E3 2012: Splinter Cell Blacklist - Fearing Sam Fisher

Sam Fisher is no longer hiding in the shadows. He’s taking the fight to the enemies of the United States in plain daylight, and he’ll do it by any means necessary. Whether through more traditional, conventional stealth tactics, or by blowing everything up in sight, the notion of variety and choice dominates the landscape of Splinter Cell Blacklist. That’s a good thing considering the formidable task at hand.

Blacklist takes place six months after 2008‘s Splinter Cell Conviction. Rogue nations have pooled their resources to pose an ultimatum to the United States: withdraw all forces from deployment or suffer the consequences. This threat is backed by the blacklist, a file that contains classified intel on high profile targets and assets of the U.S. Naturally, to prevent these consequences and end the stalemate, the government calls in Sam Fisher, who demands vast and mobile resources be placed at his disposal. He forms a new 4th Echelon unit, one with a plane as its headquarters. He has access to the SMI - a Strategic Mission Interface - an operating system that helps Sam analyze and determine the best course of action. This is clearly not the deeply personal story of Conviction. This is one man waging a nation’s war. The scary part? He’s good enough to do it.

Ubisoft wants to extend that sense of power and resourcefulness to the player. Sam Fisher needs to seem like an unstoppable force, a threat so significant that it’s easy to see why the President of the United States would call on him - and him alone. To that end, Blacklist features a lot of returning ideas as well as some new ones. The result is a hybrid of stealth and high stakes action. No doubt some franchise purists who have followed the series for a decade will find this evolution jarring, but the good news here is that the old approaches aren’t going anywhere. They’re now just supplemented by alternatives - alternatives that allow you to engage in large scale firefights, call in air support and generally unleash hell upon guys that could easy be killed in the darkness with a knife.

At the heart of Blacklist is the notion of fluid traversal, which also lends itself to combat and the implementation of being able to kill while in motion. Though reasonably self-explanatory, these movement and combat options can change how certain scenarios are approached. Simply holding down one button will now allow players to sprint through environments, leaping over obstacles and climbing over objects as necessary. Taking out enemies during that dash is as easy as tapping a button. The goal here is to remove the challenges that can come with complicated, frustrating controls. The emphasis and focus should be on dealing with the objective - and opposition to that objective.

Sam will take the fight to his enemies.

That’s not to say that the game’s designers always call for a faster pace. Sam can grab from cover, hang from ledges and move bodies. He has his snake cam, sticky shockers and knife. He'll torture men, digging his knife into their shoulder, and players will control the movement of the blade. In other words, he will do whatever the hell he wants. Whatever it takes. Blacklist takes the idea of “aggressive stealth” of Conviction, but then allows players to completely drop all pretenses and shoot it out, machine guns blazing, even behind cover if they’re completely outnumbered. Classic Splinter Cell ideas are being mixed with new ones, all of it guided by the larger sense of flexibility and strategy. Better yet, the game affords the player the option of finding a middle ground between stealth and action. Sam might be torturing a man one minute and then sprinting to cover as a half dozen men fire upon him the next. In one scenario he’s calling in air support from above, and later on he’s using his snake cam to mark and execute his enemies.

The evolution of Splinter Cell applies to its cooperative and adversarial modes as well. Longtime fans will be pleased to hear that the multiplayer mode Spies vs. Mercenaries, missing from Conviction, will return. Both it and the larger co-op concept are more integrated into the single player experience, both through the game’s ‘economy system’ and the actual missions themselves. Ubisoft wouldn’t get into details, but it appears as though mission parameters can actually be affected by the completion of objectives in other modes.

Expect big action sequences - if you look for them.

Blacklist is still a ways from completion. Due out in Spring 2013 (along with every other game known to man), the team at Ubisoft Toronto has much more to develop, and we have much more to learn. It is clear, however, that this game is building upon Conviction, emphasizing its more aggressive nature while bringing back old tools to allow players stealthier options. In previous Splinter Cell games we were playing as Sam Fisher. Now we’re finally starting to feel like we are him.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/04/e3-2012-splinter-cell-blacklist-fearing-sam-fisher

The Best New School Boss Battles

Nearly one year ago I wrote a feature for IGN that said the traditional boss fight is a relic of a bygone era. My argument was that while technological and creative advancements within the games industry have resulted in modern games that are more cinematic and immersive than ever before, these advances have not extended to how many developers shape the conclusion of their games. As a result, many games end in a traditional boss fight.

Even the most casual gamer is familiar with boss fight clichés - a closed arena, glowing weak-points, increasingly exaggerated transformations, and the rule of three. It is because of this familiarity that the traditional boss fight lives on in modern games. Boss fights span genres, existing as a common narrative shorthand. The repetitive mechanics make them feel as comfortable as a well-worn pair of slippers. And quite frankly, most gamers demand and expect them.

The classic boss battle mentality. And no, we're not dissing Mario - this is iconic stuff!

