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Thanks, the way Shetland talked about/reacted to the idea of Nedich made me curious if Sam might have been able to offer some proof/back-up.
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# ? Feb 14, 2013 21:23 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 12:49 |
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The furnace room can go gently caress itself
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# ? Feb 18, 2013 00:04 |
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Against better judgement or for the good of my health, I started trolling the Official Forums for Blacklist. This better be worth it. But looks like NVG is back in. No more silly everything going black-and-white.
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# ? Feb 18, 2013 03:16 |
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OH man, Splinter Cell! Chaos Theory really had the best soundtrack - I actually bought that after I rented it years back. I've got some ms points sitting around - how is the Chaos Theory GoD version for xbox?
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# ? Feb 18, 2013 03:32 |
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I received Chaos Theory for PC as a gift a long time ago, but couldn't play it at the time due to having a crap computer. Then I misplaced it among some stuff I had put into storage and kind of forgot about it until I found it this weekend while preparing to move. So now I can finally play it! But before I install it, I remember some big dust-up about it having StarForce copy protection. Is there a way to install CT without it or remove it completely after installing CT and still be able to play it? Loved the hell out of the original, Pandora was okay from what little I remember, I never finished Double Agent because it was on the 360 and just felt blah and Conviction was an unsatisfying, bizarre detachment from stealth altogether.
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# ? Feb 18, 2013 13:08 |
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The key to having a good time with Conviction is to pretend that the game is super strict about mark and execute - never shoot anything by clicking on it. Suddenly it goes from an okay fast-paced stealthy shooter to an incredible stealth-based action-puzzler. It honestly feels like the levels were designed for this, but that the devs felt obliged to include manual shooting for the sake of realism. Seriously, try it.
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# ? Feb 18, 2013 13:35 |
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I really liked the new elements Conviction brought to the series, but it was like two steps forward and three steps back, Blacklist on the other hand looks like it's taking the good parts of Conviction and mixing it with the heart of older Splinter Cell's stealth, which honestly is good enough for me. I just hope they fix some of the nagging details from Conviction, like the control scheme which wasn't intuitive (LB to crouch, right stick click to reload, really?) and bring back an actual stealth meter instead of the B&W while in shadows crap.
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# ? Feb 18, 2013 14:12 |
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The only thing that Splinter Cell: Blacklist will need more of than in the last games is the split jump in a narrow hallway where you just hangout near the ceiling in the dark. I've played through many of the previous games and I can only recall using it 3 or 4 times which is simply not enough. I even distinctly remember going out of my way to jump near walls I thought I could do it and ended up alerting everyone nearby. Just make the new game just one big hallway because that poo poo was just too cool.
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# ? Feb 18, 2013 14:51 |
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Philip J Fry posted:I received Chaos Theory for PC as a gift a long time ago, but couldn't play it at the time due to having a crap computer. Then I misplaced it among some stuff I had put into storage and kind of forgot about it until I found it this weekend while preparing to move. So now I can finally play it! Going to replay Conviction next. Didn't really give it a fair shake last time I played it. I am pretty much going to just skip Double Agent (PS360PC) because it is pretty unbearable. Maybe if I find a Wii/GCN copy of SCDA I'll give that version a try. Reive posted:I just hope they fix some of the nagging details from Conviction, like the control scheme which wasn't intuitive (LB to crouch, right stick click to reload, really?) and bring back an actual stealth meter instead of the B&W while in shadows crap.
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# ? Feb 18, 2013 20:45 |
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Just finished Chaos Theory, found it an enjoyable game but the last couple of levels were kind of annoying, particularly the Bathhouse. Perversely that did kinda work for The Bathhouse because by the end of it I loving HATED Shetland and couldn't wait to unload a bullet in his face, and it gave me a great deal of satisfaction to blow his head off a micro-second after he told me,"There's no way you can shoot me, Sam! " - does the game do anything different if you choose NOT to do that? Or does it just lead to a game over? I liked the game well enough to keep an eye on the new one when it comes out, but from what I've read Chaos Theory really does seem like the Hitman: Blood Money of this franchise - a really good game that the others in the series don't really live up to. Hopefully the new Splinter Cell is a good standalone game.
