The Splinter Cell Megathread: Stealth just ain't what it used to be

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The Splinter Cell Megathread: Stealth just ain't what it used to be

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Sober: Nov 19, 2011; First touch: Life.
Second touch: Dead again. Forever.

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

Early reports are in:

--------------------------
Spies and Mercs are missing a lot of their gadgets in Classic mode. MUCH more stripped down. No Spy Bullet, no Sticky Cam. This stuff has been moved to Blacklist mode or removed. Classic has fixed loadouts. Blacklist has different gadgets.

"Feels more deathmatchy" even in Classic.

Spies are not quite as mobile as they should be. There's no straight jumping - it's all context sensitive movement.

Still a lot of fun.
--------------------------

Not bad but different. Be ready for this. The person who was telling me this got a legit copy from someone who broke street date in their local area and knew I was a big fan.

Also there's bullshit progression unlocks for Blacklist. None of that for Classic.

Really? I thought the sticky cam was in Classic. I remember them showing it off against IGN.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 17:33

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 05:51

Megaman's Jockstrap: Jul 16, 2000; What a horrible thread to have a post.

I'm just going by what my source tells me. More details forthcoming.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 17:35

ZeeBoi: Jan 17, 2001

Game is awesome. Pays off to have a friend that works at Ubi Toronto... :v:

# ? Aug 15, 2013 18:10

ShineDog: May 21, 2007; It is inevitable!

No matches found. I be TurkeySteak, try that?

# ? Aug 15, 2013 20:22

Megaman's Jockstrap: Jul 16, 2000; What a horrible thread to have a post.

Got the game. There's a 20 minute High Definition Pack installation that took my entire lunch. Bummer.

Gonna check with my source but I'm pretty sure it's going to be ok to post my impressions tomorrow. We'll see.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 22:07

ShineDog: May 21, 2007; It is inevitable!

Good game nil. Though it turns out Kestrel is lumbering idiot who alerts everyone in the world.

# ? Aug 16, 2013 01:53

Dogen: May 5, 2002; Bury my body down by the highwayside, so that my old evil spirit can get a Greyhound bus and ride

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

Got the game. There's a 20 minute High Definition Pack installation that took my entire lunch. Bummer.

The what now? On 360?

# ? Aug 16, 2013 02:38

Dvlos: Aug 26, 2003; "I came here to argue with you about a freaking television show!"

I don't think I get my game until the twentieth.

# ? Aug 16, 2013 03:02

Sober: Nov 19, 2011; First touch: Life.
Second touch: Dead again. Forever.

Official forums are funny, as most reviews talking about how the story is awash in literal poo poo and not self-aware (since it still kinda has that 'hoorah torture works!' stuff in it), and the fans are getting mad they ruin their Tom Clancy technobabble that makes no sense anyway to facilitate gameplay/level variety/design instead.

I mean apparently most people will tell you Ghost Recon Future Soldier has an incredibly unintelligible plot, if not the most in recent memory.

People calling for SC1-PT-CT levels of story plot here. Sure, if they didn't go to so much effort into going into performance capture to just prance around a room spitting technobabble and armchair geopolitics. That was the reason why Michael Ironside didn't want to do Splinter Cell after Double Agent until Conviction turned out to not be a typical Splinter Cell game and more of a personal story with a character arc. Deliciously ironic as fans hated it but want their supreme 'man who helped Sam Fisher not become a 2 dimensional Clancyite' to come back for what seems to be a by-the-numbers installment.

That's not to say Blacklist being a return to form/by the numbers-y installment is a bad thing, since Call of Duty does the same poo poo anyway, so why not at least have a decent stealth game do it to some extent. Criticizing the story is a valid complaint on behalf of the press, especially considering the amount of, "hey guys performance capture, it'll really help nab those emotions in the cutscenes like never before" being crammed down our throats, maybe we wouldn't have expected anything in return other than what we get. So why "hardcore fans" latching on to a Tom Clancy game having a poo poo story/plotting and getting mad over it seems downright hilarious to me.

