I alluded to my disappointment with what I saw in the E3 trailer of Splinter Cell: Blacklist during our time of highlights. I would like to elaborate on such in the present. As you can see from the above "Fifth Freedom" trailer, Sam is quite different from what he used to be. Now, I'm not only talking about the unforgivable fact that he is not voiced by Michael Ironside or that he seems to have gotten younger. In fact, nearly everything that lead me to become a fan has been altered or eradicated.
Most obvious is the gameplay itself. The tagline of Splinter Cell originally was "Stealth Action Redefined." With Blacklist (though the trend already began with Conviction) they are going to have to redefine "stealth" if they still want to label the series as such. Hitler agrees.
But beyond the gameplay, one of the things that really led me to appreciate the legend of Sam Fisher was seeing his evolution as a character. From the beginning, he always seemed to have an irreverent attitude towards his superiors and the military chain of command, especially when it was contradictory with his own moral vision. For example, in Chaos Theory while in Seoul to recover the data of a downed spy plane, the player is given the option of putting himself in danger of turrets in order to rescue the unconscious pilots. If he does so, he is not only warned, but discouraged, by Colonel Lambert, being told, "You won't get a medal for this, Fisher. You don't exist." Yet Sam does it anyway, citing his desire to sleep at night, demonstrating that whilst military brass give a higher priority to personal ambitions than to the lives of those under their command, Sam plays the role of the honey badger when it comes to his career. Even more telling is in Pandora Tomorrow when Fisher is told to shoot an unarmed woman who has been helping him because she is a double agent. If the player chooses to do so, Fisher expresses his anger at Lambert, claiming that his actions seem indistinguishable from those of the terrorists he is fighting. This is highly relevant to the "Fifth Freedom" trailer, which I will discuss below. As a final example of how Sam grew both as a character and in his independence from US intelligence agencies, Double Agent leaves him divorced from Third Echelon entirely, Conviction showing him to be now fighting it directly. Personally, as one who has become disillusioned with the military-industrial complex and intelligence agencies' all out assault on civil liberties, Sam was elevated beyond the status of legend, displaying a level of heroism rarely seen on any video game. Fisher had seen the State for the corrupt entity that it is and took it on. Simply awesome.
You can imagine the crushing blow that Blacklist is to me. Rather than further taking on the State, Sam has once again become enlisted in its ranks, only this time in a far more nefarious role. The words spoken in the trailer, beyond being trite and utterly predictable ("Saving lives...by taking them."), show just how far Sam has fallen. In our actual world, the US executive has has declared himself to be above the law, all in the name of upholding "American values and freedoms". He claims the right to imprison without trial, torture, steal anything he deems to be of value in national defense, and assassinate anyone he decides is a threat. Likewise, the fictional president in Blacklist also claims the right to bypass the law, Fisher being her tool for doing so. We can see Sam using the same weapons, i.e. predator drones, that have killed untold numbers of civilians in Pakistan and elsewhere in recent years. We also hear Fisher engage in Orwellian newspeak, as mentioned above.
In one fell swoop, it seems, Sam Fisher has fallen from grace; his beyond legendary status exchanged for becoming a mainstream shooter look-alike. As Tyler Durden says, "Putting feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken." Likewise, putting on night vision goggles does not make you Sam Fisher. Whatever Blacklist is, it does not deserve to have "Splinter Cell" in the title.
Most obvious is the gameplay itself. The tagline of Splinter Cell originally was "Stealth Action Redefined." With Blacklist (though the trend already began with Conviction) they are going to have to redefine "stealth" if they still want to label the series as such. Hitler agrees.
But beyond the gameplay, one of the things that really led me to appreciate the legend of Sam Fisher was seeing his evolution as a character. From the beginning, he always seemed to have an irreverent attitude towards his superiors and the military chain of command, especially when it was contradictory with his own moral vision. For example, in Chaos Theory while in Seoul to recover the data of a downed spy plane, the player is given the option of putting himself in danger of turrets in order to rescue the unconscious pilots. If he does so, he is not only warned, but discouraged, by Colonel Lambert, being told, "You won't get a medal for this, Fisher. You don't exist." Yet Sam does it anyway, citing his desire to sleep at night, demonstrating that whilst military brass give a higher priority to personal ambitions than to the lives of those under their command, Sam plays the role of the honey badger when it comes to his career. Even more telling is in Pandora Tomorrow when Fisher is told to shoot an unarmed woman who has been helping him because she is a double agent. If the player chooses to do so, Fisher expresses his anger at Lambert, claiming that his actions seem indistinguishable from those of the terrorists he is fighting. This is highly relevant to the "Fifth Freedom" trailer, which I will discuss below. As a final example of how Sam grew both as a character and in his independence from US intelligence agencies, Double Agent leaves him divorced from Third Echelon entirely, Conviction showing him to be now fighting it directly. Personally, as one who has become disillusioned with the military-industrial complex and intelligence agencies' all out assault on civil liberties, Sam was elevated beyond the status of legend, displaying a level of heroism rarely seen on any video game. Fisher had seen the State for the corrupt entity that it is and took it on. Simply awesome.
You can imagine the crushing blow that Blacklist is to me. Rather than further taking on the State, Sam has once again become enlisted in its ranks, only this time in a far more nefarious role. The words spoken in the trailer, beyond being trite and utterly predictable ("Saving lives...by taking them."), show just how far Sam has fallen. In our actual world, the US executive has has declared himself to be above the law, all in the name of upholding "American values and freedoms". He claims the right to imprison without trial, torture, steal anything he deems to be of value in national defense, and assassinate anyone he decides is a threat. Likewise, the fictional president in Blacklist also claims the right to bypass the law, Fisher being her tool for doing so. We can see Sam using the same weapons, i.e. predator drones, that have killed untold numbers of civilians in Pakistan and elsewhere in recent years. We also hear Fisher engage in Orwellian newspeak, as mentioned above.
In one fell swoop, it seems, Sam Fisher has fallen from grace; his beyond legendary status exchanged for becoming a mainstream shooter look-alike. As Tyler Durden says, "Putting feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken." Likewise, putting on night vision goggles does not make you Sam Fisher. Whatever Blacklist is, it does not deserve to have "Splinter Cell" in the title.
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