eagerly await your impressions
Hahaha talk of the devil.