Re: Splinter Cell: Blacklist
I'm not a long-time fan of the franchise, but even I associate Sam Fisher intrinsically with Michael Ironside. I tried playing the first game years back when it first came out, but I'm pretty bad at stealth-based games so I never finished it. The only other SC game I've played was Conviction, which I did finish and enjoyed a lot, although I recognize that it was moving in a new direction compared to previous entries in the series.
With Blacklist seeming to move even farther down that road, it seems odd to me that Ubisoft would keep Sam Fisher as the playable character when Michael Ironside is so tied to the character. Since Ubisoft wanted a younger actor to handle the physically-intensive motion capture, why not take the opportunity to move the series beyond Fisher as the playable character? They could have then kept Ironside by moving Fisher into the supervisory role that Lambert fulfilled in previous games, and not risk alienating part of their existing audience.
Since I'm not as invested in the series as other people (one of my closest friends is a big SC fan, and is very disappointed that Ironside is no longer voicing Fisher), and because the gameplay in the videos that I've seen looks great so far, I'll be paying attention to Blacklist. Whether I purchase it or not will be based on reviews.
