Splinter Cell: Blacklist

The customisation of the loadouts is great, the only real limitation being the fact that you have only 3 loadout slots. Within each one, however, you can choose different suit pieces (goggles, chest, gloves, legs, boots). Each of the suit pieces has numerous options to choose from, with each version having different values for the stats: Armor, Stealth, Weapon Handling, Capacity (gadgets & ammo). You can also choose something like 6-9 different gadgets depending on your current capacity and of course a primary & secondary weapon. Weapons are numerous with each of them suiting different play styles and can be fine tuned with various upgrades and attachments. Weapon and suit choices start off fairly minimal, but are unlocked as you progress through the game and earn achievements.Customisation/Loadouts

There are quite a few game styles as well once you get on to the 4E missions. Depending on who the giver of the mission is, there'll be different secondary objectives and rules. For example, Grimm missions are over once you've been seen, so the assault play style isn't possible. Kobin and Briggs' missions allow being seen, but they'll call in reinforcements and you'll lose your bonus points. Finally you have Charlie's missions which are 20 waves (if you last that long) in one of 4 embassies. They're all a lot of fun and even if you play the same play style on the same map multiple times, you'll still tend to find that it plays out differently - especially on the embassy (wave) missions, as their spawn points are chosen at random. Side missions

The graphics of the game are great - they're not perfect, but when are they? The visuals when using the goggles have been very well executed, with both providing noticeable improvements in detection (some games' night vision goggles literally just add a green overlay, Blacklist almost manages complete realism) whilst not being too overpowered - if you leave the goggles on and start moving around, your vision will go blurry and static - so don't think you can walk around the whole map looking through walls. Light and darkness has been used very effectively, which is important for a game like this and I feel that they've managed to get the perfect balance between showing the difference between these two light levels and still having the important parts visible, so the gameplay doesn't suffer. The soundtrack and use of audio is fairly minimal apart from the obvious sound effects for gunshots, grenades etc, but they have made very good use of sound to let you know when you're in or out of 'combat', so that if you're attempting the panther play style and you've accidentally alerted them, you can wait for the music change to be sure you won't get a combat kill on your record. At the end of the day, this game isn't played for graphics or sounds, as the gameplay is too immersive for you to even think about them, but they've done a very good job in those areas nonetheless. Sound & Visual

Frustration in many games is caused by lack of control (actual or perceived) of their character and/or situation. Splinter Cell Blacklist is mostly fine in regards to this, providing the player with almost full control - as you would expect, the game features a 'hide behind cover' control, which will pull you over to the nearest object (to a limit) by just pressing that hotkey - this is almost always useful, and a lack of control I have no problem with. The issue with this 'mode' (being against an object/wall) is that it can sometimes be a pain to leave it - if an enemy starts walking around the side of the object, it's not easy to just walk round the corner as you need to press the hotkey again to get away from it, then walk round, then press it again. The other thing you might like to do is just use the WASD keys (your likely first thought when panicking) - while this is possible, it only works if your camera view is looking straight at your position - perpendicular to the object. This means that you might look at the enemy that's now to your side, spam S and just shimmy along a bit without actually running away. In fairness, although it can be very annoying when this happens (sometimes requiring a level restart), this doesn't happen very frequently and it's the only issue with character control I can think of, bar a minor weapon aiming issue when crouched behind something. Control and gameplay

Map choice and loadout complexity offers quite a large range of variety when playing this game, and with the numerous combinations on offer, Ubisoft have created a game with a very high replay value. It also has the typical method of pulling players in for another go, by adding a scoring system and online high scores/leaderboards. You can keep replaying a level to try and get the best panther score in the lowest time, in an attempt to boost your global ranking. As I mentioned previously in the side missions section, the embassy 4E missions from Charlie have a huge replay value, simply because of the randomised spawn points every wave. It's almost impossible to have the same experience every time, often not even similar. The AI in the game is also worth mentioning here, as they're (mostly) very clever and 'on the ball' - this means that even on the maps with pre-set guard layouts and paths, if you kill people in different orders or accidentally alert/intrigue someone, the layout and grouping of enemies can change - even resulting in guards patrolling the opposite side of the map from normal. Replay-ability

Ultimately, games are mostly about having fun and having a good way to spend your time, either alone or with friends. On this subject, Blacklist absolutely delivers. To avoid frustration in the campaign and 4E missions, you can choose from 4 difficulty settings; rookie, normal, realistic and perfectionist. You may find that you can do some levels on higher difficulty settings than others, but that's fine, you're not locked into a difficulty setting and can change it every time you launch a mission. This freedom creates reduction in frustration, allowing you to fully enjoy the experience of sneaking up behind people, sniping them from a distance, or watching them step on the land mine you placed earlier. The satisfying sound of your silencer being swiftly followed by a body hitting the floor and finally completing the level when the odds looked stacked against you, give you an immense sense of joy and satisfaction. I always thoroughly enjoy my game time on Blacklist and that's as big a factor (if not bigger) as the variety of maps, guns, gadgets and grunts. Fun factor