The titular Blacklist is a series of targets, each with a seven day countdown that ticks away towards another attack. Splinter Cell: Blacklist finds Sam Fisher heading up the Fourth Echelon unit, a secretive team of ops specialists, as they seek out an anti-American terrorist organization known as the Engineers. So does that mean that Sam Fisher is really back to his old ways, at least if that is the style of play chosen by the player? Can Blacklist really deliver on the promise to offer up a real choice between guns-blazing action and pure stealth without leaving one or both lacking? Ubisoft reassured fans that the trigger-happy Sam Fisher seen in that video (below) depicted only one option for completing that particular mission and went on to release footage of a stealthy playthrough of the same level. The initial footage of Blacklist only served to intensify fans’ concerns that the series had lost its way and forgotten its stealthy roots. Series fans were already weary after 2010’s Conviction took a surprising – and somewhat unwelcome – turn towards a more action-focused gameplay style. When the first gameplay of Splinter Cell: Blacklist was unveiled at E3 2012, I, along with many other longtime fans of the series, were left thinking, “Here we go again.” After a somewhat clandestine infiltration of a terrorist camp, Sam Fisher proceeded to lay waste to his enemies in the most Rambo-esque of fashions.
