User Rating: 9.1 | Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell XBOX
Splinter Cell is a spy/stealth action game, using the Tom Clancy license. Developed by Ubi Soft, Cell uses the latest in real time shadows, slick visuals, along with nice ambient sounds and an ok soundtrack. The game contains quite a bit of useful gadgets along with sweet moves your character uses to stay hidden from the enemies. You will get a rewarding gameplay experience, especially if you’re a fan of this genre. The story starts out like any other Tom Clancy novel or game. You join in the game at the point where something big is about to go down, including the start of World War Three. You play the role of Sam Fisher, a Splinter Cell. You work above the government. You don’t exist. (“Sam? I went to school with that guy!” “Shut up! No you didn’t!”) You work outside of the normal agencies, usually doing the things that would cause a war if you’re caught. You sneak into enemy installations; gather intelligence, even playing the role of assassin on more than one occasion. This particular story takes place in the near future, 2004 to be exact. Seems Georgia Republic President has a hidden agenda. Two of your agents were sent in to uncover this agenda when they disappeared. Now it’s your turn to go in, find them, and to finish their job. As you progress through the game, you’ll find that there is something real bad going on here, that can and will cause WW3 if you can’t put a stop to this mad man’s terror. There is good news, and there is bad news. The bad news is, it’s all you, baby. You alone have to go at it, no backup, and no help from the outside other than your boss feeding you new info as the mission’s progress. The good news? You have a slick arsenal at your fingertips that would make James Bond jealous. Sam Fisher isn’t a slouch. He has been trained to dispatch opponents fast. He can make himself become virtually invisible in the shadows, in essence, he becomes a ghost. He has a variety of moves that allow him to transverse his environment, where it be climbing up a pole, wall jumping onto a ledge, or even doing a leg split, and holding himself up in the air, allowing the bad guys to walk underneath him without being detected. Sam is an American Ninja. Not only does he have the moves, he has the ability to take you down. Often you’ll sneak up behind someone, knock them out, or grabbing him, and pulling him off to the side, all with maybe 4 other guys in the room, all of them, not seeing or hearing a thing. At times, you’ll find yourself having to do this, maybe to interrogate someone for information, or because you need their eyes to open a retinal scanner for you. Once you’ve laid them unconscious you’ll have to pick up their prone body, and move them out of sight. Find a good hiding place for them, they will be found if you slack off in this area. Usually throwing them into a dark shadow out of the way will do. If you grab someone, and then find yourself in a firefight, you can use them as a human shield and lay waste to your opponents. Sam has more than just flashy moves however. Like I said before, he has gadgets. They aren’t just gimmicks either. You’ll be using a lot of them; others are just there to make your life easier. You have your trusty silenced pistol, and later on the lovely SC-20K. A high powered, silenced, muzzle-flashing suppressed, rifle with s****er scope to boot. The rifle also uses secondary rounds like the Sticky Cam, which when shot onto a wall, you can peer around corners, check for any incoming hostiles, or just get a bird’s eye view of where you stand. Another type of secondary ammo for your rifle is the Shocker. When a hostile is hit with this round, he gets the shock of his life! Get it?! Work with me people. This and a few others you’ll find in the game are all non-lethal, which you’ll need in a few levels. Also available are smoke and frag grenades. Doors and locks make a good combination. Sam and lockpicks make a better combination. The interesting thing about these little luck charms is that when you use them, everything on screen falls out of focus, and up pops a lock, moving your joystick in a certain direction, you can “pick” each pin until the door is opened. Yes, this is sort of a gimmick, but it makes a boring task, somewhat more fun. Some locks just can’t be picked, usually they’re jammed and you’ll need a Disposable Pick. This little baby just pops the lock off, allowing you entry into the next room or hall. But then, who wants to unlock a door and run in, only to find five guards sitting on the other side of the door? That’s where your Optic Cable comes in. You slide it under the door, and now you got a rat’s eye view of the party going on next door. You also have Night-Vision and Heat-Vision goggles to help you see in your surroundings when your victims can’t. This is where your environment comes in. It too can be used to your advantage. Almost everything you see other than walls and chairs can be destroyed. Bottles, various glass, windows, and lights can all be taken out with a bullet. The sound for the game is pretty good, you can listen in on conversations, that although still isn’t top notch, still has some good voice acting. The music itself is pretty straightforward. Pretty much used as a warning for if you’ve been spotted or not. The again, you have to listen a lot in the game, so you pretty much don’t want a lot of music getting in the way. The visuals in this game are some the best ever to date. I can’t and won’t go into detail, I’d be here till Tuesday still writing. All I can say is that the screenshots, and movies posted on the web do not do this game justice. Everything is done in realtime, the shadows move with you, against you, and at you. Everything in the game causes shadows, just like in real life. Wind will move curtains which will cast a shadow that will distort and distort even more so when you get in the way, and cause shadows of your own. The lighting is superb, at times making you stop just to see how cool everything looks. Though we don’t usually do this in real life, we are amazed and how they make it look in game. The rooms and hallways themselves are detailed nicely as well. Everything has a look to it that makes everything around you seem more real. Example, if you throw your heat-vision goggles on and look at your body, areas of your body that are covered by your gun, or if part of you is sitting near a wall, won’t show up. Everything is distorted nicely, and effectively. Ubi Soft went to great lengths to insure a lot of small little details won’t be missed. This goes from the lighting and realtime shadows, down to the laces on your shoes, and right back up to the shells being ejected from you rifle after each round is squeezed off. All A+ material. The game isn’t all fairy tales however, there are a few problems with the game. Clipping has a limited problem as well as Enemy AI. Sometimes you’ll find that if you put a body down near a wall, his hand will get stuck in the wall itself. Or if a door closes on a body, it’ll go through his feet as if they weren’t there. All pretty trivial and hardly takes away from the game, but it’s still there to be seen. The AI is a mixed bag. Guards will walk around following their scripts which can be easily figured out and worked around. However, if you make too much noise or are seen, the guard will look for you, accessing various other scripts to search for you. If he saw something, but wasn’t sure what it is, he may dismiss it as a shadow of nothing. If he actually saw you, he won’t stop till you are found. He may also set off an alarm. Alarms are tricky. Too many alarms set off, or in some missions, just one is set off, it’s game over. Little things like this don’t make the game hard, as it does annoying. You’ll often find yourself getting through areas via trial and error. This can be frustrating to most, and also the games biggest Achilles’ Heel. But once you start getting good with the game, which doesn’t take long, you’ll find that it’s a lot easier than it seems, all with minimal trial and error and backtracking. All in all, the game is very fun, but takes patience. I myself don’t care much for games of this genre since I don’t have much patience and prefer my games to be fast paced. I’ve played games like Thief and Thief2, Hitman and Hitman 2. All which I got tired of, real fast. This game however, I haven’t been able to put down. I love the scenery, I love the tools, I love the ability of being an assassin and dispatching my foes with eager vengeance. I love spy movies, and that’s what this game is. A Spy Game. Also this game is the one that keeps giving. Using XBox Live, Ubi Soft will make new levels and missions for you to download to your Hard Drive, PC version may have something in the works at a later time was well. I for one hope a sequel is in the works. I have no choice but to give this game a 9.1
