That's how a 55 year old guy with a voice like concrete turned into a 28 year old Commander Shepard knockoff, right? We're going to get to the end of the game and it's going to be like 'Sam, you have to rescue Prisoner 471' and then you get there and pull the bag off the prisoner's head and it's the old Sam Fisher and then it's like 'Sam Fisher is not a man who lives, but a role that is assumed.'

That's what's happening here, right? What other explanation is there? Lazarus Pits?

What's happening here is a shitty business decision.

James Bond is his actual name as far as I'm aware. So no.

Its a prequel.

As someone who was a massive Splinter Cell fan when I was younger, I think this new one looks good.

Conviction had Michael Ironside in it and I didn't really like it that much, so.

Vidjeo Gamez!

Oh is it? I had thought that but all the gadgets and drones and holographic displays look extremely 2013 to me, and not like check it out 1989 technology. They were still tapping landline telephones and taking pictures with film.

If the game actually ended like that then I would be on board.

Where did they say it was a prequel? I under the impression (and could have sworn Ubi said it too) that this is actually post Conviction.

It's not a prequel. This is a sequel to Conviction. As for the Sam Fisher dissonance, man, try and deal with it. I guess. It sucks. Nobody likes it.

I could be wrong that was my impression if so than thats just fucking dumb.

Does anybody play these games? I bought the first one and played up until the second level, wehre halfway through you lose for no reason. Fast forward a few dozen hours and I find out that the reason I lost halfway through the stage, with no warning or explanation at all, is because I didn't hide a body "properly" at the beginning of the stage which I was nowhere near at the time.

Eject disk. Sell at gamestop. Never play anything called splinter cell ever again.

This kind of thing happened in 24 in that over 14 years had passed from season 1 to season 8. Poor planning or something I suppose

I've only played the last 3 games so it sounds weird that a few dozen hours later your mistake bit you in the ass somehow, considering this isn't an open world franchise but one that is level-based, but either way you need to be really careful in these games.

I suggest you get Chaos Theory, the best SC and, arguably, stealth game ever made, and enjoy being an actual secret agent badass,

You've just wrote a better ending than anything that could possibly be in this game.

Nope, he's just deaging because they want to pull more audiences in(or probably some other silly reason like that). Gameplay itself looks cool, but the Sam stuff really bums me out. Hopefully his daughter at least still exists, especially since this is shortly after Conviction. The weird part? His daughter will probably sound as old as him now. Think about that for a second.

They already did what you just wrote in the last game OP.

I don't give a shit who plays Sam Fisher anymore....Michael Ironside had his turn and now someone else will give it a shot. What makes the JB movies good are the plot and characters, not just the person assuming the role. Same goes for the SC games.

I would also accept a The-Devil's-Cartel-style dumb twist where you find out the villain is the previous Sam Fisher gone rogue, voiced by Michael Ironside.

YES.

AND IT'S A FALSE FLAG INSIDE JOB.

@brodehouse: If what you said came true I would suddenly care about this franchise.

@vinny_says:Wait so I should care about this franchise!?

I don't think you're the target demographic.

Except in 24 all of the characters age appropriately. The difference between 9 years (there was no season the year of the writers strike) of visible age on a person is not that far off from 14 years of visible age on a person and Kiefer Sutherland still looked a hell of a lot older by the end of the series than he did at the beginning. Elisha Cuthbert was playing a 16 year old at age 19 in season 1, and a 30 year old at age 27 in the final season, this is hardly an apt comparison to a character that gets younger.

My answer is that this age of sequels has done a lot of cheap shit like this to keep their franchise titles rolling and make money, so whenever something like this happens, I mentally decide that this new "sequel" is actually a new game (franchise) that happens to have the same name.

Meaning that to me, Fisher's ride ended with Conviction. This new game has a lookalike, a wannabe, whatever, I might play and enjoy it but when it comes to the character, I can't accept it's Fisher because it doesn't make sense. Not that it matters THAT much, but still.

@officegamer: We live in dangerous and quite often, uninspiring, times. I absolutely agree with regards to the apparent need to latch new titles onto a popular series just to earn sales on the brand recognition vibe. I think that it sometimes even keeps gaming from evolving. A big game is really expensive and as long as people buy the games, why risk the cash of trying something new? Its a bad, bad trend.

Splinter Cell 3 might still be one of my favourite games ever. Shame the series fell off after that. I have zero interest in the new one, sadly.

You're right, that was the problem. You played through the game sneaking and dispensing of badguys, and apparently one badguy wasn't hidden well enough for the game's liking. I played through the rest of the level as though nothing was wrong until at a certain point, I walked out onto a ledge and the game ends saying I was discovered. So kept playing the same scene over and over and over again trying to figure out why it was saying I was seen, when there wasn't anybody there to see me. Finally I started playing the whole level over time again to try to figure out what was happening. Finally I figured out that what you do to a guy in the beginning of the stage effects the middle of the stage, with absolutely no warning.

It's like if you jumped over the first badguy in Mario Bros. instead of jumping on him, and as a result, when you get to the flag it just says "game over" and doesn't explain why.

They had a good reason to change the voice actor so i am trying to bear the voice of the new sam fisher. But to be honest, its so childish...its like a kid is thrown into the character and he's not even that excited about it.

No, he is James Pond

As far as the idea that James Bond isn't really his name and he is just a cipher. Ive read that theory and its just a load of bullshit.

The explanation is video games.

Sadly the James Bond Codename theory doesnt hold up. Skyfall threw a big wrench in that theory with the headstones of his parents having the last name Bond.
http://commanderbond.net/2349/the-codename-theory.html

The codename-as-assumed-role thing is actually closer fiction wise to the Jason Bourne series of books, rather than Bond who is, confusingly the same guy everytime and I can see splinter Cell fitting in to the Bourne world nicely

At a stretch, you could argue that James Bond is a retelling of the same ideas/stories in new settings (sort of like the philosophy of how Zelda games are made); but the code name theory does not hold up.