Past, present, & future. High hopes, but a long climb to reach them. | Forums

[phil4321]

I am a huge Splinter Cell fan. Well I'm a huge fan of Splinter Cell, Pandora Tomorrow, Chaos Theory, and even certain aspects of Double Agent.

The stealth gameplay which made the SC franchise famous is some of the most rewarding and entertaining gameplay experiences I have ever had. Splinter Cell is absolutely without doubt my favorite franchise and SP experience, period.

Are there things I would change about the first three games? Ya, in a perfect world there are a lot of things that could be changed to make them more fluid, fun, challenging, but it doesn't really matter because they were good, entertaining games.

Double Agent still had that SC feel but with many improvements and (imo) positive changes like: day missions, quicker pace while still retaining the gameplay, obviously improved gfx, better gun handling, a new level of variety (excluding the fact that half the missions take place in the same building).

I have to say that Kinshasa is probably in my top 3 favorite SC missions of all time, very impressive and entertaining level. But I was one of the unfortunate souls who purchased the PC version which was plagued with terrible bugs that still to this day have never been fixed. If they had been fixed or if I was a console player I might have some more nice things to say about DA but since not; the DVD met its demise via pellet gun one frustrating afternoon. $60 not so well spent.

I'm not even gonna comment on Conviction, they shoulda just called it Gears of Fisher and called it a day.

But I digress,

Ubisoft (if any of you actually happen to read this), its far too early for me to comment on the actual game do to lack of content and obviously not having played the game itself; but based purely on the trend that has been each new succession of SC, I don't have high hopes for Blacklist. I'm sure that blacklist will be more action oriented with less emphasis on stealth and tactics; and I'm probably not going to like that, but its your game and you can do what you want with it.

If however you wanted to restore SC to its former (i don't even know if "glory" is a strong enough word) I would make 4 suggestions to you:

1) Return to the original style gameplay with focus on stealth, tactics, and challenge. This is what made SC famous, if you want to sell millions of copies this will get it done.
2) Don't try to explain the unexplainable or continue the story in any way. Forget Sam's age and what hes done in the past, just develop an enthralling story that stands alone and build the game around that.
3) Innovate, when I think of Ubisoft I think of a company that has a history of pushing the envelope (and being very good at it). When I say return to the original gameplay I don't mean remake SCCT. Re-adopt the core gameplay and then innovate. Push that envelope, show me a next generation SPLINTER CELL game.
4) Support your PC product! For the love of god Ubisoft, this is hurting your company's reputation more than anything else. I played GRFS and all I can say is WOW. You should seriously be ashamed of yourselves. I know you lose a lot of money to pirating. I'm guilty of this too, but when you release a sub-par product and then don't even support your customers, how can you expect people to shell out $60 for something they may spend more time troubleshooting than actually playing. I spent 4 days just getting GRFS's controls to work properly. You don't deserve my money, plain and simple. I would never buy one of your games without "trying" it first. I have no problem shelling out $60 for a quality piece of software, I'm not poor, but what I don't have money for is a product that is so misleading and atrocious that in any other industry you would be sued for fraud.

Didn't mean to go off on a rant there but it had to be said.

Ubisoft,
I have a lot of respect for the innovation that comes out of your company.
I have no respect for the PC development side of your company.
I think the next SC game after Blacklist could be the best Splinter Cell game ever, provided you heed the advice of the community and realize that you stopped making SC games a long time ago.
Support your PC players! release a quality product from the start and you wont have to spend months and thousands of dollars fixing a game that's already been released and sold.

I'll be watching with interest but skepticism

Sincerely,

Phil

[sam2000_290]

Great topic. I like how you handled your post. DA was a great game and Kinshasa was a great level.

I trust UBISOFT or presume that they know what they are doing. They are a major company after all, they are not going to screw up.

I said many things already but don't want to repeat them.

All I can say is, stay optimistic. 2 ways really, for me anyways. One is be open to the new stuff, they are fun anyways. Always stick to your roots but be open to explorer new things. Second, someday, things will return to the way they are. Anything can go on for so long before ideas run out and things start diminishing. Eventually, everything would return to the way they are. If Beland is correct and SC goes on for 15 years (15 years! oh my!) I am pretty sure things would be going back to SC1. How can they have so much ideas? How can they improve further if there isn't anything to improve anymore?


Even then, I would probably drop my interest already. However, I won't drop for the last game because it's this game that's going back to the way it is. Though I have to wait 15 years! lol

Anyways, I really don't mind with what they are doing. Got no time to complain but stay optimistic and don't worry about it too much. There are other things to do anyways.