# ? Aug 16, 2013 09:14

Dogen: May 5, 2002; Bury my body down by the highwayside, so that my old evil spirit can get a Greyhound bus and ride

Dvlos posted:

I don't think I get my game until the twentieth.

Same here bruv

# ? Aug 16, 2013 15:01

Megaman's Jockstrap: Jul 16, 2000; What a horrible thread to have a post.

I only got one game in and will try to get more over the weekend and post impressions. "Classic" is still very different then old Chaos Theory games but that's not a bad thing if you keep an open mind. Still fun, still stealthy, but some major differences. It's definitely a more lethal game on all sides. 20 kills, 10 deaths. 9 of those kills were as a spy. :getin:

# ? Aug 16, 2013 15:56

Dvlos: Aug 26, 2003; "I came here to argue with you about a freaking television show!"

Megaman, as long as its cat and mouse I'm happy. As long as we get some goon games on we'll have fun.

# ? Aug 17, 2013 01:31

Hardflip: Jul 21, 2007

Preordered via Greenmangaming. GMG25-OGRUH-7SM8H got me 25% off.

# ? Aug 17, 2013 17:03

jonathan: Jul 3, 2005; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Are there any comparisons between the Xbox and WiiU versions ? I have both collecting dust.

# ? Aug 17, 2013 20:43

Genetic Toaster: Jun 5, 2011

I've been playing through the old games in preparation for Blacklist and whilst Chaos Theory still holds up, I'm convinced that Double Agent (360 version) is massively broken. I've lost track of the amount of times the game has just arbitrarily decided to sound an alarm when I should be totally hidden and the loss of the light/sound meters is crippling me.

Is the PS2/Xbox/Wii version better than this? I heard it was developed by Montreal instead of Shanghai and has a better story but I don't know if it had better gameplay as well.

Genetic Toaster fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Aug 17, 2013

# ? Aug 17, 2013 23:03

G-Whizard: May 31, 2013

Genetic Toaster posted:

I've been playing through the old games in preparation for Blacklist and whilst Chaos Theory still holds up, I'm convinced that Double Agent (360 version) is massively broken. I've lost track of the amount of times the game has just arbitrarily decided to sound an alarm when I should be totally hidden and the loss of the light/sound meters is crippling me.

Is the PS2/Xbox/Wii version better than this? I heard it was developed by Montreal instead of Shanghai and has a better story but I don't know if it had better gameplay as well.

I've played through most of the Xbox 1 version of Double Agent. It's almost a completely different game. It feels more like a paint by numbers Splinter Cell game. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and in some ways is better than Double Agent, but compared to something like Chaos Theory it's still not as good. If you have a way of playing it, it's worth checking out.

Edit- I'm also playing through the old games, I bought the PS3 HD re-release. Holds up pretty good. SP1 looks worse than I remember but still plays well. Love these games.

# ? Aug 18, 2013 00:08

bushisms.txt: May 26, 2004; Scroll, then. There are other posts than these.

I know it doesn't have off-tv co-op, but does any one know if the Wii U version has offline co-op at all? Really want this game, but I really only want co-op games.

# ? Aug 18, 2013 00:14

Super Dude: Jan 23, 2005; Do the Jew

Hardflip posted:

Preordered via Greenmangaming. GMG25-OGRUH-7SM8H got me 25% off.

Website says it can't apply the code.

# ? Aug 18, 2013 00:27

Tykero: Jun 22, 2009

Nvidia is apparently doing some promotion with some of their graphics cards and this game. I got it for free with a purchase of this video card for a computer build I was doing for my GF.

She wasn't interested in the game, and neither was I until I heard it had Spies vs Mercs.

I really, really hope it captures the magic of that game mode for me again. If not, oh well, I got the game for free!

# ? Aug 18, 2013 04:11

cat doter: Jul 27, 2006; gonna need more cheese...australia has a lot of crackers

If this ain't kosher I'll delete the link, but I've had the game for a day or so I decided to work on a walkthrough series for the main missions. The first mission is actually kinda tricky to get a good ghost score on. There's enemy placements where being spotted is down to milliseconds moving from cover to cover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCyCApOvT64

Cutscenes are skipped in the video, I just wanted to get to the meat of the level. I think this is pretty close to the optimum path for the level, but if anyone knows some places where I can improve that'd be awesome.

