5. Characterisation
Blacklist sees the return of series regulars Anna 'Grim' Grímsdóttir, Victor Costeand and Andriy Kobin, while also introducing us to newbies such as Isaac Briggs and Charlie Cole. However, most of the press attention has been paid to the protagonist, due to the rather odd decision to replace voice actor Michael Ironside's signature gravelly snarl with newcomer Eric Johnson, apparently due to Ironside's age, and therefore his inability to perform the physical motion capture. Rather than combine Ironside's voice with Johnson's physicality, they opted for this rather disappointing route. Still, to Ubisoft's credit, the game does move to develop Sam far more as a character than in most of the other Splinter Cell titles. In between missions, Sam is given the opportunity to phone his daughter Sarah, which adds a humanising layer to a man who could easily - and has been before - be little more than a brutally efficient killer.