For me, this familiarity breeds contempt. Without developers who innovate and push the boundaries of what games can accomplish, gamers would be left with the Frankenstein’s monster that was Deus Ex: Human Revolution – a game whose bland boss fights were outsourced and poorly grafted onto an otherwise pretty stellar game. But let’s not dwell on games that are stuck in an 8-bit mentality. Let’s celebrate games that eschew tradition - and are all the better for it.

To start, I have highlighted two games that delivered stunning conclusions without choosing the easy way out. Then, I have highlighted two sequels that vastly improved upon their predecessors by mixing up the boss battle formula.

ATTENTION: MASSIVE SPOILERS TO FOLLOW - TURN BACK NOW IF YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED RED DEAD REDEMPTION OR BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY. DON'T SAY WE DIDN'T WARN YOU.

Red Dead Redemption

Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar San Diego’s take on the Western (and semi-sequel to Red Dead Revolver) tells the tale of John Marston. Having years earlier retired from an outlaw gang to marry and raise a family, John is tasked by the government to bring his former gang-mates to justice in return for his continued freedom. This personal journey is supported by a beautifully realised world populated with interesting, well-written characters. In short, it is engaging on nearly all levels.

For me, Red Dead Redemption’s conclusion solidified it as one this generation’s great games. After completing his mission, John settles back into farm life and rebuilds the tattered bonds he shares with his wife and son.  John’s well-earned peace is ended when government troops lay siege to his property, gunning for him - their final target. A shootout ensues. Knowing he is out-numbered, John helps his family escape before taking his last stand. As John steps out into the firing-line, time slows – a mechanism employed throughout the game to enable the player to precisely line up a number of shots. John and, by extension, the player are left with a gun full of bullets, precious few seconds, and an insurmountable enemy. This segment firmly puts players in John’s doomed shoes and he desperately fights for survival, and loses.

Not all conflicts and climaxes lend themselves to traditional boss fights – a trap that many developers fall into. Rockstar San Diego recognised this and chose to be daring rather than fall back on tired, old tropes. The studio was able to present an unforgettable conclusion to its game simply by using a key gameplay concept in a new context. The team deserve all the praise they can get.

RDR had one of the best conclusions in recent years.

Bastion

Bastion, a downloadable game for PC and XBLA, is probably most famous for its use of a gruff, dynamic narrator describing the player’s actions. Beyond this (pretty cool) gimmick, Bastion is predominantly an action game with RPG elements. The brilliance of Bastion’s design lies in its tight gameplay focus: simplistic, but incredibly fun and customisable weapons-based combat, while the backstory of Bastion’s floating, post-apocalyptic landscape is delivered piecemeal throughout the experience. By the time the game’s climax is reached, players are a lean, mean killing machine. Instead of presenting a traditional boss fight, Bastion offers two key moral choices. The game ties together its loose narrative threads and delivers a hefty emotional punch – all without using a boss fight. It is the type of ending that sticks with you long after you have finished the game.

Batman: Arkham City

I have previously been vocal about my dislike of the Joker boss fight at the end of Batman: Arkham Asylum (http://au.ps3.ign.com/articles/116/1166802p1.html). With that in mind I approached Batman: Arkham City with some trepidation. Arkham City contained a number of new villains but the backbone of both Arkham games has been the relationship between Batman and Joker. While Arkham Asylum totally dropped the ball in relation to offering any sort of fitting (if only temporary) conclusion to their dynamic, Arkham City does something more interesting.

During the game’s climax, Batman discovers that Joker had recruited Clayface to be his stand-in for much of the game. Clayface attacks Batman while the real Joker looks on. Cue a fairly traditional boss fight.  Fortunately, the game doesn’t end with Clayface’s inevitable defeat. What follows is a compelling set of cutscenes that perfectly encapsulates the Batman/Joker dynamic and a pitch perfect conclusion to Batman’s ordeal.

Sure, the Joker/Clayface switcheroo could have come across as cheap, but instead it allows the game to have its bat-cake and eat it too: a big dramatic boss fight, followed by quiet character reflection. Boss fights and fitting closures are not mutually exclusive, but many games – Arkham Asylumn included – are evidence that a lot of developers will often pick the former over the later.

Uncharted 3

While not reaching the same heights as Arkham City’s conclusion, the climactic fight in Uncharted 3 also greatly improves upon its predecessors’. Uncharted, and especially Uncharted 2, ended with fairly lame, traditional boss fights in lieu of a climax and resolution best fitting their narrative and game styles.

In its opening scene Uncharted 3 showed off its improved melee combat system in a chaotic bar-brawl. This scene is bookended by the game’s final boss fight – a bad-arse fist/knife fight amidst crumbling ruins. This fight might not revolutionise boss battles, but it’s a big improvement over the previous game, where a hulked up man whose weakness was glowing resin chased you around a ravine. Uncharted 3’s fight feels more visceral and personal while also feeling like a natural extension of the gameplay preceding it.

So many incredible sequences, yet the end still stood tall.

And now it is over to you. Hit up the comments section to tell us what your favourite game endings are – and how they used or avoided boss fight clichés.

Source : http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/21/the-best-new-school-boss-battles