[noodlenerd]

1) Return to the original style gameplay with focus on stealth, tactics, and challenge. This is what made SC famous, if you want to sell millions of copies this will get it done.

The old gameplay wasn't the most intuitive out there. The old cover system vs the new cover system is an example of how something can be made more intuitive and fluid. The new one is probably the best I've used. Also, in the old games you would have to actually push a button to get the gun out, and then aim, withouth even having full FOV. It worked in the old games, but now? no way. Games evolve, SC need to evolve too. The old SC game sold well because it was fresh. the others didn't sell as well. I really doubt sticking to the old gameplay will make it sell any more. In fact, I think SCB will sell well based on the fact that it is reinventing the franchise and bringing more choice to the player.

Personally, I think what the franchise needs is to bring the atmosphere of the old games back, which was lacking in SCC and in some cases even SCDA. Bringing back feel of the game, not the outdated gameplay.

2) Don't try to explain the unexplainable or continue the story in any way. Forget Sam's age and what hes done in the past, just develop an enthralling story that stands alone and build the game around that.

No. I shouldn't even need to explain why this is a bad idea, but I'll do it anyway. A franchise is more than just gameplay. Throwing away the story elemts that make up the franchise while keeping the old gameplay is pretty much the opposite of what one should do. Innovating the story but keeping old gameplay?That is pretty much a recipe for disaster unless you are a shooter where the focus is on multiplayer (CoD anyone?).

3) Innovate, when I think of Ubisoft I think of a company that has a history of pushing the envelope (and being very good at it). When I say return to the original gameplay I don't mean remake SCCT. Re-adopt the core gameplay and then innovate. Push that envelope, show me a next generation SPLINTER CELL game.

That's what they are trying to do. If you ignore M&E, the old and the new gameplay share a lot of ideas. The core ideas are there.

SCC was lacking because of limited time and resources, not because they didn't care about the fans. In SCB they are bringing a lot of the lost features back, and since they are in control of the new gameplay loop they actually have time to make the game fit into the SC franchise. A lot of what was important to SC is back in SCB like rapelling, LTL, sticky shockers and such, cutting tents, etc. Don't judge the game based on the E3 showing, they played it a specific way but the thing they've been trying to get across the most is that you can play how ever you'd like. Have some faith.

4) Support your PC product! For the love of god Ubisoft, this is hurting your company's reputation more than anything else. I played GRFS and all I can say is WOW. You should seriously be ashamed of yourselves. I know you lose a lot of money to pirating. I'm guilty of this too, but when you release a sub-par product and then don't even support your customers, how can you expect people to shell out $60 for something they may spend more time troubleshooting than actually playing. I spent 4 days just getting GRFS's controls to work properly. You don't deserve my money, plain and simple. I would never buy one of your games without "trying" it first. I have no problem shelling out $60 for a quality piece of software, I'm not poor, but what I don't have money for is a product that is so misleading and atrocious that in any other industry you would be sued for fraud.

I won't argue with you on that one. This is why demos should be released more often. I'm just happy I play on a console, most companies treat PC gamers like garbage.

[SolidSage]

The old gameplay wasn't the most intuitive out there. The old cover system vs the new cover system is an example of how something can be made more intuitive and fluid. The new one is probably the best I've used. Also, in the old games you would have to actually push a button to get the gun out, and then aim, withouth even having full FOV. It worked in the old games, but now? no way. Games evolve, SC need to evolve too. The old SC game sold well because it was fresh. the others didn't sell as well. I really doubt sticking to the old gameplay will make it sell any more. In fact, I think SCB will sell well based on the fact that it is reinventing the franchise and bringing more choice to the player.

Personally, I think what the franchise needs is to bring the atmosphere of the old games back, which was lacking in SCC and in some cases even SCDA. Bringing back feel of the game, not the outdated gameplay.


No. I shouldn't even need to explain why this is a bad idea, but I'll do it anyway. A franchise is more than just gameplay. Throwing away the story elemts that make up the franchise while keeping the old gameplay is pretty much the opposite of what one should do. Innovating the story but keeping old gameplay?That is pretty much a recipe for disaster unless you are a shooter where the focus is on multiplayer (CoD anyone?).

I think these are very good points.

[JaRuTo]

I agree with you guys, but don't fell into an exaggerated optimism. We haven't seen the stealth gameplay - avoid all people even in one mission so it's hard to determine if the core Splinter Cell came back with many expanded, new and good ideas of this unique stealth game. Yes, I have faith that it will succeed this time around, but for now there is no evidence So I keep moderation in excitement in what is now only in our imaginations because we haven't seen stealth, yet.