# ? Aug 18, 2013 09:39

ShineDog: May 21, 2007; It is inevitable!

Actually very excited for this. Burnt through the SP of conviction and now I'm poking through the other recent era clancy games. Theres the odd misstep, but gosh, I guess I had forgotten how consistently solid these games are.

R6 vegas for instance. The usual terrible plot, but the gunplay in that game is loving superb and absolutley craps all over most games. (Particularly on PC, the autoaim on 360 is kind of agressive and you cant turn it off)

# ? Aug 18, 2013 11:32

cat doter: Jul 27, 2006; gonna need more cheese...australia has a lot of crackers

Oh man, R6 Vegas, I actually have pretty fond memories of that game. It's pretty fun, even if it did alienate the entire Rainbow Six fanbase. It's a very lite game tactically but the actual mechanics are fun as hell. Plus your squad is actually useful, so much so that on higher difficulties you can kinda abuse them in order to get through the more difficult stuff.

# ? Aug 18, 2013 11:37

ShineDog: May 21, 2007; It is inevitable!

cat doter posted:

Oh man, R6 Vegas, I actually have pretty fond memories of that game. It's pretty fun, even if it did alienate the entire Rainbow Six fanbase. It's a very lite game tactically but the actual mechanics are fun as hell. Plus your squad is actually useful, so much so that on higher difficulties you can kinda abuse them in order to get through the more difficult stuff.

It's not a rainbow 6 game in the classic sense, but it's a fantastic action shooter. Also god drat, that soundtrack.

SvM question - do the mercs have an advantage on PC? I can imagine the ability to quickly flick your view around with a mouse would really change things up.

ShineDog fucked around with this message at 11:48 on Aug 18, 2013

# ? Aug 18, 2013 11:43

GeeCee: Dec 16, 2004; "You're going to be...amazing."

Echoing the love for Chaos Theory here, I've been playing through it recently and it's definitely not a game that even pretends to to give you realistic options for going in guns blazing. It's philosophy is that going guns blazing is stupid and punishes you harshly for doing so, as a stealth game bloody should.

One thing I especially like about Chaos Theory is an apparent random chance to hit dudes when using your pistol, try it. Pull out your pistol and try to headshot a perfectly stationary guy from not point-blank range and some of the time he will pull some matrix level dodging poo poo, before returning fire. That's the game introducing risk into gunplay and forcing the player to get close if they want to properly deal with guards quietly - risky in itself.

Nowadays of course all you have to do is kill everyone with an auto-target-kill button because otherwise people who only ever play CoD or Halo games might feel disadvantaged when asked to think and actually apply some stealth.

If I get this game it will more than likely be for perfectionist mode.

# ? Aug 18, 2013 12:45

Ineffiable: Feb 16, 2008; Some say that his politics are terrifying, and that he once punched a horse to the ground...

Is there any issues with getting the Splinter Cell Trilogy hd collection? I know some trophies are bugged or something but if I just want to play through, is it pretty acceptable?

# ? Aug 18, 2013 12:58

cat doter: Jul 27, 2006; gonna need more cheese...australia has a lot of crackers

Aliginge posted:

Echoing the love for Chaos Theory here, I've been playing through it recently and it's definitely not a game that even pretends to to give you realistic options for going in guns blazing. It's philosophy is that going guns blazing is stupid and punishes you harshly for doing so, as a stealth game bloody should.

One thing I especially like about Chaos Theory is an apparent random chance to hit dudes when using your pistol, try it. Pull out your pistol and try to headshot a perfectly stationary guy from not point-blank range and some of the time he will pull some matrix level dodging poo poo, before returning fire. That's the game introducing risk into gunplay and forcing the player to get close if they want to properly deal with guards quietly - risky in itself.

