What happened to our favorite stealth-series?! | Forums

[MayfairLazaruz]

Dear Ubi$oft, dear Community,

I can't be the only one on this....

since "Double Agent" Splinter Cell went from stealth to "riding-on-a-back-of-a-gorilla-and-press-keys-for-instant-kill", I need to get rid of this (and sorry for my bumpy english!)




From the nearly perfect stealth-game, that included multiple night-vision-modes, lockpicking, hacking, hiding corpses or unconcious enemies, hiding in the shadows, waiting, planning routes and keeping your visibility and noise-level low - SC got more and more dumbed down.

"Double Agent" started with cut-out features for the PC-Version (so the story made no sense!), the Icons were big and bulky and the feeleing of beeing a classic secret agent went down the toilet. Shootouts during daylight?! Are you serious?!

And finally "convction" was the final proof, that Ubi$oft had no interest in creating something special and keeping a great series alive.
SCC was and is a rushed out proof, that the Series is more then dead. Like a dead horse.

No stealth-elements!
YOU AREN'T EVEN ABLE TO DRAG BODIES AWAY AND HIDING THEM!
And of course, NO MORE ANALOGUE, ADJUSTABLE SNEAKING! WTF?! Ubisoft?

Do you guys remember, how you could attract Enemies in a coop-session, just by speaking too loud? What a genius feature! Distracting enemies by your voice and leading them into traps!
No Feature like this here.

Lockpicking was replaced with just bashing in doors, sneaking was replaced with gunning down multiple enemies at once.
...and Sams own Feature - his Nightvision! - was plain useless! THAT's an Achievement in a gaming-series.... " - -

Even the "cover-system" was dumbed down. Turned into a stupid cover-hopping-mechanic. Is there ANYTHING we can do by ourselves?
And gunning down your enemies is also ripped away from your controls. Press one key and "Sam Fisher" shoots all of the at once.


What comes next?
A Call of Cell where "our" Sam is running into gun-fights in mid-daylight and ordering one airstrike (!!!) after another?! ...oh.... wait....


Guys, seriously:
When I wan't to play an Action-Game, I go and play GTA or Bulletstorm or Max Payne.
When I want to play Splinter Cell, I DO NOT WANT TO PLAY A "DIE HARD SPLINTER CELL VEGAS!"

[Jonah47]

I agree with everything you said except Double Agent. I felt it more immersing than any of the other games. The story made plenty of sense to me as well, if not the best SC narrative in the series. The gameplay was great and I loved the choices the player could make. Then again, I haven't played the PC version, so I don't know about the issues you spoke of.

Anyway, Conviction was a huge let down. It literally got rid of a working formula and replaced it with something broken and used. The story is okay for a revenge story, but I miss the sarcastic Sam Fisher from the first four games. I miss being able to knock someone out and hide their body. I also miss whistling to distract a guard.

Conviction seemed like it didn't know what it was. There were moments when you sneak past a guard, and other times you forced into a shoot out. It must not help that they scrapped the original version of the game, you know, the one where Sam goes around throwing chairs at people?

This series is dead with the announcement of Blacklist. I thought it could redeem itself after Conviction, but I was wrong.

[MayfairLazaruz]

Then again, I haven't played the PC version, so I don't know about the issues you spoke of.

.

Ubisoft cut some Story- and level-elements out, so you couldn't understand that Sam was on a sort-of revenge-thing. Many things made absolutely no sense!
And I still don't understand, why Ubi$oft did this.
Letting their loyal fans and paying customers getting a castrated version, only because the are pc-users.

But after realizing they made 2 different Console-Versions, too, it's pretty obvious, you don't think?
Forcing Splinter Cell fans into buying all versions of the same game?

Yeah, but this was just the start for Ubi$ofts DLC- and locked Content-policy ....


Whats now happening with the "Splinter Cell"-Series is somehow like getting a nice cold lemonade on a warm day. The pack is labelled "lemonade" but the factory decides to fill in warm milk.
It's their decision, yes. But it's ********!

[Jonah47]

Ubisoft cut some Story- and level-elements out, so you couldn't understand that Sam was on a sort-of revenge-thing. Many things made absolutely no sense!
And I still don't understand, why Ubi$oft did this.
Letting their loyal fans and paying customers getting a castrated version, only because the are pc-users.

But after realizing they made 2 different Console-Versions, too, it's pretty obvious, you don't think?
Forcing Splinter Cell fans into buying all versions of the same game?

Yeah, but this was just the start for Ubi$ofts DLC- and locked Content-policy ....


Whats now happening with the "Splinter Cell"-Series is somehow like getting a nice cold lemonade on a warm day. The pack is labelled "lemonade" but the factory decides to fill in warm milk.
It's their decision, yes. But it's ********!

Thanks for explaining that. I only own the PS3 version of SCDA. I own the rest on PC.

Anyway, I see what you mean. One of the greatest stealth games of all time has been turned into a mildly decent action game. I thought that after Conviction, the series would return to it's CT like gameplay with a similar control scheme to Conviction. That, I could deal with. Instead we are given Blacklist, a game that has nothing on the original games. Yeah, small stuff like carrying bodies and the sticky shocker are back. But they aren't the same, considering the fact that Sam can only do lethal takedowns. Even worst, Ironside is gone. Amon Tobin doesn't seem to be doing any of the tracks too.

Look on the bright side... at least Spies vs Mercs is back.

[tunnelcat]

Thanks for explaining that. I only own the PS3 version of SCDA. I own the rest on PC.

Anyway, I see what you mean. One of the greatest stealth games of all time has been turned into a mildly decent action game. I thought that after Conviction, the series would return to it's CT like gameplay with a similar control scheme to Conviction. That, I could deal with. Instead we are given Blacklist, a game that has nothing on the original games. Yeah, small stuff like carrying bodies and the sticky shocker are back. But they aren't the same, considering the fact that Sam can only do lethal takedowns. Even worst, Ironside is gone. Amon Tobin doesn't seem to be doing any of the tracks too.

Look on the bright side... at least Spies vs Mercs is back.

I agree with you. The control scheme in Conviction is wonderful. Combine that with the the better stealth aspects of Chaos Theory and Pandora Tomorrow and you'd have a winner. As for SCDA, I HATED those stupid puzzles, and the constant bugs (PC version). I have got it working a newer system that can properly run it with all the settings maxed out and at least it looks fantastic and plays smooth now. I'm going to try and go through this time on full stealth.