Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell

The Good
I'm naturally suspicious of anything called Tom Clancy's Insert Pretentious Title Here. But on the other hand, there was the tantalizing prospect of feeding my Thief addiction.

The biggest downside of the Tom Clancy label is, as you'd expect, the patently ridiculous story taking itself far too seriously: Georgia suddenly decides, for no apparent reason, to wage "information warfare" on the US; cue cutscene of TV news detailing the dangers of a computer virus spreading into the water supply. Which is perhaps all too representative of how real newscasters treat computer threats - now, it might be "technically impossible" as you say, but imagine the chaos that would ensue if people came down with general protection faults in the middle of traffic!

--in fact, you're probably best advised to skip the faux broadcast collages altogether and concentrate on the meat of the game.

The game itself is basically right in the middle of the intersection between Thief and Deus Ex, with bits of Project IGI thrown in. You do carry a gun, but it's rare that you fire more than a hundred bullets on any level. A new twist is that, in addition to knocking people out, you can grab them by the neck and put a gun to their head - and then knock them out with your elbow when they've told you what you need. Amazingly, everyone in the game are smart enough not to cry out in surprise at having the barrel of a gun against their temple.

Our hero isn't quite as suave as Garrett; he's called Sam and is some middle-aged guy with stubble - though he does look good wearing night-vision goggles, something the packaging revels in. Since this is based on some Tom Clancy nonsense, he works for the NSA, but at times, he has an almost gentleman-thief air about him. A gentleman thief with black fatigues and military hardware, that is.

Being a specialist in infiltration, Sam has a wide range of special moves like sliding on steel wires, rappelling, climbing pipes and hugging walls. Which is all very nice, but it does give that flight simulator feeling of hunting around for rarely used keys at times. This is especially true for the "split jump", the athletic feat of bracing your legs against two opposing walls: while it looks very cool in screenshots, it's hardly ever used, and by the time you need it, you'll have forgotten it among all the others.

The best of Sam's moves is easily peeking around a corner and drawing his pistol. From this position you're minimally exposed, and can take on three times the numbers you'd normally be able to. This isn't just a cool move culled from the movies; it also helps you feel more part of the environment, less like a heavily armed upright soapbox on wheels. It's also a word in favor of realism, as the first thing you look for in a firefight is good cover.

In what might be a first, you control walking speed with the mouse wheel. There are four speeds; you'll probably spend most of the game crouched on the second-slowest speed, but there's a time and place for all the combinations of crouching, sneaking and running, which gives a nice feeling of nuanced control.

Your goggles provide two additional modes of sight, night vision and infrared. Both look pretty cool; the 3D engine observes the way bright light "bends around" edges - I think "bloom" is what the industry calls it - anyway, it means a 40-watt lightbulb shines like the sun through night-vision, while a well-lit room is blinding bright. The infrared is primarily useful for seeing people through bookcases and such, though it does look very nice and has received adequate attention; notably, you can use it to see which guards are unconscious and which are room-temperature - pop a bullet in someone and you'll see the body heat fade away. All this makes the game feel bigger than it actually is, since each level can be seen three ways.

Splinter Cell has the most play on shadow and light I've seen yet, almost to the point of a ridiculous number of scenes with the sun shining through blinds, lamps through grilles, etc. Sometimes, things in a bright light exhibit that plastic toy look, but most of the game is spent in the lovely gritty light-amplified mode, or the graphically impressive infrared. The night vision is in black-and-LCD-cream, which is quite attractive; and the added video noise works well, surprisingly. The fact that I spent a lot of time looking at the game in monochrome, hardly even noticing, should tell you just how well it works.

The Bad
The title movie. When I saw the sheer amount of people who had worked on it, I wanted their job. I mean, I could do it better. Most ten-year-olds could do it better. And that music! Agh!

The ingame music is, unfortunately, not much better. You'll be wishing for cheesy Deus Ex tunes before soon.

The blend of sneaking and shooting while not giving the same degree of freedom as in Deus Ex means the game winds up being a bit off; by far the most enjoyable level is the one where you're not allowed to kill a single soul, yielding the tightest, most intense gameplay. On most of the other levels, the easiest route is often to just shoot people from a distance whenever you have the opportunity and then stroll right past their dead eyes, picking goodies out of their kit.