Nowadays of course all you have to do is kill everyone with an auto-target-kill button because otherwise people who only ever play CoD or Halo games might feel disadvantaged when asked to think and actually apply some stealth.

If I get this game it will more than likely be for perfectionist mode.

I dunno dude, I'd agree with this perception when it comes to conviction, but Blacklist definitely doesn't gently caress around. If you get spotted on normal difficulty chances are you'll get gunned down in a split second. That's the one big difference I wasn't expecting when I first played it, while combat style is viable because of cover and regenerating health, you can't withstand being caught with your pants down at all. I actually got a little frustrated when I first played it, but it was mainly because Blacklist's stealth style is pretty strange and takes a while to acclimate into.

Anyway, I got mission 2 recorded. I didn't do as well this time but if I wanted an entire level with a perfect ghost score without reloading any checkpoints I'd be there all day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3ARtAJE7Bk

I'll leave it there for now. If you guys want more I'll continue, but it takes a surprising amount of work to get really great run throughs of a mission.

cat doter fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Aug 18, 2013

# ? Aug 18, 2013 14:16

Super Dude: Jan 23, 2005; Do the Jew

Ineffiable posted:

Is there any issues with getting the Splinter Cell Trilogy hd collection? I know some trophies are bugged or something but if I just want to play through, is it pretty acceptable?

I didn't notice any problems with them. I don't care about trophies though, so no idea if there were any issues. I own all of them on the PC (not sure where my PT disc is though), and they played identically.

Super Dude posted:

Hardflip posted:
Preordered via Greenmangaming. GMG25-OGRUH-7SM8H got me 25% off.

Website says it can't apply the code.

Anybody have an idea on how to fix this? I've never purchased anything from GMG before, so I'm not sure if there are weird tricks with the coupon codes.

# ? Aug 18, 2013 15:44

cat doter: Jul 27, 2006; gonna need more cheese...australia has a lot of crackers

Super Dude posted:

Anybody have an idea on how to fix this? I've never purchased anything from GMG before, so I'm not sure if there are weird tricks with the coupon codes.

The discount code often doesn't apply to new releases or pre-orders, so it's just something you gotta deal with. GMG is still quite often the cheapest way to get new games even without the discount code.

Oh and DUDES if you're not playing Chaos Theory on PC you're doing it wrong as heck.

# ? Aug 18, 2013 16:39

Hardflip: Jul 21, 2007

Super Dude posted:

Anybody have an idea on how to fix this? I've never purchased anything from GMG before, so I'm not sure if there are weird tricks with the coupon codes.

I used it from here. The site said it was expired, but still worked for me: http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/splinter-cell-blacklist-22-50-green-man-gaming-1628080

Perhaps it's UK only?

# ? Aug 18, 2013 18:13

Sober: Nov 19, 2011; First touch: Life.
Second touch: Dead again. Forever.

cat doter posted:

I dunno dude, I'd agree with this perception when it comes to conviction, but Blacklist definitely doesn't gently caress around. If you get spotted on normal difficulty chances are you'll get gunned down in a split second. That's the one big difference I wasn't expecting when I first played it, while combat style is viable because of cover and regenerating health, you can't withstand being caught with your pants down at all. I actually got a little frustrated when I first played it, but it was mainly because Blacklist's stealth style is pretty strange and takes a while to acclimate into.

Anyway, I got mission 2 recorded. I didn't do as well this time but if I wanted an entire level with a perfect ghost score without reloading any checkpoints I'd be there all day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3ARtAJE7Bk

I'll leave it there for now. If you guys want more I'll continue, but it takes a surprising amount of work to get really great run throughs of a mission.

Just curious because they said we could disable parts of the HUD; I saw in a preview vid you could disable some of the extraneous messages (scoring, tutorial, popups, etc.) Does the "remove all HUD" option pull everything or does it keep some elements like (I assume) crosshair? Waypoint is still there as well? If you could just take a look and report back that'd be cool, thanks

# ? Aug 18, 2013 18:41

mrbotus: Apr 7, 2009; Patron of the Pants

Does anybody know if the PC version of the game is going to be on the level of the Xbone and PS4 versions of the game? I know it's probably too early to know, but I'm worried that a lot of the PC versions of the games coming out in the Fall will be their PS3/360 equivalents instead the next gen versions.

