General Hazard's Blog

E3 2012: Splinter Cell: Blacklist

2012-06-13T15:40:00.003-07:00

Sam Fisher has changed in more ways than one might feel comfortable with. With the absence of his regular voice actor Michael Ironside, a change in his facial features, and an outfit reminiscent of his stealth rival Solid Snake, many fans are criticizing Ubisoft's direction with the character. If Sam Fisher doesn't look or sound like Sam Fisher, why not just introduce a new hero? As if that wasn't enough to be concerned with, fresh gameplay features in Splinter Cell: Blacklist are signaling a drastic transformation for the series.

In Microsoft's trailer, we find Sam under cover in the Middle East. After handing over an injured "comrade," a few terrorists begin to patch him up. Sam watches over as he decides on how he's going to kill every one of them. Here, the player is now able to "tag" his enemies, placing markers over every one of them for later use. At the press of the Y button (presented in a prompt), Sam grabs the man closest to him and points a gun at the other two. Before they have a chance to shoot, another prompt pops up on screen. When the player decides to hit the A button, Sam kills the enemies he tagged in an auto-generated animation. It was a smooth sequence, but it stuck out as a rather action-oriented scene in a franchise known for its stealth.

Soon after, Sam finds himself sneaking around an area with numerous enemies. He activates some form of vision similar to the Detective Mode from the recent Batman games. This vision allows Sam to see through walls and spot every target in the vicinity, just like the Dark Knight. An interesting addition, considering how easy Detective Mode made the Batman games. With his new X-ray vision, Sam does away with his past stealth methods and confronts his enemies with guns-a-blazing. He kills one guard by stabbing him with a knife, then tags three others. Again, with the press of the A button, Sam automatically kills each one of the terrorists on his own with a generated animation. But there are still others around the area ready to pump him full of lead! What can the player do now? Tag those enemies and hit the A button to kill them all. Never has "stealth" looked so easy and action-packed.

Sam scales a wall and ends up in a small village, once again filled with a bunch of enemies for him to kill. I would imagine that there is some way to just sneak past all of them and make Sam's life a whole lot easier, but I guess Microsoft and Ubisoft aren't interested in that. With the help of his Detective Mode and "press A to kill everyone" ability, Sam does a good job of sending those silly terrorists back to the Hell (Jahannam?) they came from. But oh no, a truck mounted with a machine gun is there to save its allies! Sam heads for cover and turns the game into a third-person shooter, hopelessly being overwhelmed by the turret. What ever can the player do NOW? Call in a missile to blow up the truck and end up killing any other enemies that remained. Sam proceeds with his mission, where I can only imagine he thinks to himself, "What genre is this game supposed to be?"

Our hero comes up to the building where he will complete his mission. Fortunately enough, he utilizes the classic Snake Cam, a gadget designed for stealth. After identifying his target, Sam pulls out an explosive to breach the door. The bomb goes off, knocking the terrorists inside on their hindquarters. With ease, Sam automatically kills everyone but his target. After a short conversation, the target kills himself anyway, rendering the entire mission and all of that flashy action-over-stealth worthless. The demo ends, Microsoft moves on, and fans are worried.

Splinter Cell has always been focused on stealth. Sam used to carry limited ammo, making staying out of sight much more preferable over confronting an enemy. Blacklist introduces features designed to kill everyone on screen as easily as possible. It's fine to give the player options in killing a guard or sneaking around him, but when a features exist to end his life instantly, you essentially terminate the need to use stealth. Why take the time to stay out of sight when I can decimate everyone in the immediate area? But maybe Ubisoft worked on some very serious stealth options in this game and they just wanted to show off the more action-oriented stuff so that their announcement demo wasn't boring for those new to the series. That kind of thing happens all the time and it's completely understandable as to why developers/publishers choose to do so. I can see myself forgiving these new features if Ubisoft did indeed decide to neglect the stealth aspects of Blacklist in order to show off an exciting demo. Hopefully, they know that Splinter Cell fans are aware that Blacklist is a stealth game like its predecessors and they aren't just trying to turn the franchise into something more akin to a blockbuster action game.

Even so, Splinter Cell has changed. For better or for worse, it's probably too early to say. This was the announcement of Blacklist, as well as its first demonstration. What we do know is that Sam Fisher doesn't look or sound like Sam Fisher and there are many new features that only make the easy way out even easier. Changes like this make me wonder: why not create a new IP? Blacklist is quickly straying away from conventional Splinter Cell games, so much so that with a big enough of a push, it might turn out to be a completely different game. It could be really interesting to see Ubisoft have two "government agent" games, one for stealth and one for action. The only reason I can see them sticking to the Splinter Cell name is that doing so will guarantee the title to sell. Regardless of how much the game changes things up, people will buy it simply because it's a part of the Splinter Cell series. I wouldn't be surprised if they annualized it like Assassin's Creed. Whatever Ubisoft decides to do with this series, I just hope they don't go for the ever-so-simple "press A to sell" option.

