At this point I feel that I have established my fandom for stealth action games. But for the record, it is likely my single favourite genre of games. (with my favourite sub genre being immersive sims.) I love the prospect of roleplaying a stealthy voyeur who is so good at their job that they can move in and out, execute their objective (or their target) and alight without anyone ever even knowing that they were there. With all the 'power fantasy' gaming experiences about the player character becoming some world renowned hero, it feels far less garish to take the role of the one that no one ever celebrates. (That's part of the reason that I love the narrative structure of the Thief games, but I'll get more on that in another post.)
In the past I may have mentioned how much I adore the Metal Gear Series, but that isn't the only popular military stealth franchise that I have gleefully explored during my many years as a gamer. There is in fact another, much more American, stealth franchise that some would say even manages to surpass Metal Gear in some facets. (They would be objectively wrong in saying that, but the praise is still noteworthy.) I am of course referring to Ubisoft's stealth action darling; Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. (With Tom's name attached you automatically know that this is a serious franchise.)
My history with Splinter Cell doesn't go as far back as my journey with Metal Gear, (For those who don't remember: playing Metal Gear Solid is my earliest gaming memory) but despite that, the series has managed to worm its way into my heart. The games star Sam Fisher, voiced by acclaimed actor Michael Ironside, who is a highly trained operative for NSA offshoot: Third Echelon. (He later takes command of his own unit called Fourth Echelon.) Each game Sam finds himself faced with a threat to national security and must go on some clandestine spy adventure in order to beat the bad guys and save the day.
As you can likely imagine, the stories of these games are nowhere near as complex and intricate as what Metal Gear has to offer, but in that relative simplicity is an accessibility that Kojima's games don't always have. That being said, remember that this is a 'Tom Clancy' game, so within the parameters of the 'save-American-democracy' archetype the writers do manage to put together a few thrilling tales. I often give Ubisoft a hard time for decorating their AAA games with plots so weak they hardly keep your attention for the run time, but I must say, even the worst Splinter Cell games never had this problem. If there was one particular franchise towards which Ubisoft's development departments were sinking all of their narrative talent I'd put my money on it being the Splinter Cell team. (Perhaps all that excess development time going towards crafting a plot is the reason why we haven't heard from the franchise for 5 years now.)
I first entered the world of Splinter Cell a couple of years back when I acquired the collection. (Thank you, Steam summer sale.) The game I really wanted to check out was 'Splinter Cell: Conviction' (As I still remembered the marketing game for that game when it first launched.) but by weird obsession with 'knowing the whole story' made me go back to the original. I didn't have too high hopes for the first Splinter Cell game, I still had memories of going back to the origin of the Hitman franchise and struggling with an unfocused and unfriendly game. However, despite very much resembling the original Hitman, (to the point that I think they may have used the same engine.) Splinter Cell was a great game with a laser focus and what it wanted to be. The stealth action was on point, the story was pretty exciting and the linear level design ended up influencing many of the games to follow.
I moved onto the next game very much excited about what it would have to offer. Due to some licensing concerns, Steam shoppers are unable to buy 'Pandora Tomorrow' meaning that my next game would be the legendary 'Chaos Theory'. This was a game that I had heard about even before I knew anything about Splinter Cell, it was widely considered the swan-song of the series, and once I played it I understood why. Almost everything about Chaos Theory was drastically improved from the previous games, the atmosphere, the gameplay and, of course, the mission layout. Chaos Theory was the first game in the franchise to design it's levels with an open plan. (and the only game to get it right.) You weren't shoehorned from area to area, but put into a level, given your objectives, and expected to figure out your avenue of approach. This may not seem all that groundbreaking to fans of immersive Sim games, but for Splinter Cell this was a world of difference from what the series was used to. Even now, no Splinter Cell game has been able to capture that same level of tactical freedom that Chaos Theory did. Future games would feel more like sequels of the original two games and their rigid design philosophy, making 'Choas Theory' a beautiful aberrance for this franchise.
Double Agent sucked. I would get more into here but the amount of hatred I have for that game deserves it's own in depth blog. (Oh god, that means I have to play through it again, don't I!) I forced my way through that game and onto the one I was waiting for: Conviction. Oh, Conviction... why can't I give you up? 'Splinter Cell: Conviction' is universally lambasted my fans and critics alike for being 'barely a Splinter Cell' game. They are all absolutely right. (and that's kinda what makes it so brilliant!) Up until Conviction, Splinter Cell was all about working within the confines of your operating procedures in order to get the job done. Heck, before Chaos Theory you had to wait to be granted 'Fifth freedom' before the game even allowed you to shoot someone. Tom Clancy's direction meant that the games were grounded in something resembling reality and so Sam Fisher, who works for the NSA, remember, couldn't go around the world dropping bodies or he'd end up causing an international crisis. Tell that to Conviction.
'Splinter Cell: Conviction' piggybacks off of the incredible crappy driving plotpoint of Double Agent (Save it for the blog...) and delivers a totally unique premise. Stop me if you've heard this before: so Sam Fisher, unsung American hero, is framed for a crime he technically didn't commit and must go underground in order to- what do you mean that's the premise of every Hollywood action movie of the early 2000's? (Also 2019's 'Angel has Fallen' for some reason.) Yeah, this plot thread absolutely screams contemporary Ubisoft writing standards but bear with me as I say... this game is absolutely hilarious because of it. Let me explain why.
Straight away the game jumps the shark as it orders you to murder some random street thug in order to complete the tutorial. Let me try to convey how monumentous that is for this franchise. I already mentioned how Sam needed direct permission to take a life previously; well even when he had free reign in Chaos Theory, the player was still incentivized to keep things bloodless. Throughout the games, Sam kills less than five people without the player's involvement. Yet Conviction opens by telling you to go sicko mode on this poor nobody in the middle of the street. And that isn't even the best part, from this point onwards the game refuses to let you move from area to area unless you neutralize every single person on the map. ("Previous games championed the player's ability to sneak past people unnoticed? Screw that noise, let's drop bodies!") There is even a story plotpoint that is capped off with having Sam go on a bullet-time massacre through his old workplace literally wiping out squadrons of highly trained operatives for no other reason than; it looks cool I guess.
I can understand why diehard fans absolutely hated this game, but honestly, all this just makes me love it more. The game had the guts to throw all of it's realism out the window to be a schlocky action movie for a single game and I played the everliving heck out of it. Sam Fisher went from being a highly disciplined and amiable operative to becoming a deranged mass murderer who mostly communicated in monosyllabic grunts. I'm honestly shocked that the US department of defence had any staff left after the sizable 'downsizing' that Sam headed up. Oh, but don't worry about the morality of all this; they were all corrupt. (Really? All 3000 people that Sam kills in this game were corrupt? Wow, I guess Splinter Cell took a more critical stance on American politics then even Metal Gear did!)
p.s. This is the first time that I managed to fill the blog with entirely mine own pictures! Yay! Forgive me if I got a little crazy will placement.
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