# ? Aug 18, 2013 21:30

Profanity: Aug 26, 2005; Grimey Drawer

nickmeister posted:

Does anybody know if the PC version of the game is going to be on the level of the Xbone and PS4 versions of the game? I know it's probably too early to know, but I'm worried that a lot of the PC versions of the games coming out in the Fall will be their PS3/360 equivalents instead the next gen versions.

It's not releasing on next-gen consoles.

# ? Aug 18, 2013 22:14

Xenomrph: Dec 9, 2005; AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill

Not gonna lie, I think it's dumb as heck that the PS3 got HD re-releases of the first 3 Splinter Cell games in a bundle pack and the Xbox360 didn't.

I'm not even trying to be all "console warrior" here - I'd gladly drop the coin to re-buy the SC games for 360.

# ? Aug 19, 2013 11:18

G-Whizard: May 31, 2013

Xenomrph posted:

Not gonna lie, I think it's dumb as heck that the PS3 got HD re-releases of the first 3 Splinter Cell games in a bundle pack and the Xbox360 didn't.

I'm not even trying to be all "console warrior" here - I'd gladly drop the coin to re-buy the SC games for 360.

Maybe they were trying to make up for the fact that PS3 didn't get Conviction? Either way it's dumb.

# ? Aug 19, 2013 15:54

Megaman's Jockstrap: Jul 16, 2000; What a horrible thread to have a post.

7 Things You Should Know About Splinter Cell: Blacklist Single Player:

The levels are mostly extremely great and approach Chaos Theory levels of non-linearity at several points. There's even some where you sneak around in live firefights (and yes, the two sides are dynamic, move around, and take non-scripted casualties if you do nothing).
The destruction of Sam Fisher as a character and the reduction of the Splinter Cell world to Call-of-Duty levels of poo poo is complete. They started the job in Double Agent, nearly finished in Conviction, and now it's done. The game is full-blown drink-the-Kool-Aid jingoistic nonsense. No one in this game talks to each other like an adult, they bark a series of military-jargon/spy thriller dialogue back and forth. Sam has gone from a fairly low-key laid back cynical dude to a typical military dipshit leading man who says things like "The mission comes first!" Also he tortures people. I don't want to get off on a tear about this game's disgusting morality so I won't.
There's an annoying progression system, you have to buy things with cash now. There's easily more stuff than you could buy in two full playthroughs although a lot of that is camo colorings and loud guns that you probably don't care about.
You really can play this game like a third person shooter or like a typical Spinter Cell game, or a combination of the two. It's Dishonored level-good at supporting both styles. As a shooter it plays very well although it is VERY lethal on anything above normal. If you play stealth and screw up you die, just like in Chaos Theory.
They ripped off Mass Effect 2. A lot. Between missions you walk around the ship and talk to your crew. It's horrible military garbage with uninteresting characters. Really makes me appreciate Bioware's writing, which should give you some indication of how bad this is. Sam even looks like the default male Commander Shepard now. Weird.
There's a lot of single player and co-op content. Co-op split screen works absolutely fantastic, btw.
Remember how they said you can play through the whole game without killing anyone? You can't. Occasionally you take control of other characters (there's even a brief first person shooter interlude - you can still use stealth, and it's very short, so it's mostly just for variety) and these other characters don't have non-lethal options. They straight-up murder dudes.

Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Aug 19, 2013

# ? Aug 19, 2013 16:10

Ice Fist: Jun 20, 2012; ^^ Please send feedback to beefstache911@hotmail.com, this is not a joke that 'stache is the real deal. Serious assessments only. ^^

I'm really disappointed that they can't come up with an interesting or even well written story line for this series. But I'm really glad that they've made the gameplay itself more compelling. Also Jesus, why do they insist on making the player torture people?

# ? Aug 19, 2013 16:23

Sober: Nov 19, 2011; First touch: Life.
Second touch: Dead again. Forever.

