One of Ubisoft's biggest selling and well known franchises is Splinter Cell. The series made it's debut in 2003 originally as an Xbox exclusive but eventually ported to the PS2 and Gamecube. I have been a fan since the very first game. Years prior to it's release I had played the Syphon Filter games and to me Splinter Cell was the next step in that similar style of game, which is one of the reasons it appealed to me.
I have remained a fan over the years and every game in the series I have played I have enjoyed, even despite some flaws that have been pointed out by some fans - I haven't been disappointed by any of the games, except for one aspect of the latest called Splinter Cell: Blacklist, which I go into further detail later in this post.
I have a tradition with these games whereby every time a new installment is released or before it's released I will play through all the previous games from the first to the current before playing whatever is the newest. I have managed to do this nearly every year since Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow was released. I have missed some years but late last year and early this year I have played through all of them again. I am now up to Splinter Cell: Blacklist.
For those not familiar with this franchise it was endorsed by the late Tom Clancy and is one of Ubisoft's main franchises. The main character is Sam Fisher, an older character than the usual protagonist in these kinds of games but that is what makes him unique, as does the voice actor who portrayed him in the first five games, the excellent Michael Ironside, whose gruff older voice really suited the older look of the character.
The stories in each game vary with the fourth and fifth entries following on from another. From what I've played of Splinter Cell: Blacklist so far there are only references to the story of the fifth installment. All other games in the series have individual stories that do not follow on from the previous game. In the second and third there are some references to events from the original game though.
The games in the main series, excluding Essentials released for the PSP (and some of the versions on Nintendo handhelds), are as follows:
Splinter Cell (2002)
Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (2004)
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (2005)
Splinter Cell: Double Agent (2006)
Splinter Cell: Conviction (2010)
Splinter Cell: Blacklist (2013)
(For the rest of this thread I will refer to the games by their subtitle, unless I just state Splinter Cell which indicates the original game.)
The gameplay is stealth based with your visibility in direct light or shadow indicated by a meter on screen, as well as a sound level (introduced in Pandora Tomorrow), which lets you know if you are in danger of alerting enemies to your presence. Once an enemy has either been knocked unconscious or killed you must pick up the body and hide it in a place where an enemy won't walk into it or won't see it in shadow if he walks past it. If you don't hide a body properly even if you've cleared an area of enemies, once you get to the next segment of the level or area that body will trigger an alert. In Splinter Cell three alerts and the mission is over, and in some missions one alert means the mission is over. In Pandora Tomorrow the alarm system remains intact except at each stage of alert the enemies become harder to dispatch as they will put on body armor. Once the third alert level has been reached you will still be able to continue and finish the mission but until the alert levels decrease over time the enemies will be tougher. The only other games where the alert system is in use is Chaos Theory and Double Agent. In Conviction once you are detected you can see your LPK (Last Known Position) which the enemy will move to and if you remain in range they will continue to attack but if you escape the area and wait then their alertness will dissipate. This is also the case in Blacklist.
Pandora Tomorrow introduces a couple of moves for Sam to utilize. One is the ability to do a SWAT turn from one side of a doorway to another so you can quickly move past a door without being seen (unless you time it wrong and enter the enemies line of sight at the wrong moment), an ability that didn't remain in the following installments. Another ability was to have a laser sight for your pistol to improve accuracy, the only con to this is that if an enemy sees this laser sight on another enemy or even on a surface they will be alerted to your presence.
There are many other abilities either added then kept, or added for one or two games then taken out in others but one more I will mention that comes in handy is the ability to swap shoulders for which side Sam holds his weapon to make it easier to see your target, which was available only in Chaos Theory and Double Agent. I will also say that Blacklist feels like a combination of Conviction's gameplay mechanics and Chaos Theory's.
There is too much extensive information about this franchise so I will leave that for others to chime in with or to research if you haven't played any of these games. For the rest of this first post of this thread I will continue with my thoughts on the games overall.
The voice actor who voiced Sam from Splinter Cell to Conviction was Michael Ironside who has been in such films as Scanners, Total Recall (1990), Starship Troopers and even in Terminator: Salvation. He became synonymous with the role of Sam Fisher and whenever I hear the name Sam Fisher or think of Splinter Cell it is he who I strongly associate with the franchise.