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# ? Feb 20, 2013 09:04 |
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Jerusalem posted:Just finished Chaos Theory, found it an enjoyable game but the last couple of levels were kind of annoying, particularly the Bathhouse. Perversely that did kinda work for The Bathhouse because by the end of it I loving HATED Shetland and couldn't wait to unload a bullet in his face, and it gave me a great deal of satisfaction to blow his head off a micro-second after he told me,"There's no way you can shoot me, Sam! " - does the game do anything different if you choose NOT to do that? Or does it just lead to a game over? Also, your question if you put your gun away, Shetland takes a shot, misses and Sam stabs him, the same cutscene plays. "You wouldn't shoot an old friend would you?" Shetland's last words are oddly appropriate no matter your choice. I was going to do a longer post having just finished Conviction again and what my thoughts are on Blacklist with that in mind. Do you really mind spoilers on that (and by some extension Double Agent)? Other than that, it does look like it's shaping up to be a good game. Whether or not it'll be half as good as Chaos Theory is still up in the air, but there is a sliver of hope.
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# ? Feb 20, 2013 09:14 |
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Sober posted:Nice! Did you happen to do any ghosting or did you just try to stealth through most of it, occasionally shoot/shank some unaware guards? And yeah, the end of Bathhouse (well most of it after it goes south) is really infuriating especially going for the 100%. Only level I fully ghosted was The Bank (which was my favorite level as well), though I tried to make it a point not to kill anyone. After initial confusion over death strikes vs knockout strikes in The Lighthouse, the only level I ended up killing anybody (that the plot didn't demand) in was in The Bathhouse, because it was ludicrous to me that Fisher wouldn't shoot down idiots who were trying to kill him while he was defusing bombs. So I think in the end I killed something like 4 people total? Maybe 5. Sober posted:I was going to do a longer post having just finished Conviction again and what my thoughts are on Blacklist with that in mind. Do you really mind spoilers on that (and by some extension Double Agent)? I don't mind spoilers at all, I'm unlikely to play those games but I wouldn't mind reading about them. Also, did anyone else find the way Lambert says,"FISHER!" at the start of so many sentences really goddamn annoying? I'm trying to be stealthy and save the world you fat old man, stop yelling in my ear out of nowhere!
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# ? Feb 20, 2013 09:41 |
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I bought a Splinter Cell bundle, a year or so ago, that had almost all the games except for Pandora Tomorrow, and with Blacklist on the way I should make an attempt to play the games I have but I have to ask: Does Pandora Tomorrow play a big part in the Splinter Cell story? Or can I just skip it?
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# ? Feb 20, 2013 09:58 |
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You die Joe posted:I bought a Splinter Cell bundle, a year or so ago, that had almost all the games except for Pandora Tomorrow, and with Blacklist on the way I should make an attempt to play the games I have but I have to ask: Does Pandora Tomorrow play a big part in the Splinter Cell story? Or can I just skip it? Jerusalem posted:Also, did anyone else find the way Lambert says,"FISHER!" at the start of so many sentences really goddamn annoying? I'm trying to be stealthy and save the world you fat old man, stop yelling in my ear out of nowhere! CT still has the best tone of the games. It's loving world war 3 and Sam and the people in his ear included and just joking off half the time: Redding watching baseball at work. The whole eastern seaboard has been hit by a terror attack and whoops, I remembered that I forgot to do my laundry. Can you guys stop making me feel old? We saved the world, could we finally get that raise? It's a shame SCDA was basically overly melodramatic throughout the whole thing and Conviction was pretty much straight and serious except for a few lines from Sam to try to lighten the mood.
