It's.. Yeah.

I.. Hmm.

Thing is I don't actually know what the best angle is with this. I'm a kind of person that will try many different angles and kinda rationalise a lot of design choices and often actually come to terms with what a game is like. Regardless of how I feel about a departure from a previous series entry, if there is something new there to like, I can usually like it taken on those merits instead. I've a very broad taste in games aswell, which also helps I guess, and it's not the end of the world if a game's appeal shifts slightly because there's potentially - and likely - appreciation for that new direction also, stowed away inside my brain somewhere.

It's plain to see that the appeal of this new Splinter Cell isn't that of the old ones. Holding on to that old appeal, all white knucklesy, is forfeit. If you have any preconcieved notions about what this new game is, based on old Splinter Cells, you'll likely just be clinging to a ghost.. You'll be Dr Frankenstein bringing back your loved one in a fucked up, stitched together corpse mishmash of a body that you can't have sex with anyway. It says Splinter Cell on the cover of this, but it has changed so much it won't respond if you tickle it in the usual places.

Ubi are brave. No matter what you think about their direction and their attempts to re-invent their series before they go all Tomb Raider Chronicles (which arguably Double Agent 360 sorta brushed by) they are a ballsy as hell company. What is in here is something deceptively similar looking to a Splinter Cell game, but one that really employs mechanics that are wholly unique and ones that - no matter who you are - you haven't stood before until now. You haven't experimented with them, seen their intricacies, and you haven't made them part of the language with which you communicate with this - or any - game.

And so, because it says Splinter Cell on the cover, because it looks largely like a Splinter Cell game, going into this it's easy to try and apply what you already know. It is similar enough that you can get halfway to using your old tricks, but they are frustratingly only just out of reach because this BUTTON doesn't do what it once did, or this OPTION you had is now replaced with an empty, cold void. It is a jarring experience.

Unlearning Splinter Cell is nigh on key to enjoying this, which effectively does mean an awkward proposition for long term fans. Some will be able to make that transistion and others won't, and somewhere its new angle will win over fans for whom the earlier entries remained inpenetrable and/or decidedly unappealing. Case in point; Prince of Persia '08.

If an hour, or less, of your game is telling of the entire product, that's just sad. I fully agree that demos are rarely, if ever, a good representation of a game's appeal.

They're obviously infinitely better as a device than a trailer is, especially for mechanics driven games (how do you trailer Tetris?) but if a demo immediately tells all, your game is likely a shallow sugar high. Alex Ward of Criterion once said that unless a game grabs you in 10 minutes it's a bad game. Well he's a stupid stupidface.

It's just this "love at first sight" notion that seems to penetrate a lot of people's beliefs in what games are like. I mean sure, there are cases where your affinity for something perfectly embraces what plays out before you in a brief taste of a game - very much like a tetris block that fits into your own blocky frame - but that doesn't lend the opposite much meaning.

But then I like being a stranger in a game's land, so to speak, humbly learning its intricacies. My very first cup of coffee had my face distorted in absolute disbelief that anyone would willingly pour that atrocious liquid into his or her anticipating gape. Once I learnt to appreciate its flavour however, I'd opened the door to the simple - yet taste-tastic - sensation of having ice cream and coffee. One of life's Crazy Taxi like cycles of seemingly endless enjoyment. :)

Well, any vanilla ice cream works. And I prefer black coffee with it. It makes for this awesome contrasting thing where you sip some coffee, eat some ice cream, sip some coffee, eat some ice cream. Both setting up one another and bringing out the best feature of their respective flavour.

The same way gameplay elements should offer that friction to stand out and feel great to do, the same way levels should contrast one another and make you anticipate the next, the same way the balance of power and powerlessness should be alternated between just right to give the sense of empowerment meaning.