Sam Fisher is back for the first time on the Xbox 360 in his best adventure yet
Finally a story to care about, the trust mechanic forces you even more to think before you act, fun and addictive multiplayer, great graphics and sound especially the voice acting
The Bad:
Some minor framerate issues, Sam seems to have forgot some acrobatic movements over the years, a singleplayer co-op mode certainly would not have hurt this game
The Review:
So once again Sam is back in another Splinter Cell game,who would have thought?, though this time after hearing about that his daughter has died in a car accident he takes on his most dangerous assignment yet by infiltrating the terrorist group called JBA (John Brown's Army) by being sent to prison to gain trust from one of the terrorist members. When you succeed (witch you hopefully will) you will be doing mission objectives for both JBA and your agency NSA to gain trust from both the groups though certain actions also makes you lose theit trust, witch forces you even to think before you act than the previous games in the series has, so you will better try to keep your eyes on the trust meter at all times keeping it as balanced as possible. But you wil also ge forced to make some really tough decisions trough the game, eventually until you don't even know what's right and wrong anymore. These decisions also affects how the game will progress and for example witch level you will be playing next, the game even has multiple endings because of this.
All of this combines into a story that's actually pretty good and interesting, witch is something the other Splinter Cell games have lacked so far, until now.
The overall gameplay is pretty simular of what you gotten used to if you played the other games, you will sneak up on people, kill them, disable them, interrogate them and also climb walls, stay hidden in the shadows and all of that that the previous games had, but hey why hurt something that isn't broken? though there are some new things to encounter for example some of the mission you will be doing are in pure daylight, witch forces you to use other skills them just to simply hide in the shadows, and you also get some new gadgets to try out and play around with. Though it's just not all good as some movements seem to have been forgotten, for example being able to jump from wall to wall or jump up in a thight room standing with one legs on each wall, witch was pretty usefull to surprise enemies from above, thankfully though because of the level design of this game it's not really that missed but it would still be nice to have.
The multiplayer is quite reminding from what you saw in Chaos Theory, though this time you can play 3 vs 3, and the mode is alot more balanced as the spies now are spies anf not some dominating super ninjas. In this mode the spies objective is to download informations from the terminals that are spread around the level using this gadget on your arm, you can stand as far away as 10 meters away from the terminal when doing this though the further away you are the slower your download speeds will be. But this gadgets is also usefull for other things, such as breaking windows, open doors etc. But lets not forget the other team, the mercenaries. As a merc you objective is pretty simple, just take out every spy that comes in your way, simple yet fun as the rest of the mode as it is easy to get in to and really fun and addictive and could keep you busy for hours. There is also the the possibility to play co-op via muliplayer where you play up to 3 spies or merc against and A.I. team, not as challenging as the the normal mode, but the bots are often up for a good fight making the mode really fun aswell. Unfortunally there is no singlplayer co-op mode to be found witch would have added value to the game even futher, something that will be hopefully implemented for the next installment.
The visuals of the game are from time to time jaw dropping and it's easy to tell that this couldn't be done on any previous console, though such things as recycled animations from the previous games and some minor framerate issues keeps it from being the most impressive visuals the Xbox 360 has to offer as this time.
The sound is great such as good music. great sound effect and awesome voice acting. Micheal Ironside that makes the voice of Sam Fisher makes you think that he hasn't done anyything else during his career, yep I tell you it's that good!
So overall for Splinter Cell fans this is a absolute must buy, there are too many good things about this game for one to ignore, as for others that are interested in stealth games or are in need of a new game for their Xbox 360 should defianlty give Splinter Cell: Double Agent a try.
//ZimpanX