[codenameeric]

I am a huge Splinter Cell fan. Well I'm a huge fan of Splinter Cell, Pandora Tomorrow, Chaos Theory, and even certain aspects of Double Agent.

The stealth gameplay which made the SC franchise famous is some of the most rewarding and entertaining gameplay experiences I have ever had. Splinter Cell is absolutely without doubt my favorite franchise and SP experience, period.

Are there things I would change about the first three games? Ya, in a perfect world there are a lot of things that could be changed to make them more fluid, fun, challenging, but it doesn't really matter because they were good, entertaining games.

Double Agent still had that SC feel but with many improvements and (imo) positive changes like: day missions, quicker pace while still retaining the gameplay, obviously improved gfx, better gun handling, a new level of variety (excluding the fact that half the missions take place in the same building).

I have to say that Kinshasa is probably in my top 3 favorite SC missions of all time, very impressive and entertaining level. But I was one of the unfortunate souls who purchased the PC version which was plagued with terrible bugs that still to this day have never been fixed. If they had been fixed or if I was a console player I might have some more nice things to say about DA but since not; the DVD met its demise via pellet gun one frustrating afternoon. $60 not so well spent.

I'm not even gonna comment on Conviction, they shoulda just called it Gears of Fisher and called it a day.

But I digress,

Ubisoft (if any of you actually happen to read this), its far too early for me to comment on the actual game do to lack of content and obviously not having played the game itself; but based purely on the trend that has been each new succession of SC, I don't have high hopes for Blacklist. I'm sure that blacklist will be more action oriented with less emphasis on stealth and tactics; and I'm probably not going to like that, but its your game and you can do what you want with it.

If however you wanted to restore SC to its former (i don't even know if "glory" is a strong enough word) I would make 4 suggestions to you:

1) Return to the original style gameplay with focus on stealth, tactics, and challenge. This is what made SC famous, if you want to sell millions of copies this will get it done.
2) Don't try to explain the unexplainable or continue the story in any way. Forget Sam's age and what hes done in the past, just develop an enthralling story that stands alone and build the game around that.
3) Innovate, when I think of Ubisoft I think of a company that has a history of pushing the envelope (and being very good at it). When I say return to the original gameplay I don't mean remake SCCT. Re-adopt the core gameplay and then innovate. Push that envelope, show me a next generation SPLINTER CELL game.
4) Support your PC product! For the love of god Ubisoft, this is hurting your company's reputation more than anything else. I played GRFS and all I can say is WOW. You should seriously be ashamed of yourselves. I know you lose a lot of money to pirating. I'm guilty of this too, but when you release a sub-par product and then don't even support your customers, how can you expect people to shell out $60 for something they may spend more time troubleshooting than actually playing. I spent 4 days just getting GRFS's controls to work properly. You don't deserve my money, plain and simple. I would never buy one of your games without "trying" it first. I have no problem shelling out $60 for a quality piece of software, I'm not poor, but what I don't have money for is a product that is so misleading and atrocious that in any other industry you would be sued for fraud.

Didn't mean to go off on a rant there but it had to be said.

Ubisoft,
I have a lot of respect for the innovation that comes out of your company.
I have no respect for the PC development side of your company.
I think the next SC game after Blacklist could be the best Splinter Cell game ever, provided you heed the advice of the community and realize that you stopped making SC games a long time ago.
Support your PC players! release a quality product from the start and you wont have to spend months and thousands of dollars fixing a game that's already been released and sold.

I'll be watching with interest but skepticism

Sincerely,

Phil

You, sir, know what you're talking about. Well said.

I completely agree that Ubi would sell way more copies if they had the guts to return to what made Splinter Cell different and better than loads of games out there.

[codenameeric]

I agree with you guys, but don't fell into an exaggerated optimism. We haven't seen the stealth gameplay - avoid all people even in one mission so it's hard to determine if the core Splinter Cell came back with many expanded, new and good ideas of this unique stealth game. Yes, I have faith that it will succeed this time around, but for now there is no evidence So I keep moderation in excitement in what is now only in our imaginations because we haven't seen stealth, yet.

Not only haven't we seen stealth gameplay, their most recent video is asking us what stealth is. While I respect Zack for doing it, I suspect they're asking because they're concerned that they stealth gameplay they've developed won't meet our expectations. I hope I'm wrong.