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

The destruction of Sam Fisher as a character and the reduction of the Splinter Cell world to Call-of-Duty levels of poo poo is complete. They started the job in Double Agent, nearly finished in Conviction, and now it's done. The game is full-blown drink-the-Kool-Aid jingoistic nonsense. No one in this game talks to each other like an adult, they bark a series of military-jargon/spy thriller dialogue back and forth. Sam has gone from a fairly low-key laid back cynical dude to a typical military dipshit leading man who says things like "The mission comes first!" Also he tortures people. I don't want to get off on a tear about this game's disgusting morality so I won't.

Remember how they said you can play through the whole game without killing anyone? You can't. Occasionally you take control of other characters (there's even a brief first person shooter interlude - you can still use stealth, and it's very short, so it's mostly just for variety) and these other characters don't have non-lethal options. They straight-up murder dudes.

Yeah I was kinda expecting those two things. The first I think you can kinda blame on Richard Dansky (didn't he also write the unintelligible Future Soldier plot?) and maybe the directorial crew for not catching themselves/caring about how old Sam Fisher carried himself. I don't think I either care at this point what he's turned into or if fans even care enough to make it a big enough deal for them to turn it around for the next installment (they won't because the fans never know what they want).

And secondly yeah it was kinda obvious when the achievements/trophies leaked and it said "no kills playing as Sam Fisher" I do not expect a "No Russian"-esque situation though, would've been loving hilarious if the game opened up with you in Guam as a bad guy shooting Americans and then revealing you as the dying as the kid with the grenade that injures Vic

Ice Fist posted:

I'm really disappointed that they can't come up with an interesting or even well written story line for this series. But I'm really glad that they've made the gameplay itself more compelling. Also Jesus, why do they insist on making the player torture people?

Yeah it's stupid. I won't go into "Well for Sam Fisher..." levels of stupid you would find on the official forums but yeah, dialing back the torture sequences to cutscene torture->get perfectly good intel->lovely token "moral choice" all of the time is ridiculous and is rather telling of the poor quality of writing. That and Sam Fisher didn't really torture anyone except in Conviction when it was more Jack Bauer-personal to him rather than "just another day at the office" important.

# ? Aug 19, 2013 16:30

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

I am pretty sure holding a knife to someone's throat while asking them questions is psychologically torture, which is what he did all the time in Chaos Theory.

# ? Aug 19, 2013 16:33

Sober: Nov 19, 2011; First touch: Life.
Second touch: Dead again. Forever.

blackguy32 posted:

I am pretty sure holding a knife to someone's throat while asking them questions is psychologically torture, which is what he did all the time in Chaos Theory.

Fair enough but this time, you don't have a choice and he just jams it right into the clavicle to make mission critical intel appear out of thin air.

edit: but then again so did any other Splinter Cell game so the whole point is moot but still worth discussing.

# ? Aug 19, 2013 16:35

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 05:51

Megaman's Jockstrap: Jul 16, 2000; What a horrible thread to have a post.

Playing through the series, you can watch as Splinter Cell's stories devolve from being about information systems, espionage, and infiltration to being about using your killer commando skills to punishing Bad Guys who are doing Bad Things.

Also, there's a "Call Sarah" button in the single player mission hub. Between every mission you can call her and get a short little conversation. It's literally the only dialogue that Sam doesn't bark so I kept doing it even though the conversations were not very interesting. I stopped when Sam told Sarah he wouldn't be home for Thanksgiving because he had to "finish the mission". Not going home to be with his daughter...you know, the one he thought was dead and sacrificed his career to avenge. Might be important to spend a little time with her. But nope, we got new bad guys, gotta focus on what's really important.

There's a character in this game whose literal job description is "terror merchant". I mean, what the gently caress does that even mean?

I could keep going on about this but I won't. I'll just reiterate - it's a gross, immoral, disgusting story and setting.

Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Aug 19, 2013

# ? Aug 19, 2013 16:37

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The Splinter Cell Megathread: Stealth just ain't what it used to be

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