For Blacklist a decision was made by Ubisoft not to hire Michael Ironside to reprise the role of Sam Fisher and instead to cast an actor who was younger and more able to perform motion capture performances while delivering dialogue at the same time. This is the only time in the history of the franchise where I was disappointed with an element of the games.
The concern I held was that because Michael Ironside was so ingrained as the character in my and most fans minds then without him part of the essence of what makes Sam Fisher such a great character would be lost by whoever voiced him.
What do I think of this decision by Ubisoft now having played Blacklist? I concede that there was always going to be a time where if they decided to continue the series with Sam Fisher as the main character, long after Michael Ironside either passed away or retired from the role, that they would at some stage need to recast. I still think that while the new voice actor doesn't do a bad job in terms of the craft of voice acting, and I have nothing against him, the voice he uses for Sam Fisher sounds too young. The actor in question is Eric Johnson, who is only in his 30s but in voicing a character that looks the age that he's supposed to be in the games, which is in his late 40s in Splinter Cell and his early 50s by the time of Conviction, the voice Eric uses is too jarring when seeing the character's look and hearing the voice at the same time.
What other alternatives would there have been? Perhaps placing the character of Sam Fisher in a behind the scenes role working alongside as support for a new recruit as the main character. Another alternative would be to take out the character of Sam completely - perhaps he dies or simply retires, which would allow another main character to be introduced. An even different alternative would be to create games set in between events depicted in the previous games because not every game's story is set in consecutive years, and in Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory there are references to Sam's early days before the Splinter Cell program is initiated by Third Echelon, in Conviction you actually experience a past event in Sam's life as a civilian and also as a soldier during Iraq. I would have even accepted a game that took place before any of the Splinter Cell games because then the casting of a younger actor and voice for Sam Fisher would have been more appropriate. But this would have meant that the gadgets you use as Sam would have been less advanced and might not have made the gameplay appeal to those who loved the advanced gadgets in the games.
The official reason why Ubisoft decided to recast is because they wanted an actor who could provide a voice as well as perform motion capture as the character, and talk at the same time in some instances. I suspect that the real reason behind this decision is to save money on hiring a motion capture actor and a voice actor as separate entities - get two for the price and workload of one by hiring someone who can do both. A second reason I suspect is because Ubisoft might have wanted to avoid the issue of coming up with aspects of the story and character of Sam to entice Michael Ironside to reprise the role, as they had to do. My thoughts on the story I've experienced so far in Blacklist in relation to this will be revealed in this next part, which has bits covered by spoiler marks:
The character arc of Sam Fisher changes throughout the series, in part to create new stories but also to entice Michael Ironside to reprise the role by providing more scope for him as an actor. This is kind of like Christopher Lee and his portrayal as Dracula, in order to continue to give him reason to reprise the role they had to come up with something a bit different for him (for Dracula: Prince of Darkness he would only reprise the role if Dracula never uttered a single line of dialogue. This changed in the next ones so perhaps there was something else used to entice him to reprise the role, as he felt the character and the situation from Bram Stoker's novel had been utilized as much as it could have been...but I digress).
In Splinter Cell Sam Fisher is recruited into Third Echelon, a special branch of the NSA by the head of Third Echelon, Irving Lambert.
The story deals with the newly instated President of Georgia, Kombayn Nikoladze, who has taken over from the previous assassinated President, and instigates cyber warfare attacks against the US. The story is more complicated than this but that is the main crux of what Sam is trying to thwart in Splinter Cell.
In Pandora Tomorrow Sam Fisher must stop a man by the name of Suhadi Sadono and his group called Darah Dan Doa from releasing smallpox into major cities, by detonating bombs through use of the codeword Pandora Tomorrow. In this game one of Sam's friends from his past is introduced, a man by the name of Douglas Shetland. This is the first time someone personal to Sam (and from his past) aside from his daughter Sarah is incorporated into the story.
In Chaos Theory
a plot to de-stabilize America and Japan to cause them to go to war with one another.
