Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Hands-On - Multiplayer - PlayStation 2 Previews at GameSpot

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Hands-On - Multiplayer

By Jason Ocampo, GameSpotPosted Jan 25, 2005 5:28 pm PT

We get a chance to play the multiplayer beta to see how spies and mercenaries interact online.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory was one of the surprise games of E3 last year, mainly because no one expected it. After all, Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow had just been released. However, with Chaos Theory, the original Splinter Cell development team at Ubisoft Montreal secretly went to work to sharpen government agent Sam Fisher's gameplay to a razor's edge. With the game finally expected to ship this spring, Ubisoft recently launched the multiplayer beta of the game, and we got our hands on it to check it out. It should be noted that the multiplayer beta mainly features the story mode, which is almost identical to the same mode in Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow. The new cooperative mode that dazzled the audience (and us) at E3 last year is not included in this beta, so we'll have to wait a bit longer to see how it turns out.

While lacking in firepower, the spy still has cool toys, including thermal vision.

The multiplayer beta actually features three different modes: traditional deathmatch, disk hunt, and story. Story mode pits spies versus mercenaries in a race to either hack into a series of computers scattered about a level or defend them from being hacked. Once again, you can choose to play either as a Shadownet spy or as a gun-toting mercenary, which affects how you play the game quite a bit. The spies play from the conventional third-person view used for the single-player game, whereas the mercs play from the traditional first-person view used for most shooters. As such, each side has its advantages and disadvantages, and each side plays out a tense game of lethal hide-and-seek.

The Shadownet operatives have many of the same moves and abilities that Sam Fisher has in the single-player game. Clad in their sleek black bodysuits and sporting night vision goggles, they can shimmy up pipes, crawl into air ducts, and leap up to grab ledges to then haul themselves up. They can also run very fast, which is especially useful when they're caught in the open by mercenaries. Though Shadownet operatives don't get to carry a conventional firearm, they do get to carry a tazer rifle that lets them temporarily shock a mercenary or knock out a surveillance camera. They also have plenty of grenades. Smoke ones are useful for masking an escape, chaff grenades temporarily disrupt a merc's enhanced vision and other detection devices, and flash grenades can blind a merc. However, perhaps the coolest gadget is the camo suit, which allows a spy to cloak himself. The camo suit works quite a bit like the Predator's suit in the 1987 movie Predator. It won't work in certain situations, such as when you're moving too quickly or if you're in the rain, and it causes a slight distortion in the air. As a result, you're not completely invisible.

While Shadownet spies don't have access to lethal weapons, their bodies can be just as lethal. Once again, spies can knock out mercs, mainly by perching themselves on high places and then falling on them. Or, if you can sneak up behind a merc, you can grab him in a choke hold and either knock him out or break his neck. One tactic that we encountered several times in the beta occurred when we, as the mercs, would chase down a fleeing spy. The spy would run into a hallway and toss a smoke grenade to obscure his location. We would then run into the hallway and stop when we realized that we'd lost the spy. But by then it was too late, because the spy would cloak himself before we'd run by. Then he'd just come up behind us. The lesson in this is don't be too eager in the pursuit.

Though they don't get night vision, mercenaries do get motion detection.

It may sound like spies have all the fun, but the mercenaries have plenty of cool aspects to them as well. Mercs lack the mobility and athleticism of the Shadownet operatives, meaning they can only operate in rooms and hallways. They lack the ability to both climb up after Shadownet spies and chase them down into air ducts. To compensate for this, though, they get plenty of firepower in the form of an assault rifle that's capable of also hurling grenades into air ducts and other inaccessible locations. One of the most terrifying moments we had as a spy was when a merc started firing through ceiling tiles, causing bullet holes to appear all around our spy.

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jakeboudville
Posted Sep 2, 2006 4:24 am PT

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