Splinter Cell: Blacklist - Xbox 360

If Sam Fisher's back, you know something bad's happening. In the instance of Blacklist, America has its troops in a number of countries that a shadowy group called The Engineers aren’t very happy about it. Their demands are for America to remove their troops or a high profile target will be killed every week.

Your job, as Sam, is to figure out where the attacks are going to happen, who is going to be killed, and prevent it from happening.

Before each mission, you find yourself in the Paladin, your flying headquarters. You’re able to interact with your team who offer different perks for the next mission, stats and other useful info. On top of that, you’re able to customise your loadout in depth to match your play style. For example, different pieces of your suit provide different stats – some are designed with extra armour, some will increase your stealth. That goes for weapons too – you’re able to choose any attachments/enhancements to match your play style.

There are three play-styles, and you’ll earn points for matching set requirements. In the simplest terms the play styles are; silently slip past all enemies, don’t kill anyone, don’t cause any fuss at all, basically ('Ghost'). Or: quietly take enemies down, hide bodies, avoid detection ('Panther'). Finally, there's guns-blazing blowy-uppy loudness ('Assault').

As far as gameplay goes in Blacklist, it doesn’t stray too far from the Splinter Cell path – you’ll find yourself hiding in cover, hanging over ledges, clambering along ceiling pipes… just about anything to remain undetected by the enemy (unless of course you’ve opted for the Assault technique).

The spies vs mercs multiplayer mode of previous Splinter Cell games makes a return too, with up to eight players able to muck in.

So, what's it to be - ghost, panther or assault? more