To pause a moment on the first three entries it is important to note that the character of Sam doesn't change much in these first three games. He does go through some points of difference in what happens around him but the effect things have on him personally compared to the next two entries in the series is minimal
In Double Agent Sam Fisher is put through an emotional ringer and this is the first time Sam Fisher's life as an agent is significantly and irreversibly altered.
This cause Sam to go into a period of great depression and recklessness. Lambert offers Sam the most dangerous mission he has ever been involved in, as a way to try and get Sam's head back in the game. He must go undercover in prison to befriend an inmate who is a member of a terrorist organization called the JBA (John Brown's Army) so he can infiltrate their organization as a double agent.
In Conviction
Double Agent and Conviction gave Michael Ironside enough incentive to want to reprise his role as the character experienced new things. So far the story line of Blacklist is similar to the first three games in the sense that you have an organization doing bad things, Sam and his allies get involved and stop the situation from reaching it's ultimate conclusion on the side of the villains. This story (what I've experienced of it so far) would not give much for an actor to do who had been in the role for as long as Michael Ironside had. So ultimately perhaps Michael Ironside wouldn't have reprised the role. In the end we will never know what may have become of the franchise with him still voicing Sam Fisher.
There you have it, an introduction to the Splinter Cell franchise. There are so many aspects of this franchise that are great but I haven't really broken the surface with this first post, and there will be many things I have glossed over intentionally or may have missed or have gotten incorrect unintentionally. I hope this thread can become a place of discussion of Splinter Cell.
One thing to add before the end of this first post is that a Splinter Cell film has been in development for many years now. At one point Peter Berg was signed on to direct and writer and creator of the Splinter Cell stories (for the first two games, maybe three), JT Petty was attached as writer of the screenplay. Now the film is moving forward with Tom Hardy cast in the role of Sam Fisher and currently no director or writer has been assigned. This may change of course but at the moment that is where the film adaptation stands.
I have remained a fan over the years and every game in the series I have played I have enjoyed, even despite some flaws that have been pointed out by some fans - I haven't been disappointed by any of the games, except for one aspect of the latest called Splinter Cell: Blacklist, which I go into further detail later in this post.
I have a tradition with these games whereby every time a new installment is released or before it's released I will play through all the previous games from the first to the current before playing whatever is the newest. I have managed to do this nearly every year since Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow was released. I have missed some years but late last year and early this year I have played through all of them again. I am now up to Splinter Cell: Blacklist.
For those not familiar with this franchise it was endorsed by the late Tom Clancy and is one of Ubisoft's main franchises. The main character is Sam Fisher, an older character than the usual protagonist in these kinds of games but that is what makes him unique, as does the voice actor who portrayed him in the first five games, the excellent Michael Ironside, whose gruff older voice really suited the older look of the character.
The stories in each game vary with the fourth and fifth entries following on from another. From what I've played of Splinter Cell: Blacklist so far there are only references to the story of the fifth installment. All other games in the series have individual stories that do not follow on from the previous game. In the second and third there are some references to events from the original game though.
The games in the main series, excluding Essentials released for the PSP (and some of the versions on Nintendo handhelds), are as follows:
Splinter Cell (2002)
Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (2004)
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (2005)
Splinter Cell: Double Agent (2006)
Splinter Cell: Conviction (2010)
Splinter Cell: Blacklist (2013)
(For the rest of this thread I will refer to the games by their subtitle, unless I just state Splinter Cell which indicates the original game.)
The gameplay is stealth based with your visibility in direct light or shadow indicated by a meter on screen, as well as a sound level (introduced in Pandora Tomorrow), which lets you know if you are in danger of alerting enemies to your presence. Once an enemy has either been knocked unconscious or killed you must pick up the body and hide it in a place where an enemy won't walk into it or won't see it in shadow if he walks past it. If you don't hide a body properly even if you've cleared an area of enemies, once you get to the next segment of the level or area that body will trigger an alert. In Splinter Cell three alerts and the mission is over, and in some missions one alert means the mission is over. In Pandora Tomorrow the alarm system remains intact except at each stage of alert the enemies become harder to dispatch as they will put on body armor. Once the third alert level has been reached you will still be able to continue and finish the mission but until the alert levels decrease over time the enemies will be tougher. The only other games where the alert system is in use is Chaos Theory and Double Agent. In Conviction once you are detected you can see your LPK (Last Known Position) which the enemy will move to and if you remain in range they will continue to attack but if you escape the area and wait then their alertness will dissipate. This is also the case in Blacklist.