Stealth is steath. Steath is NOT just about avoiding action in an action game. I hope Ubi knows that but my expectations are extremely low.

[CIA_Agent009]

The old gameplay wasn't the most intuitive out there. The old cover system vs the new cover system is an example of how something can be made more intuitive and fluid. The new one is probably the best I've used. Also, in the old games you would have to actually push a button to get the gun out, and then aim, withouth even having full FOV. It worked in the old games, but now? no way. Games evolve, SC need to evolve too. The old SC game sold well because it was fresh. the others didn't sell as well. I really doubt sticking to the old gameplay will make it sell any more. In fact, I think SCB will sell well based on the fact that it is reinventing the franchise and bringing more choice to the player.

Personally, I think what the franchise needs is to bring the atmosphere of the old games back, which was lacking in SCC and in some cases even SCDA. Bringing back feel of the game, not the outdated gameplay.

Yes, absolutely, but it's important to distinguish between evolution and transformation. This kind of run and gun gameplay with cover based shooting is not something Splinter Cell needs. The cover system in Chaos Theory was nearly perfect in my opinion. It was a bit buggy sure but you could get in and out of cover almost instantly and in an intuitive manner (what I find lacking in CT however was the "swat turn" from Pandora Tomorrow; It should be obvious that it doesn't actually make you invisible but it worked very well in PT and with some tweaking they could make it just as fluid as the cover). I do agree though that the gun mechanics and especially the jumping in the old games were awful. You learn to accept them and while playing you don't really notice them but this is an area that could have been improved and they did.

However Splinter Cell is a stealth franchise and the reason I hated SCC was that you didn't even have the option of skipping combat without sequence breaking and glitching. Not the kind of evolution I was hoping for, because it is scarcely a stealth game anymore. The original design for SCC was actually interesting because it involved some actual stealth. It was action heavy and had some impressive brawling mechanics for those that wanted, but the main focus was blending into crowds and avoiding police officers. It would have been a big leap from the original games, but that would have been evolution, instead of the action game we got (not a bad action game at that, but disappointing for the name it bears).

No. I shouldn't even need to explain why this is a bad idea, but I'll do it anyway. A franchise is more than just gameplay. Throwing away the story elemts that make up the franchise while keeping the old gameplay is pretty much the opposite of what one should do. Innovating the story but keeping old gameplay?That is pretty much a recipe for disaster unless you are a shooter where the focus is on multiplayer (CoD anyone?).

I agree, but the story in Conviction was just horrible. It renders everything Sam did in Double Agent and his false "conviction" totally meaningless. People that have lost something so essential to them that all other aspects of their life are pointless often make great characters and especially protagonists, which is why I found the story in Double Agent to carry so much weight. Sam actually took other risks than just dying which he has probably long since gotten used to. The Conviction story just screws all that up and I refuse to acknowledge it as canon.

That's what they are trying to do. If you ignore M&E, the old and the new gameplay share a lot of ideas. The core ideas are there.

Just all on fast forward. Most of the things Sam does in Conviction are either physically impossible or just idiotic. Even some of the things in the original Splinter Cell games are physically impossible (or nearly impossible) like shimmying for long periods of time and grabbing onto small ledges while falling. But I can guarantee that running upside down while holding onto a pipe is impossible. Sam is actually very swift in doing the acrobatic moves in the first 4 games and the way he runs through absolutely everything in Conviction is both stupid as hell and to me not very satisfying. In my opinion it's a complete break from the core gameplay, and I can find almost nothing in common between the original games and Conviction apart from the character of Sam and Anna and darkness I guess.

[phil4321]

This is why demos should be released more often

It is nice when demos get released so you can get a feel for the gameplay but companies have a tendency to polish the hell out of the demo level and let the rest of the game suffer from bugs. Seen that a few times

SCC was lacking because of limited time and resources

News of this game was leaked way back in '06 and as for resources.....its Ubisoft.

A lot of what was important to SC is back in SCB like rapelling, LTL, sticky shockers and such, cutting tents, etc.

This is not whats important to an SC game. The reason that SC doesn't feel like SC anymore is because of one factor, pace. The reason Ubisoft turned SC into what it is today is because they wanted to design something more popular with the masses. Most people don't have the patience to spend 15 minutes in one room just trying to pass two guards. This fast paced instant satisfaction focused society has ruined franchises like this one, all in the pursuit of more sales. When I saw video of conviction where Sam jumps out of a window and jogs side to side on the ledge like a diamond backed gorilla loose in the city I laughed out loud, and then cried.