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# ? Feb 20, 2013 10:17 |
Now, speaking of Double Agent, I loathed that game when it first came out for it's traffic-light stealth tracker that made everything feel like a crap shoot when it came to avoiding guards, whereas the mechanics of Chaos Theory felt perfect. And yesterday, I found something extraordinary. For some bizarre reason, Ubisoft sent the same plot pitch for DA to both Ubi Shanghai, who did the version for the fresh new 360 as well as the PC, and also to Ubi Montreal, the Chaos Theory guys, who built the same story in CT's engine for Xbox and PS2. And yes, it has light and sound meters! Unfortunately other than that it's a transparently obvious rush-job, but when I think of it as an expansion or mod for Chaos Theory (and I did only pay five bucks for it) it's feeling pretty good, and it plays exactly the way Chaos Theory did. There's even co-op!
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# ? Feb 20, 2013 10:26 |
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Sober posted:CT still has the best tone of the games. It's loving world war 3 and Sam and the people in his ear included and just joking off half the time: Redding watching baseball at work. The whole eastern seaboard has been hit by a terror attack and whoops, I remembered that I forgot to do my laundry. Can you guys stop making me feel old? We saved the world, could we finally get that raise? It's a shame SCDA was basically overly melodramatic throughout the whole thing and Conviction was pretty much straight and serious except for a few lines from Sam to try to lighten the mood. Oh yeah, I really enjoyed the humor in this, especially during some of the interrogations (particularly if you listened in on conversations beforehand). I loved the bit about the ninjas (the guy was so excited to meet a real ninja!) or the guy who happily admits to being a huge coward. Fisher trying to make a joke about Ronald Reagan that fell flat was hilarious to me, you can tell how old he feels when it doesn't get a laugh.
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# ? Feb 20, 2013 10:37 |
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DEAR RICHARD posted:I actually just bought a copy of Chaos Theory last night for Xbox from Amazon. I figure $3.50 was more than justifiable. Literally 2 days before reading this thread I plugged in my old xbox with the sole intention of playing Chaos Theory for a second run. The box was still there but the disc wasn't so I had to settle for Pandora Tomorrow. Ordered myself a new copy though. £2.04. Gravy. Edit: poo poo, I didn't realise that the Splinter Cell games were 360 compatible. I just assumed not since it feels like barely any games are. Does that still apply for europe? Also does it improve the frame-rate any because I recall Pandora and Chaos being a bit more stuttery than the original. Edit2: So theres a frickin HD collection on PS3 but not on 360. What the gently caress? Ramagamma fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Feb 20, 2013 |
# ? Feb 20, 2013 11:42 |
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Conviction co-op was amazing fun and hugely enjoyable if one and/or more of you are drunk in the process. The ending ties into the main campaign as well. I felt so bad about winning that fight. I'm sorry Manac0r, it was you or me.
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# ? Feb 20, 2013 12:05 |
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I replayed Conviction recently, and here are my thoughts on the game after a second time through. the tl;dr of the game can be summarized as: Unmarked spoilers ahead, but if you cared enough about Splinter Cell, you would've already played this game or read the plot somewhere, and if you didn't care, you won't care anyway. Anyone caught in between take heed. The single player story is something you want to play through once and be done with it. Sam Fisher comes out of hiding because he hears some rumours about his daughter's death in the previous game (Double Agent) and pretty much just sees red the entire course of the game. It turns out this was to lure him out force him to help an old friend, Grim, in preventing your old employers from assassinating the president and playing kingmaker. It never really feels like a traditional Splinter Cell game other than you are Sam Fisher, there is a voice in your ear and there is stealth involved. If you've followed Hitman: Absolution, it essentially runs in the same vein as Conviction. Splinter Cell: Conviction was not a traditional Splinter Cell game, but a game staring Sam Fisher. Hitman: Absolution was a game staring Agent 47 rather than being much of a Hitman game. In a way, old fans might slip back into the familiar patterns from older games, but the game was something more of a personal, rather than a professional story. So instead of trying to strike a good balance between being cinematic and having a large breadth of interactivity, it felt more like the mechanics of previous games were forced into a narrative that didn't mesh well with what the previous games offered. It happens to be ironic or poetic in a way, since Chaos Theory/Blood Money also happened to be the games in their respective series where they seemed to finally understand what their fans wanted, struck the right balance between interactive and cinematic and accessible. Alright, so they ruined ghosting but that was because the story informed the game's tone, so most of