Our preview of Splinter Cell: Blacklist by Ubisoft Toronto
THE BAD – Enemy AI
Stealth games have always been about adapting to what the situation presents to you. So limiting yourself to one play style would actually hurt you in the long run. So new to the series are the three styles, Ghost, Panther, and Assault. Ghost is your stealth class that is fixated on avoided enemies to get to objectives, and not being detected. Assault is the class if you want to go in guns first , and not worried about being scene. Panther is combination of the both, where you can lethal, and doesn’t want to be spotted. This is a good idea on paper at the moment, but at the moment it’s not coming together because of the enemy CPU.
Yes this was demo, and yes this game comes out in August, but the CPU currently in Splinter Cell Blacklist is below series standards. Now this could because executions, a returning feature are more deadly this time around, but are overpowering. For example, during one of the two levels I played whenever I was taking cover, enemy CPU would walk to me in reaching distance from me. This wouldn’t be a problem, but I now I can simply just stay in cover and perform a takedown. It’s very obvious that the enemy has set number of rules that they can follow. I hope this won’t be an issue when the game launches, but if it’s the game will suffer. The multiple play styles the game is trying to achieve won’t hold up.