The old gameplay wasn't the most intuitive out there.

The first SC game was not the most intuitive, but SCCT's controls were some of the most intuitive, fluid controls I have ever used. it was like being in Sams's body and making the moves yourself.

in the old games you would have to actually push a button to get the gun out, and then aim, withouth even having full FOV. It worked in the old games, but now? no way.

You were not supposed to need your gun that often. The things you are describing are to supplement everything that is wrong with SCC.

Games evolve, SC need to evolve too. The old SC game sold well because it was fresh. the others didn't sell as well.

You are saying Splinter Cell sold better than SCCT? I certainly don't have the numbers in front of me but I think you may be wrong.

I really doubt sticking to the old gameplay will make it sell any more. In fact, I think SCB will sell well based on the fact that it is reinventing the franchise and bringing more choice to the player.

SCB will sell well because it has the SC name on it and that's exactly what Ubisoft wants.
More choice? lets play a SCC level together: enter a room - kill 10 men using 70 bullets - pass through a hallway with nobody inside to enter a large room - kill 10 men with 70 bullets - pass through a hallway with nobody inside to enter a large room - repeat 5 or 6 more times. Yes, the choice is dripping at every turn.

Just all on fast forward. Most of the things Sam does in Conviction are either physically impossible or just idiotic. Even some of the things in the original Splinter Cell games are physically impossible (or nearly impossible) like shimmying for long periods of time and grabbing onto small ledges while falling. But I can guarantee that running upside down while holding onto a pipe is impossible. Sam is actually very swift in doing the acrobatic moves in the first 4 games and the way he runs through absolutely everything in Conviction is both stupid as hell and to me not very satisfying. In my opinion it's a complete break from the core gameplay, and I can find almost nothing in common between the original games and Conviction apart from the character of Sam and Anna and darkness I guess.

"Bad news."
"Agh! I knew it! I knew there were diamond backed gorillas around here!"
"What?"
"Yeah, you've gotta be a diamond backed gorilla. How else could you scale up a building and grab me like that?"
"Listen, I don't know what..."
"Wow! A real, live, diamond backed gorilla! I can't believe it!"
"Listen, I'm going to kill you if..."
"Wow! Killed by a diamond backed gorilla... cool!"

[Andre202]

This is not whats important to an SC game. The reason that SC doesn't feel like SC anymore is because of one factor, pace. The reason Ubisoft turned SC into what it is today is because they wanted to design something more popular with the masses. Most people don't have the patience to spend 15 minutes in one room just trying to pass two guards. This fast paced instant satisfaction focused society has ruined franchises like this one, all in the pursuit of more sales. When I saw video of conviction where Sam jumps out of a window and jogs side to side on the ledge like a diamond backed gorilla loose in the city I laughed out loud, and then cried.

That may be the case but I think the reason why SCC doesn't feel like SC anymore is because it doesn't have the depth. If the core mechanics regain their depth the pace will be slower but the game will still have the fluidity and I don't think it's that bad that SCC added the fluidity to the Splinter Cell formular. I always imagined for example that Splinter Cell would expand on the variable speed feature and let you be able to change your speed everywhere. Whether you are on a pipe, on the ledge, crouched or running etc. Conviction did do that to an extent only that it doesn't really have variable speed. Personally I would like to have variable speed available everwhere and having a reasonable maximum speed depending on where you are moving. Like in my opinion you shouldn't be faster with the ledge run than Altair, lol.

The first SC game was not the most intuitive, but SCCT's controls were some of the most intuitive, fluid controls I have ever used. it was like being in Sams's body and making the moves yourself.

I agree on that to an extend. Especially the Closer then Ever move made feel making every step on your own but I do think you can do it better then with the context sensitive menu. Although I am not really sure how you can to it more intuitive and still have have off features in. The point & klick system doesn't work if we incorperate all the options you could actually do with the door in Splinter Cell.

You were not supposed to need your gun that often. The things you are describing are to supplement everything that is wrong with SCC.

I think it's ok to be able to use your pistol in no time, at the same time I do agree that the pistol should be your last resort but that's up to the player to decide. Balance is important here.

You are saying Splinter Cell sold better than SCCT? I certainly don't have the numbers in front of me but I think you may be wrong.

The first game sold best and was also a system seller. Xbox system got sold because of SC which is a big thing, SCCT isn't that far behind though. It's the two games from Shanghai that haven't sold as much. I don't have any sources though. I have found the numbers years ago somewhere in the internet but I cannot find them anymore. So you don't have to believe this.