Pandora Tomorrow introduces a couple of moves for Sam to utilize. One is the ability to do a SWAT turn from one side of a doorway to another so you can quickly move past a door without being seen (unless you time it wrong and enter the enemies line of sight at the wrong moment), an ability that didn't remain in the following installments. Another ability was to have a laser sight for your pistol to improve accuracy, the only con to this is that if an enemy sees this laser sight on another enemy or even on a surface they will be alerted to your presence.
There are many other abilities either added then kept, or added for one or two games then taken out in others but one more I will mention that comes in handy is the ability to swap shoulders for which side Sam holds his weapon to make it easier to see your target, which was available only in Chaos Theory and Double Agent. I will also say that Blacklist feels like a combination of Conviction's gameplay mechanics and Chaos Theory's.
There is too much extensive information about this franchise so I will leave that for others to chime in with or to research if you haven't played any of these games. For the rest of this first post of this thread I will continue with my thoughts on the games overall.
The voice actor who voiced Sam from Splinter Cell to Conviction was Michael Ironside who has been in such films as Scanners, Total Recall (1990), Starship Troopers and even in Terminator: Salvation. He became synonymous with the role of Sam Fisher and whenever I hear the name Sam Fisher or think of Splinter Cell it is he who I strongly associate with the franchise.
For Blacklist a decision was made by Ubisoft not to hire Michael Ironside to reprise the role of Sam Fisher and instead to cast an actor who was younger and more able to perform motion capture performances while delivering dialogue at the same time. This is the only time in the history of the franchise where I was disappointed with an element of the games.
The concern I held was that because Michael Ironside was so ingrained as the character in my and most fans minds then without him part of the essence of what makes Sam Fisher such a great character would be lost by whoever voiced him.
What do I think of this decision by Ubisoft now having played Blacklist? I concede that there was always going to be a time where if they decided to continue the series with Sam Fisher as the main character, long after Michael Ironside either passed away or retired from the role, that they would at some stage need to recast. I still think that while the new voice actor doesn't do a bad job in terms of the craft of voice acting, and I have nothing against him, the voice he uses for Sam Fisher sounds too young. The actor in question is Eric Johnson, who is only in his 30s but in voicing a character that looks the age that he's supposed to be in the games, which is in his late 40s in Splinter Cell and his early 50s by the time of Conviction, the voice Eric uses is too jarring when seeing the character's look and hearing the voice at the same time.
What other alternatives would there have been? Perhaps placing the character of Sam Fisher in a behind the scenes role working alongside as support for a new recruit as the main character. Another alternative would be to take out the character of Sam completely - perhaps he dies or simply retires, which would allow another main character to be introduced. An even different alternative would be to create games set in between events depicted in the previous games because not every game's story is set in consecutive years, and in Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory there are references to Sam's early days before the Splinter Cell program is initiated by Third Echelon, in Conviction you actually experience a past event in Sam's life as a civilian and also as a soldier during Iraq. I would have even accepted a game that took place before any of the Splinter Cell games because then the casting of a younger actor and voice for Sam Fisher would have been more appropriate. But this would have meant that the gadgets you use as Sam would have been less advanced and might not have made the gameplay appeal to those who loved the advanced gadgets in the games.
The official reason why Ubisoft decided to recast is because they wanted an actor who could provide a voice as well as perform motion capture as the character, and talk at the same time in some instances. I suspect that the real reason behind this decision is to save money on hiring a motion capture actor and a voice actor as separate entities - get two for the price and workload of one by hiring someone who can do both. A second reason I suspect is because Ubisoft might have wanted to avoid the issue of coming up with aspects of the story and character of Sam to entice Michael Ironside to reprise the role, as they had to do. My thoughts on the story I've experienced so far in Blacklist in relation to this will be revealed in this next part, which has bits covered by spoiler marks:
The character arc of Sam Fisher changes throughout the series, in part to create new stories but also to entice Michael Ironside to reprise the role by providing more scope for him as an actor. This is kind of like Christopher Lee and his portrayal as Dracula, in order to continue to give him reason to reprise the role they had to come up with something a bit different for him (for Dracula: Prince of Darkness he would only reprise the role if Dracula never uttered a single line of dialogue. This changed in the next ones so perhaps there was something else used to entice him to reprise the role, as he felt the character and the situation from Bram Stoker's novel had been utilized as much as it could have been...but I digress).