the encounters reflected that. Everyone knows Sam is coming for them except for a handful of moments, so you can't actually actively ghost through environments where people are literally expecting you at any second and curse you out at every opportunity you can get. If you look on youtube, you can find plenty of people trying to 100% stealth the game, but this usually involves cheating the AI (using plenty of flashbangs or shooting bullets as distractions) and and to avoid actively being detected before they have a chance to see you (also using plenty of flashbangs), and when the game requires it, you have to kill everyone to continue. Occasionally you will see some legit sneakiness, but the actual concept of being a ghost is not long-lived while playing the story mode. There literally have been times where I try to be inconspicuous but it seems like after a certain time limit, the guards stop doing their song and dance and 'turn on' and start to chatter about how they know I'm here even if I haven't even shown up even as a dot on someone's periphery. The guards don't really patrol in any sense of the word and are more actively searching for you; i.e. they are almost always in a certain state of alertness. In my first run of the game, I didn't take much care in using most of the gadgets (in fact, I was rarely a gadget guy even though that was the whole crux of the series), but if you shift your focus on the fact that you're pretty much stuck having to kill guards to proceed rather than finding some insane method to get past certain guard combinations (short of making a youtube video of it), this game/most encounters can be seen as a predator room/sequence from Batman: Arkham Asylum/City except you can shoot dudes in the face and blow them up with your almost entirely explosive arsenal of gadgets. The game felt much more fun when I used explosive sticky cameras to lure guards towards another environmental explosive and then detonate, or flashbang/emp a group then take a hostage or use it to sneak away. Yes, I even used Mark and Execute to not only track guard positions but also to do some 'play the game for me' laziness. In all honesty though, Mark and Execute was hardly the most offensive thing in the game and I don't really mind that it will be included in the next game. If you don't like it, don't use it. There are equally creative methods to coax stubborn enemies out of their spots without being detected if you have the patience. So black and white while hidden was a terrible idea and even the director of the game admit it. It definitely wasn't great the second time through because it ruined all that work they put into the game by taking all the colour out of the world because you were skulking in the shadows. If anything, it occasionally made it hard to know the context of your surroundings other than knowing that unless you are in a guard's face, you're safe. At least they let you turn off night vision if you needed to. Here it definitely felt forced on you. Other than that though, I did enjoy the projected text as a way to show objectives or other information without cutting away too often. Deniable Ops felt like something the series was missing. I thoroughly enjoyed terrorist hunts in other Tom Clancy games (yes I even played it Lone Wolf back in the days of Raven Shield/Athena Sword) so I was happy that it finally made a debut in Conviction and did it in the way I felt best represented the concept. In the other games (other than GR which I didn't play much of), the enemies kind of stood in place and waited for you 99% of the time even if you went in loud guns a blazin'. Here, you have semi-random guard placements, patrols and some actual interesting areas that they place you in and just let you tackle it. None of that crap where enemies are instantly alerted to your presence unless you play sloppily. I really only played Hunter mode (which is just murder anyone, detection adds more enemies) and it felt good to just stalk everyone and kill silently, and there is an Infiltration mode where it is the same but getting detected is a fail. There are actual options, like trading out armour for ammo for gadget space before you start a mission, depending on what you want to do. Also, the missing ghosting in the story? You can ghost to your heart's content in Deniable Ops! (Though a real ghost would never kill everyone, I guess). As someone who enjoyed the hell out of what was offered in Chaos Theory, Deniable Ops was the closest it's come to that game in Conviction form. So why I'm sort of optimistic about Splinter Cell: Blacklist
But why I'm a bit iffy on Splinter Cell: Blacklist
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 04:32 |
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Will Blacklist have a separate co-op mode? That was actually the most fun I got out of Conviction, doing that entire co-op campaign with a friend (and some rounds of co-op deneiable ops)
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 04:45 |
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The thing I remember the most about Conviction's storyline was the retcon with Grimm being some ultra serious spy placed in Third Echelon by whoever and her personality in the past four games being a facade. Also, tit physics. That's ignoring all the terrible plotholes Conviction had.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 04:45 |
