Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Genre: Stealth / Action-RPG

Players: 1

Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page: UbiSoft

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Review:

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist, released in 2013 on the PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U, is the seventh and as of 2022 the most recent entry in UbiSoft’s Stealth / Action-RPG series. In this entry in the series, series protagonist Sam Fisher contends with an organization of terrorists targeting US military bases throughout the world, a project these terrorists refer to as the titular “Blacklist”.

Being a so-called “AAA” game of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 era, BlackList’s presentation is very good, but somewhat dated by today’s standards as I write this in 2022. The 3D environments and textures are generally very good, and in particular the lighting and shadows are quite nice (one would expect no less from a Splinter Cell game), but the 3D character models look dated, especially when the game uses live-action segments for news coverage in cutscenes. This is all backed by the series’ usual excellent militaristic soundtrack and great voice acting, though Fisher’s longtime voice actor Michael Ironside has been replaced by Eric Johnson, and while Johnson does a good job with the character, his voice doesn’t have quite the same edge as Ironside’s does.

The gameplay in Blacklist is pretty standard for the series, but by no means bad. Players are generally encouraged to be stealthy and have access to multiple cool gadgets to that end. However, players with an itchy trigger finger can also opt to go in guns blazing, so long as they’re careful to make good use of cover. Blacklist allows players to use points earned from a good performance on their mission to upgrade their loadout in-between missions, and have numerous ways to improve both Sam’s arsenal and his capabilities.

Blacklist also sees the return of the Execution system previously introduced in Splinter Cell: Conviction, with the ability to automatically mark and kill several targets after getting in a few stealth kills without this feature. Players can treat this as an emergencies-only “panic button” when swarmed by enemies, make use of it frequently to help speed their way through the game’s levels, or they can opt to avoid it altogether if they desire a challenge, I suppose.

All in all, I would say that the core gameplay in Blacklist is solid, and this is a pretty good entry in the series overall, though Blacklist doesn’t really do anything truly new or revolutionary within either the series or the genre.

However, there is unfortunately the other thing we need to talk about. Many of the game’s most-touted features are looped through the game’s connection to Ubisoft’s UPlay service, which is no longer available on Wii U. This means that not only is Blacklist’s much-celebrated multiplayer gameplay completely stripped out of the Wii U version of the game at this point, but so too are many of the other features, like connectivity to the Splinter Cell mobile app and many of the game’s unlockables. If you’re a completionist considering getting the game now, be prepared to be frustrated with numerous menus full of things you can’t access due to this. I suppose, on the upside, the Wii U does have the silver lining of including a touchscreen menu to swap weapons which… doesn’t really add much to the game, really, but it’s a nice consolation prize, at least.

In the end, the Wii U version of Splinter Cell: Blacklist is a solid entry in the series and in the Stealth Action genre overall, but it’s not an especially memorable or outstanding one. What’s more, the Wii U version of the game is a perfectly decent and serviceable version… as long as you don’t mind all the multiplayer and other extra features that are now effectively stripped out of this version of the game. If you’re looking for a solid Stealth game on the Wii U, or want to play a good Splinter Cell game on a Nintendo platform (minus the multiplayer), Splinter Cell: Blacklist on Wii U will absolutely get the job done, but don’t expect this to be anything approaching a truly exceptional experience.

tl;dr – Splinter Cell Blacklist is the last (as of 2022) mainline entry in the Splinter Cell series, and the Wii U version of the game is mostly a solid but unspectacular version of a solid but unspectacular Stealth game. This game’s biggest flaw is how many of the game’s features rely on the now-defunct UPlay service, stripping the game of its multiplayer among numerous other features. What’s left is still a solid entry in the genre, but not a must-play one.

Grade: B

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