Murder is usually justified, e.g., after seeing a gang of mercenaries gun down an office full of helpless programmers, you're handed a bunch of grenades and a license to kill, but towards the end of the game, you just don't care anymore; I eventually found myself shooting security guards out of laziness and annoyance.

The sound effects are competent, but they're not as delicious as either Thief 1 or 2's; Splinter Cell is more visually oriented, for better and worse.

Oh, and there are a couple of jumping puzzles which call for the annoying-to-perform move of kicking off walls.

The Bottom Line
Adequate snack for sating Thief abstinencies, with some fresh gains of its own. Certainly worth it at reduced price.

The Good
Splinter Cell is the latest game series released under the "Tom Clancy's" brand name, and unlike the previous tactical fps titles that bore such name Splinter Cell is an action/espionage 3rd person title clearly aimed towards more "consoley" sensibilities. There's no doubt that Splinter Cell makes it's debut gunning for MGS, the reigning action/espionage title for console gamers, but fortunately for the rest of us, Ubisoft made sure that the game lived up to it's stealth-action moniker and provides one of the most serious sneaking titles this side of Thief.

The game casts you as Sam Fisher voiced by mr. coolness himself, Michael Ironside. Being a hard-assed veteran and a strictly professional soldier Sam comes off as a refreshing character from the usual console cliche of faggy supermodels masquerading as secret agents and lends a lot of credibility to the gameplay (yes MGS2 I'm looking at you). Of course, this is besides the real-life spec-ops hardware, realistic gameplay mechanics and more down-to-earth storyline with newcast cutscenes that show how the conflict escalates as you progress through the game.

As I mentioned Ubisoft did their homework when they designed the game and instead of overgloryfied arcade mechanics Splinter Cell incorporates some serious sneaking concepts. First of all sound emission and movement DO make a difference and attract the attention of guards and enemies in a realistic manner, and without handy-dandy radars with line-of-sight indicators or stuff like that you'll have to resort to crouching in the darkness and carefully judge the reactions and movements of your enemies a-la Thief. Finally a console game gets it man! The resulting tension is what sells stealth gameplay and I dare to say that Splinter Cell is the first game to get it right in quite a while, taking it's cues from the best elements of Hitman while adding some of the hardcore elements of Thief.

Of course, Splinter Cell manages to surprise even more as it adds a few twists of it's own, which include an interesting way of controlling movement by using the scroll-wheel (which allows you to easily switch between different movement speeds) and a lot of athletic moves that allow Sam to do everything from slowly opening a door and peeking through, leaning through a corner and shooting while in nearly complete cover (finally!!) as well as more esoteric moves such as bouncing off walls and doing the "Jet Li special" (see "Black Mask") by doing a split along a corridor and remaining suspended over the ground. Borrowing an element from Thief, Splinter Cell also incorporates the option to shoot out lights to aid you, and you can also immobilize enemies swiftly to use them as human shields as well as forcing them to bend over against a wall and activate retina-scanners.

Additionally as you would expect a true spec-ops operative to do, Sam tackles each mission with a full equipment of weapons and gadgets (eat that Solid Snake!) that include the prominently displayed night-vision goggles which you'll use in several occasions as it allows the player to see in the darkness or alternatively use a heat-sensitive vision. Sam also comes loaded with a small fiber-optic camera that allows you to peer through doors as well as a silenced 9mm sidearm and a futuristic-looking modular weapon that can shoot out a series of modules that contain remote "sticky" cameras, tazers and other useful stuff as well as doubling as a sniper /assault rifle when the stealthy approach fails.

Needless to say, this gameplay gimmicks are flawlessly executed and work wonders to increase the potential of the game which soars in terms of gameplay over Konami's MG series. Furthermore, all of these features are realistically implemented, with realistic gunplay that separates the action parts from the arcadey feel of similar games.

As far as production values the game showcases the tremendous resources Ubisoft has at it's disposal, with a graphic engine that allows for some incredible lightning effects (mostly used for subtle highlights, afternoon sunrays through windows and stuff like that) handles some superb animations, and even showcases spiffy effects such as the video noise in the night or heat vision modes. Soundwise the game holds some treats for EAX surround system owners and finally, the game boasts an excellently designed interface themed as Sam's PDA which allows easy access to all of the game's features, plus putting the final crimson ribbon over a true class-act of a game.

