POSTED 17/9/13


TOM CLANCY'S SPLINTER CELL: BLACKLIST

Ubisoft
PS3 (also on Xbox 360, Wii U, PC)

You can’t stop the Blacklist. Nobody can stop the Blacklist...

Well, hopefully Sam Fisher can, or we’re stuffed. Yep, ol’ green eyes is back in an action movie that you direct. No, it doesn’t come with a natty folding chair or Hitchcock mask and strap-on gut, but with three distinct gameplay styles – ‘ghost’ (go quietly and be non-lethal), ‘panther’ (go quietly and kill, kill, kill) and ‘assault’ (go nuts) - much of it’s up to you as to whether you channel Michael Bay, or aim for a David Fincher-esque vibe.

The setup involves a mob calling themselves ‘The Engineers’. While with a name like that they could be a crappy Melbourne pub band, they’re actually a terrorist cell pissed off with Uncle Sam (as in America, not Mr Fisher). They commence their rampage by explodinating Guam’s Andersen Air Force Base (and almost our Sammy), and threaten to keep targeting US assets on their ‘Blacklist’ until all US troops are withdrawn from, well, everywhere that isn’t the USA.

The Pres teams Samuel with old mucker Grim, newbie Isaac and brainiac Charlie and the Fourth Echelon’s born. Their mission? Well duh, whaddya reckon?!

There’s enough upgradable weaponry to cripple a sizeable planet, so as long as you don’t go full-on sneaky you can get some seriously bombastic action happening – including an ace new marked for death-type thingy that takes out preselected foes on the run. But that “Shh! We’re hunting wascally tewwowists’ approach is cool fun too. So, with three ways to mix and match your campaign there’s plenty of replayability – and that’s without touching co-op or multiplayer.

Meanwhile, a handy ‘StealthNet’ functionality tracks everything you do to aid $$$s-for-stuff amassment, from how many carcasses you’ve secreted to how many pubes you shed last time you showered. Well, it is thorough...

Just like Billy Bragg, if you’ve got a Blacklist we want to be on it.

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