We haven’t yet put up a review of Splinter Cell: Blacklist, known around these parts as The Latest Adventures of Sam Fisher (But Not Michael Ironside). Part of the reason for this is that, um, I can’t actually get on the multiplayer.
And, judging by an 18-page thread on the Ubisoft forums – as well as a number of spin-off threads – I’m not alone in this. If you’re getting “The Splinter Cell Blacklist service is not available at this time. Please try again later” when trying to do anything online in the game, from Spies vs Mercs and co-op to just redeeming your pre-order codes, I feel your pain.
Right now, there appears to be no great consistency in possible causes. It seems to occur regardless of your ISP, router, or router settings (as it occurs even with ports forwarded correctly, and occasionally will work on one computer in a house, but not on another). It happens whether you have firewalls turned on or off. It doesn’t matter whether you’re running the game through Steam or not, and it doesn’t seem related to motherboards, graphics cards, or… well, anything. It just happens, and nobody seems quite sure why.
There hasn’t been much response on the official forums yet that I can see, barring the standard “We’re looking into it.” So, for the time being, consider yourselves warned – if you’re thinking of grabbing Splinter Cell: Blacklist on PC, there’s at least a chance you’re not going to be able to play multiplayer for awhile.
Remember, everyone: the future of gaming is online, because there are never any problems with that!