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GUI posted:The thing I remember the most about Conviction's storyline was the retcon with Grimm being some ultra serious spy placed in Third Echelon by whoever and her personality in the past four games being a facade. Also, tit physics. Yeah, the tit physics are bad and I'm going to groan when they wring out the lovely melodrama between Grim and Sam from Conviction in Blacklist.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 04:50 |
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Sober posted:I could see her hardening the gently caress up because she was the last one standing of the original Fisher crew, Lambert dead and Sam in the wind. I think in the novel or portable game, some others (like Will Redding in SCCT) were forced out so I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case that she had to prove herself to Reed and his men. Coen is still around somewhere. I think the last we saw of her was in Chaos Theory.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 04:55 |
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Conviction was more or less a soft reboot. There was that NSA guy they introduced as a future antagonist in DA and the PSP spin-off but never did anything with.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 05:12 |
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blackguy32 posted:Coen is still around somewhere. I think the last we saw of her was in Chaos Theory.
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# ? Feb 25, 2013 05:26 |
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So someone on youtube did a Conviction sequence in live action http://youtu.be/TisJrOPFUv0 complete with somewhat cringe-worthy Michael Ironside dub at the end On the Blacklist front, looks like it'll be showing up at PAX East, but no playable demo. Well, hopefully some more details coming out of it and hopefully the demo they show is a bit more representative of the game (it is going to be PAX after all). The ComDev doesn't want to show off too much of a level so it'll be iffy if they're going to drop a "ghost/panther/assault" demo reel with them running the same segment of a map three different ways.
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# ? Mar 11, 2013 06:04 |
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I feel like the only one here that loved Conviction. It was awesome to see Sam in that kind of role, and the gameplay was just extremely tight. Real fast paced and snappy, but still methodical at the same time. I agree the Iraq mission can go gently caress itself though.
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# ? Mar 11, 2013 07:48 |
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I love conviction too, in fact it's my favorite splinter cell. You have to restrict yourself from shooting everyone in the head manually, but that's a design oversight in almost every stealth game including the other splinter cells. I recorded some gameplay of me doing a level with just mark and execute and melee and I think it makes the game incredibly fun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxGzt3-MYR8. I hope blacklist doesn't throw out the good parts of conviction.
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# ? Mar 11, 2013 07:55 |
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Here's a few videos of Chaos Theory's rare game mode Spies versus Mercenaries. It was one of the best, most memorable games of our time, and many people didn't have the opportunity to experience this gem. I leave these here for folks to enjoy. They ramp up in skill as you get to the next video in the series. We would still play it to this day if we didn't have massive mouse problems on modern hardware. It's just to much of a bitch to get the game running nowadays. R.I.P. SvM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8FUdkQ6Y1Y One of our first, two friends of mine have a grudge match. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud_Cp2ZRTzQ Another one, me as a spy and our dedicated drunken mercenary makes another appearance. The end of this video naturally leads to the ending events of the next. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkKyR2m1ch0 If you watch only one of these videos, watch this one. This was the pinnacle of our game's that we managed to record. Everyone makes an appearance here. A discussion takes place here where they debate my ability to dodge. Yeah, you'll just have to see how that works out for them. E: I forgot to mention, we don't play the traditional objective based game mode, we play a deathmatch mode and practice hunting each other with limited gadgets. After playing the game so long, there are glaring balance problems, but that can be eliminated by imposing rules and utilizing the gear limitation screens. Stanman fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Mar 11, 2013 |
# ? Mar 11, 2013 08:45 |
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Stanman posted:Here's a few videos of Chaos Theory's rare game mode Spies versus Mercenaries. It was one of the best, most memorable games of our time, and many people didn't have the opportunity to experience this gem. I leave these here for folks to enjoy. They ramp up in skill as you get to the next video in the series. We would still play it to this day if we didn't have massive mouse problems on modern hardware. It's just to much of a bitch to get the game running nowadays. What is wrong with the mouse nowadays? I think I tried playing recently and it was a ghost town, but it ran fine when playing by myself.
