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Splinter Cell Walkthrough
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If you're like me, you've enjoyed the
first two installments of the Splinter Cell series enough
to suspend disbelief that
it's possible to routinely sneak up on people without being
noticed - while indoors. That's a lot of disbelief
suspension, and is testament to how fun it can be skulking
around in high-tech
gear, saving the world one silent victory at a time. In Tom
Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Ubisoft has offered
Splinter Cell fans a third go at Sam's
stealthy style, but there just isn't enough
fresh material here
to
overcome
the
stale
feeling of "been there, done that."
On the surface there are some
new moves, and you've got a knife now, but it makes no
difference in terms of game play. You approach some fabric,
an option appears to cut the fabric, you walk through.
It's just another mouse click, no different than, "Open
Door." A statistical assessment of your performance
is calculated after each mission, with points deducted
for setting off alarms, killing guards or failing to complete
secondary goals. I kept getting really low ratings
until I realized that a
captured
guard
is killed
with a
left-click,
knocked unconscious with a right-click. The animations
aren't particularly helpful in revealing this distinction,
and I now find myself drenched in the virtual karma of
a serial murderer.
A "Loadout" feature
at the start of each mission is a weak attempt at providing
some
customization
to various play styles, as there's rarely much need to
use the different equipment you've selected. In fact,
grabbing a guard from behind is the only way to initiate
an interrogation, so using the equipment you're provided
is actually
discouraged.
Maps have the already-overused
crawlspace/pipe/elevator pathing that
I suppose
gives some a
sense that options abound,
but in my experience these have always been more about
what you notice first rather than which gameplay style
your
prefer. A bank entry through an unlocked dome light is
particularly
ridiculous as the rope you rappel down was already hanging
from the ceiling, right over the teller's area!
Chaos Theory's graphics
are quite the mixed bag. For those who choose shader model
2.0, there's no
antialiasing - a major bummer. AA is a must
for
me, as I'm playing on
a native 1024x768 projector at 90 inches, so
the screenshots you'll see here are all shader model 1.1.
And what's the deal with the many faces of Sam? Here's
some shots of various versions of our hero: (1)
(2).
If you consider what Ubisoft is planning for Sam's next
outing, it gets even more bizarre. Did the artists
even share notes?
One huge
improvement is the elimination of the checkpoint system,
whereby the
player
is prevented from advancing due to previously-unhidden
bodies. You still need to hide the bodies, but only if
they are likely to be discovered by nearby patrols. These
patrols have even more dialogue options now, and combined
with their behavioral AI, one can feel a decent sense of
immersion while playing cat-and-mouse with the NPCs.
This is the real appeal of the Splinter Cell series and,
happily, the game is as strong as ever here. A series of
instructional videos are informative and fun to watch --
I hope to see more of this tutorial style in the future.
Audio in Chaos Theory is as
mixed as the graphics. Michael Ironside's excellent vocals
as Sam Fisher are
in stark contrast to Dany Wells' laughable attempt as the
gruff ship captain Arthur Partridge. The sound
track gets the job done professionally, but really doesn't
justify Amon
Tobin's bio in the "Extras" area, or make
unlocking his tracks much of a pull. (Granted, musical
taste is completely
subjective, but Jon Hallur's work for EVE
Online or the wonderfully-effective inclusion of Barber's Agnus
Dei in Homeworld are more what I consider worthy of
such attention.)
Playing the third installment
of anything runs the risk of becoming rote, and sometimes
more of the
same isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Ubisoft has a good thing going with this series and they
certainly don't want to mess it up. Those who enjoyed the
first two Splinter Cell games will most
likely
enjoy Chaos Theory, but for the third time out I would
have enjoyed a bit more innovation and a lot less repetition. -
Last Update 04/07/07