E3 2012: Halo 4

2012-06-12T17:40:00.001-07:00

Microsoft started its press conference off with a live action trailer for Halo 4. Real people were clad in UNSC armor and surrounded by a computer generated 2552 that really made the Halo universe come to life. It was nice to see Microsoft keep up the pace after Neill Blomkamp's Halo 3 short film and the similar "Remember Reach." This one takes itself a bit seriously, but in all honesty I found it a bit goofy. Something about hardened, supposedly emotionless soldiers suddenly screaming for their lives at the sight of a Unicron-like entity made me giggle. The feeling of amusement was quickly remedied with the sight of Master Chief. But as nice as seeing a familiar face was, the rest of the game's demonstration had me feeling uncertain about the series' future.

We're introduced to a giant sphere, reminiscent of Assassin's Creed's Apples of Eden. Shortly after, Chief decides to follow it (or "him" as Cortana notes) through a jungle. Here, we're introduced to Halo 4's new enemies, which Cortana identifies as "some sort of defense AI." The design of these new enemies I'm a bit iffy on. It's great to see some new targets to shoot at, especially after wiping out hundreds of Covenant for the past decade. The only thing is that they look like a variation of Lego's Bionicle. Though, it seems that these AI may introduce some new ways for Chief to approach combat. One particular enemy proves to be a lot more dynamic than anything seen before. The enemy in question was able to spawn a smaller creature capable of catching grenades and throwing them back at Chief, all while the main creature generated a shield to doubly protect itself. It was interesting to see in action, and I fully expect other types of these enemies to change the way Master Chief guns down his opponents.

At this point, we are also introduced to two new Forerunner weapons. First is the Lightrifle, a cool and attractively futuristic gun that vaporizes those who stand in your path after a few shots. Then we come across the Scattershot, performing the same sweet vaporization as the Lightrifle after only one shot. Both weapons look beautiful, though they don't stray away from what we've been familiar with in past Halo titles. The only addition they bring is the disintegration of your targets.

As intriguing as these new defense AI were, they seemed to be accompanied by short cutscenes that only exist to take control away from the player. Remember the enemy that spawns a smaller enemy out of its back that I was talking about? When you first meet it, the creature grabs Chief in an attempt to frighten him up close and personal. Chief punches him, resulting in getting his Spartan ass thrown to the ground. It's about a ten second sequence, and it might just be a nitpick, but I can't help but be bothered by it. With 343 Industries talking about making the series more cinematic, do they really mean to do so by taking control away from the player with short, unnecessary sequences like this? How far are they willing to go? Another mini-cutscene occurs at the end of the demonstration, where Chief becomes surrounded by the defense AI and supposedly knocked out by one of them. This is just the first ten minutes of gameplay, and control is already forcibly taken from the player multiple times.

The reason I have such an issue with instances of helplessness like these is because they do the exact opposite of what video games are supposed to do: allow the player to control what is onscreen. Unless they're done right like in Portal or Half-Life, they have the serious potential of being nothing but annoyances. It will be like in Halo 3, whenever Cortana or the Gravemind spoke to Master Chief and forced the player to move at a drastically slower pace for minutes. It didn't add anything to the story, it was just frustrating. If 343 Industries continues that tradition in Halo 4, they will only have purposefully added flaws in an otherwise solid game.

Now that I've gotten my singleplayer fear out of the way, let's move into the land of the multiplayer, where scary new features are much more abundant. From what I've heard, Spartans are now capable of sprinting by default, customizing their own weapon loadouts before starting a match, and instantly respawning after death with the press of the X button. Not to mention special bonuses or weapon drops if you're successful enough during a match. By the off chance that you're familiar with Call of Duty, Halo 4's multiplayer is starting to sound a lot more like that game than any past iterations of Halo. If they decide to go with Reach's rank system, Halo 4 has the potential to be much more of a Call of Duty clone. With so many shooters out there already emulating Call of Duty, it would be a horrendous shame to see Halo follow suit, especially after both series' rivalry back in 2007. Other than that, I imagine Halo 4's multiplayer will be just as fun as it's always been.

I love Halo. Halo 2's introduction to Xbox Live will forever remain one of my fondest gaming memories. It even inspired me to come up with the online alias "General Hazard." Halo 3's Forge mode only helped to expand my love for the series, allowing me to create my own maps with which to mercilessly torment my friends. Sadly enough, Halo 4 has me worried. The campaign may prove to be interesting with these new defense AI characters, but it also might remain hindered with control being taken away from the player around every corner. In all likelihood, the multiplayer will be the same fun that we've had in past games, but enhanced with Call of Duty-esque features. I don't want to fear this game, but rather love it as much as I did Halo 2 and 3. Hopefully 343 Industries remember a thing or two from their days at Bungie and are holding onto the better features for later. Halo 3 announced its Forge Mode about a month before the game was released, and Halo: Reach similarly announced Forge World. Forge Universe, anyone?

First Day On The Job

2012-06-12T14:51:00.001-07:00

Greetings! Evidently enough, this is my new blog. Here, I will be voicing my thoughts and opinions about video games, video game news, and the video game industry in general. I also make video game art from time to time, which I may or may not post on here. To those who take the time to read this blog, I humbly thank you! Feel free to comment on anything I say as well, I promise that I take criticism well. With that, I hope you all enjoy!