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# ? Mar 11, 2013 08:47 |
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My issue is that even at maximum sensitivity settings (inside, outside of the game, everywhere I could)the mouse movement is still incredibly slow. Impossible to play for me and one other in our group. It takes an entire hand's length moving across my mouse pad to move an inch on screen.
Stanman fucked around with this message at 08:56 on Mar 11, 2013 |
# ? Mar 11, 2013 08:53 |
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I just have to say that Chaos Theory is the best loving stealth game ever and it's probably never going to be topped. That's all.
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# ? Mar 11, 2013 15:05 |
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Tonight I was having my hair cut next to a dude that works at Ubi Toronto. Nope, didn't ask him anything.
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# ? Mar 12, 2013 02:47 |
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So apparently I thought the huge RC plane that the Americas got for a CE preorder was decadent as hell, but it looks like Europe one-upped it by having a preorder with a Sam Fisher statue, and then a silver version with ... you guessed it, a SILVER statue of Sam Fisher. Just because. The box is also slightly shaded silver for the hell of it too, probably. Expecting a gold or platinum version to come sometime, or maybe a version with some NVGs. and in silver! also a version with a watch. And Europe gets more preorder bonus gear (stuff you either won't upgrade from or will immediately remove) than NA. Oh pre-order bonuses
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# ? Mar 13, 2013 00:51 |
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I'm still pretty annoyed that Ironside isn't coming back. I mean I respect his choice, but at the very least they could have "retired" the Sam Fisher character. His story arc pretty much ends naturally at the end of Conviction anyway, just let the dude retire.
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# ? Mar 13, 2013 04:03 |
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So like, here is 40 seconds of being in the actual darkness, no explosions of any kind or acts of vicious murder that they usually show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zmM26YzJ64 Sober fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Mar 13, 2013 |
# ? Mar 13, 2013 21:16 |
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Xenomrph posted:I'm still pretty annoyed that Ironside isn't coming back. I mean I respect his choice, but at the very least they could have "retired" the Sam Fisher character. His story arc pretty much ends naturally at the end of Conviction anyway, just let the dude retire. This is the single biggest reason I really want to give the new one the finger and not buy it. Its so loving lazy to not even try and move on to a new character. I mean it was all wrapped up like a Christmas gift...no lets reboot. Lazy.
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# ? Mar 13, 2013 21:25 |
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Sober posted:So like, here is 40 seconds of being in the actual darkness, no explosions of any kind or acts of vicious murder that they usually show. "It takes a moment to adjust to the night vision, the point here is to keep it realistic."
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# ? Mar 13, 2013 21:40 |
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TyroneGoldstein posted:This is the single biggest reason I really want to give the new one the finger and not buy it. Its so loving lazy to not even try and move on to a new character. I mean it was all wrapped up like a Christmas gift...no lets reboot. Hell, the basic plot for Blacklist lends itself to that anyway. It's not like the plot as we know it so far really NEEDS Sam Fisher. poo poo, having a rookie agent would allow for a lot of really funny dialogue interplay between Sam Fisher and the new guy while he tries to prove himself to someone who is a legendary badass (but is arguably past his prime).
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# ? Mar 14, 2013 01:42 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 12:49 |
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I don't think developers have much faith in changing things with their brand. I guess they are afraid of new characters not catching on in a situation similar to Raiden. I mean honestly, I can say the same thing about MGS. Big Boss is pretty much functionally similar to Snake, same voice, same look, etc.
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# ? Mar 14, 2013 02:22 |