Splinter Cell was primarily an Xbox franchise, so if you’ve got an Xbox of any kind that’s probably your best bet, assuming they’re still for sale. I believe they were all developed for Xbox and ported to other platforms. For Chaos Theory in specific though the PC port was pretty good, so if you don’t it’s not a big problem. Possibly some controller issues that need a fan fix? Though on the plus side you can find a wide-screen fix mod for modern resolutions. The first two games had worse ports, if I remember right. And the Playstation and GameCube ports were pretty universally bad I think, for all the games.
The one where the console version is really important is Double Agent, but that is a whole other can of complicated worms, because then it wasn’t just the matter of bad ports - they released two completely different games with different mechanics, levels and story executions (albeit the same overall plot).
I want to highlight two mod makers, instead of single mods. lStewieAl and WallSoGB for their efforts unfucking New Vegas. Being forced to pick a single effort, the engine optimizations is probably the most impressive. Honorable mention to all the various script extenders that make so many fantastic mods possible in the first place.
The first couple games are really good stealth games, highly recommended. There is not really an overarching story between games, so if you’re just looking to dip your toes into the series I’d start with Chaos Theory. Honestly, if you’re into stealth games you should really play it like, right now. I consider it an all-time great.
After Double Agent the series started going into a more bland action style as Ubisoft felt stealth games were too niche I guess. Never played Conviction or Blacklist but as I said, I heard good things about the co-op in the latter so it’s on my list to try. I don’t really have a good candidate to play co-op with at the moment though, so it’s on indefinite hold.
Cooperative stealth is an interesting genre, not that well represented either. Did you ever play a Splinter Cell game with your friend? The earlier games had wholesale co-op campaigns, and I’ve heard really good things about the co-op in Blacklist too, though I never played that one myself.
I have no idea how AC2 holds up, honestly. I’ve never replayed it and it was my first game in the series - I didn’t own a Playstation when the first one came out so I only experienced it through being over at a friend’s house and watching him play it, occasionally taking turns for missions. Playing AC2 was an incredible experience back when it released and I’m full of fond memories, but I don’t know how well it’s aged. It’s probably a less impactful experience now than it was 15 years ago.
I do it with MSI Afterburner, then do stress tests in 3D Mark to make sure it’s stable. As long as you’re not over-volting you’re fairly safe to experiment. You can either do a flat undevolt, or you can set up a custom curve. Also like another commenter here said, changing the fan curve to actually engage the fans sooner helps keep the temps down, usually the default fan curve prioritizes silence to a disturbing degree.
I think it is pretty much confirmed that Unity’s poor launch led to the hard pivot to the “modern” RPG style AC games. I remember reading about it at the time. The only reason Syndicate wasn’t changed was it was already too far into production when Unity released.
I really like Unity. I’ll always have a special nostalgic feeling about the Ezio saga that makes me hold them in especially high regard, but even so Unity is probably my favourite to play. Revolutionary Paris is an amazing setting and it’s so beautifully realised too, and the parkour system with free run up/down and all the myriad animations lets you do some of the most slick things in the entire AC series if you get good at it. I’ve linked AC Unity choreography before, but just look at what people can do when they’re good at this game.
This is well treaded ground and I agree with pretty much everything. I tried to get through RDR2 twice last year but whenever I was doing main story missions I would get frustrated. Partly because of your points, but also for another reason: how the hell can you maintain immersion in the story when the protagonist effectively commits genocide? Seriously the kill count in the missions is so ludicrously high I want to quit every time I do a couple of main story missions. Like I get it, you want to sprinkle some action sequences in there to keep up the tempo, but I can’t take killing a hundred lawmen in some town in a main mission and then have the world go on as if nothing happened.
I finished Arcanum for the first time. It was… okay, I suppose. It really hasn’t aged super well, and has some pretty big flaws. The combat is atrocious, and the followers are extremely bare bones. The setting is really enjoyable though, and the character customization options are broad and fun (although the inventory management required to make a technologist work makes it ill advised in practice sadly). In the end I’m glad to have played it but I can’t really recommend it without some huge caveats.
For a change of pace I tackled Weird West, which I picked up for cheap on a GOG sale. I’m almost through with it - it’s not that long - and it’s been enjoyable. I really like the art style and the setting. It perhaps doesn’t clear the lofty bar its Dishonored and Prey pedigree sets for it but it’s got some pleasant twin-sticks shooter gameplay and some fun imsim elements and choices-matter type decisions. The stealth is pretty bad though. Not sure I’d want to pay full price for it, but definitely do recommend it if you want a shorter game and can find it on sale.
I too grew up on machines that were mid-low range and was constantly asking more of them than they could handle, so I learned to stomach pretty miserable FPS. In the end though it’s highly context sensitive - the less movement (and in particular camera movement) the game has the lower the frame rate you can get away with.
As a general rule I would say 25 FPS is the absolute lower limit, but around 40 is probably more in line with your “this is fine and I’m going to have a great time” definition. However, for something like a fast paced shooter it’s more like 60 FPS minimum.
I don’t really care enough to actively hate Ubisoft - I save those sentiments for companies like Nintendo and Disney. However, they did influence about a decade of horrible game design trends with the popularisation of the dreadful checklist-filled Ubisoft Open World^TM, and that is worth at least a mild dislike.
I’m so torn on the subject of a VI remake. On the one hand, it tickles my brain to think of what it would be like if given the full treatment à la VII Remake, but on the other hand I consider the game pretty much perfect as-is and don’t want it sullied.
That was my biggest gripe watching the Luke Stephens video on it as well. The announcement trailer looked great, why the hard pivot into an oversaturated mushroom kingdom aesthetic? Especially since it sounds like the actual game is pretty solid, beyond technical issues (that may or maybe fixed by now with a day 1 patch).
2 is a very solid game and well worth playing, but it doesn’t have anything on the original in terms of story execution in my opinion. But that’s a tall order since Bioshock 1 is one of the best games of all time.
I’ve still yet to play Infinite, but it’s on my list for this year.