The Bad
There are some minor annoyances that detract from the overall experience, first of all the plot is consistent with the usual military-masturbatory crap that Tom Clancy's novels are usually about, meaning a lot of potentially true scenarios and situations based on real world stuff acted out by cardboard characters. I mean, who were the bad villains in this game? I dunno, I barely remember Sam Fisher because of Mr. Ironside's always impressive work, let alone the goons that surrounded him. In any event, while it may be interesting for military maniacs, the plot leaves a lot to be desired and I personally feel shafted, I mean, why do we have to settle for either this serious but lifeless military scenario or the cheese-filled completely ridiculous melodramas of MGS? Can't we have a middle ground? Dammit...

Anyway, moving on, the game suffers from a little lack of focus in the level design, which clearly had a basic idea of what they were doing but didn't adequate the layout and the challenges to satisfy Sam's skills. The result is that a lot of the wonderful stuff that you can do are barely ever used... The "Jet Li Special"? I used it ONCE in the final level just because I was bored of knocking out my enemies and tried to avoid one with this method. The "shoot-the-tazer-into-a-puddle-of-water-to-shock-multiple-opponents" trick? Once, in China. The remote cams? Once in the building site... Peering though a door? Why if I have that little cam? Retina scanners? I can count their number in the game with one hand... etc. etc. etc.... Basically you'll just use some of the advertised features and forget about the rest.

Finally there are some issues with the less serious elements in the game, minor details that detract from the experience solely on the basis that they break your suspension of disbelief and which include auto-closing doors, really stupid and "forgetful" guards that can have a firefight with you, but if you hide for enough time forget about you ever being there... Oh, and lest I forget: Splinter Cell apparently went to the "Deus Ex School of international characterization" as the game takes you through Russia, China, and lots of other countries populated by people that talk only in badly accented english. I mean, I don't want to be that kind of a bitch but It really kills the mood of a "super secret serious stealth action game" when you eavesdrop the bad chinese general and his henchmen discussing their masterplan in plain english! And let's not even mention the private e-mails and logs that you upload to your pda through the game...

Thief veterans are gonna breeze through this game, with only some idiotic jumping puzzles to offer a challenge to the seasoned Garrett fan.

Oh, and in the endgame the president says "There's no problem American Ingenuity can't solve" :D that line alone made my day. Thankfully Sam seemed to laugh at it with as much sarcasm as I did.

The Bottom Line
In a nutshell Splinter Cell is the serious version of the overhyped crap that has passed as "stealth action" in console-land. Basically Sam Fisher is a grown up Solid Snake trading in the cheesy storylines and arcade gameplay for serious espionage mechanics and carefully designed gameplay aimed towards a more serious audience.

A group of minor flaws take a few notches off Splinter's belt, but nonetheless the game is a fantastic experience and a great addition to the library of the stealth gaming aficionado and something to quench your appetite until the next Thief comes out.

The Good
Many tense moments did i experience: softly and ever so slowly stepping closer and closer to the guard in the doorway... only to have him turn around at the last moment! Or, running swiftly through a hallway, quickly whipping out the lockpicking tools, unlocking, opening and then hearing the door close just before a soldier enters this hallway. Phew! Splinter Cell has lots of these moments. As well as exciting combat, beautiful locations to sneak through and an adequate story.

You can use lots of gadgets, look cool using them, admire the sights of a simple light beam rolling over your character 'Sam Fisher' and enjoy figuring out the environment - 'where to go next? and how to get there?'

The Bad
Almost every mission has only one path through it. Rarely have the designers included choices to approach the levels. But, there are still plenty of choices to be made. For example, at what moment to pull a soldier into your shadow.

Sometimes, the behavior of the computer characters is very sharp and observant, at other times they seem to lack eyes and ears.

Some levels have odd (unnatural or illogically constructed) layouts or solutions.

The difficulty levels are the only incentive for playing this game again. If you like to play games on 'Hard' expect only one run through. I don't mind, perhaps you do?

The Bottom Line
Very fun, exciting and thrilling game experience. It has no significant difficulty, so enjoy the ride!