In Splinter Cell Sam Fisher is recruited into Third Echelon, a special branch of the NSA by the head of Third Echelon, Irving Lambert.
His handler Vernon Wilkes gets shot during the climax of one of the missions and this is the first time an emotional connection other than the one he has with his daughter Sarah, is revealed by Sam's reaction to the death.
In Pandora Tomorrow Sam Fisher must stop a man by the name of Suhadi Sadono and his group called Darah Dan Doa from releasing smallpox into major cities, by detonating bombs through use of the codeword Pandora Tomorrow. In this game one of Sam's friends from his past is introduced, a man by the name of Douglas Shetland. This is the first time someone personal to Sam (and from his past) aside from his daughter Sarah is incorporated into the story.
In Chaos Theory
Douglas Shetland and his armed security company Displace International is revealed to be behind
At the end of the game Sam kills Douglas. This is the first time in a Splinter Cell game where a personal friend of Sam's turns out to be a traitor.
To pause a moment on the first three entries it is important to note that the character of Sam doesn't change much in these first three games. He does go through some points of difference in what happens around him but the effect things have on him personally compared to the next two entries in the series is minimal
however it is still a sore point for Sam that he had to kill a man he considered his friend.
In Double Agent Sam Fisher is put through an emotional ringer and this is the first time Sam Fisher's life as an agent is significantly and irreversibly altered.
Irving Lambert informs Sam after a mission in Iceland that his daughter Sarah had been killed in a car accident.
In Conviction
Sam has been searching for clues about his daughter's death which he finds out may not have been just a simple car accident but could have been as a result of a personal attack against him. Due to the events at the end of Double Agent Sam is no longer a part of Third Echelon and is on the run, and Lambert is dead. Lambert's death in Double Agent depended upon whether Sam chooses to shoot Lambert as he was discovered on the JBA's compound or to allow him to live. In choosing to kill Lambert he is dead for sure in the continuity but to choose to let him live, he still gets shot except by Jamie (one of the JBA) and dies later from his wounds. Conviction makes the ending where you shoot Lambert the ending in which Conviction follows on from. Ultimately it turns out that Sarah is alive and that she was told Sam had died. There is more to it than that as Lambert had organized to make Sarah's "death" look real so that a mole who had been identified within Third Echelon (but their actual name at that time) would be stopped from using her as leverage against Sam Fisher to make him do whatever the mole wanted to be accomplished - only thing is the mole was never discovered and so all this seemed to be in vain.
However it turns out that the mole in Third Echelon was actually Tom Reed, the successor to Lambert's role as director, who has had Third Echelon agents on the trail of Sam Fisher to silence him and stop him from messing with his plans to overthrow the current female President by assassinating her and installing a new President that would be overpowered by Third Echelon who is now a corrupt agency by this time.
However it turns out that the mole in Third Echelon was actually Tom Reed, the successor to Lambert's role as director, who has had Third Echelon agents on the trail of Sam Fisher to silence him and stop him from messing with his plans to overthrow the current female President by assassinating her and installing a new President that would be overpowered by Third Echelon who is now a corrupt agency by this time.
There you have it, an introduction to the Splinter Cell franchise. There are so many aspects of this franchise that are great but I haven't really broken the surface with this first post, and there will be many things I have glossed over intentionally or may have missed or have gotten incorrect unintentionally. I hope this thread can become a place of discussion of Splinter Cell.
One thing to add before the end of this first post is that a Splinter Cell film has been in development for many years now. At one point Peter Berg was signed on to direct and writer and creator of the Splinter Cell stories (for the first two games, maybe three), JT Petty was attached as writer of the screenplay. Now the film is moving forward with Tom Hardy cast in the role of Sam Fisher and currently no director or writer has been assigned. This may change of course but at the moment that is where the film adaptation stands.