Ubisoft's fourth entry in the Splinter Cell franchise proves that
there's still life in the old guy. The Splinter Cell franchise remains
robust and satisfying, but some changes have been made for the worse.
As you begin playing you'll notice three options. These are introduced
by the voice of a woman, which is a first in the series. Special
Features is nothing special (Credits and the E3 Trailer for Rainbow Six
Vegas), but the other two, Single Player and Multiplayer, are
definitely noteworthy.
The Singleplayer menu is presented with good old green. It's basically
just different shades of green, some fancy character animations and
environment fly-bys that works as pointers to what you can expect later
in the game. The thing I noticed first was the option called TRAINING.
I hopped into that one first, and was greeted to an interesting video
while the game was loading. It had no sound, but you saw Sam Fisher
waking up in a bed behind guarded doors. This could mean many things,
but it has later proven to really mean nothing. The training level
seems more like a "dream level", so maybe he just had a dream while
being tested or something. When the training begins, a female voice
tells you what you need to do. The level is whiter than Michael
Jackson, and everything shines with a marvelous glow. Your "mission" is
to reach a photo of your late daughter Sarah. Some camera jamming and
rappelling from a pipe later, not to mention an Achievement worth 10
points, you'll get to Part B of the Training. Here it's a little more
interesting, and there'll actually be humans involved. There's a
hostage situation at large, but with only three people to worry about.
This is the training level after all. You'll finish this quickly, and
get another 40 gamerscore points. The training level wasn't just good
for the achievements though. I for one loved the clean colors!
Training is fun and all that, but what about actually getting into some Double Agent singleplayer action???
Well, Double Agent features pretty much the same gameplay as in Chaos
Theory, but (as should be expected) with some additions. The animations
are very fluid, sneaking around is enjoyable, graphics are great and
the AI is clever.
On the very first mission, which takes place in Iceland, you begin
underwater. It's not much underwater action in this level, but another
level, which takes you to a Lost Planet-like environment, features a
lot more swimming underground. A new way of taking out enemies is by
braking the ice underneath the enemy and pulling him under, followed by
stabbing him in the chest. This is awesome, just like snapping people
while hanging in a pipe was in Chaos Theory. However, there's just not
enough opportunities to do this. You can do the trick maybe 3-4 times.
One of the new moves introduced in Chaos Theory, the ability to jump up
and pull the enemy under while shimmying, can be done maybe 4 times.
The manual says that you can split jump and do the neck split while
holding on a pipe, but I played through the whole singleplayer game
without even having the chance of doing this. Seems as Ubisoft didn't
feel the urge to show off Sam's array of moves as much as in previous
Splinter Cell games. A new move I really love is the ability to attack
an enemy about to bypass the wall you're leaning against. A symbol will
appear, and pressing A will make Sam chop the unsuspecting enemies
throat, throw the enemy into the wall and get him into a hold. The hold
is the same as in Chaos Theory, where Sam press his army knife against
the enemy's throat (Sam held his pistol against the enemy's head in the
first two games) and holds up the enemy's right hand. If you're leaning
into a wall where throwing someone into it is not suitable, like an
oddly shaped or too short wall, Sam will throw his enemy on the ground,
with Sam on top. This is not the beginning of a freaky sex scene, but a
brand new hold. Sure, Sam can't move, but it's cool to see the enemy's
neck being pushed to the limit by Sam's bicep... Sam might be 50 years
old by now, but shows no signs of getting sloppy. It's also fun too
look at Sam as he interrogates the enemy. As always, some of the
enemies actually know something, whether it's security codes ( these
can also be found in computers or simply hacked), the location of an
objective or whatever reason they have to work for the bad guys.
I'm the kind of player that wants to go through the game unspotted, and
without having to kill anyone. The thought of eliminating
unsuspecting guards, and them living to know it, appeals to me. If
you're NOT like me, you can easily go on a killing spree. This will
usually get the NSA pissed off, not to mention lower the scores you get
after each level, like in Chaos Theory. There are some times you're
forced to kill in order to defend yourself, however. On the other hand,
you have a lot of non-lethal gadgets on your disposal, like gas and
stun grenades, flash wall mines and the numerous add-ons for the SC20K.
SC20K is the silenced machine gun rifle Sam uses. The rifle hasn't
changed much. The scope is different, with a smaller scope that only
display a laser spot as crosshair. A nice touch is how the scope is
away from Sam's eye, and you'll be more aware of your surroundings as
you try and nail that headshot. A bigger change however, is the
compatibility with different gadgets. You have the familiar Sticky
Shocker (launchable tazer) and Air Ringfold Round (launchable object
that knocks the target out for a couple of seconds), but also new
gadgets like the Shotgun extension, several grenades, Sticky Cam (the
Sticky Cam has the same functions as the old Diversion Cam, with the
added function of blowing the sucker up) and more.
As you can see, Sam has a lot of gadgets. These can be unlocked by
doing some of the secondary objectives. These are usually of the
reach-objective-without-any-alerts.
Sam himself, however, also has a a lot of moves. You'll be climbing up
pipes, going through little holes and interacting with machines.
The level designs are great as always, with several different
environments. Strangely, though, the focus seems to have been shifted
from darkness to more of a lit up environment. There's actually a lot
less cases where you need to use any of the goggle visions. This is
probably why the sound and light meters have been cut In stead, you'll
only have three colored dots. Green means your in a dark environment
and safe from spotting, unless you start jumping around, yellow means
your lit up and might be spotted and red means you've been spotted.
Graphics-vise, Double Agent doesn't disappoint. Some of the
environments are spectacular and the graphics hold the standard.
However, it doesn't exceed them like the previous games did. If you
liked how the rain dropped on Sam in his leather suit as he was
creeping in almost complete darkness, you might get a little
disappointed in Double Agent. The graphics are showed off in other ways
however, very nice sun effects and realistic water. I missed the
emphasis on shadows the previous game shad, though.
Sound disappoints a little. The voicework is good, but the voices are
too low compared to the rest of the game, and there's no subtitles.
You'll turn up the TV, but then turn it down the minute someone starts
firing a weapon. The soundtrack is nice, but not the best in the series.
Double Agent is called Double Agent for a reason. Sam is infiltrating a
terrorist group, the JBA, to stop them from destroying parts of the
U.S. The terrorists are U.S., but are under the impression that the
country is run by the wrong guys. This isn't really original
whatsoever, but there's some interesting new features. Notably, the
Trust system. As a Double Agent, you have to please both the NSA and
the JBA, but sometimes the two contradicts each other. You'll have to
make some important choices, but not really enough. There's maybe 5 of
these choices through the entire game. At the end of the game, I had
the feeling that the game wasn't as big as the previous game's, but as
I started playing the game again on Hard, I liked it even more. The
game isn't shorter than previous Splinter Cell games, but not really
longer either. The presentation is at its best at the beginning, with
some impressive CGI. The later cutscenes are not CG, but with mo-capped
in-game animations.
Multiplayer is also an enjoyable feature. The standard match allows a
maximum of six players; three guards and three spies. The spies are
pretty much young versions of Sam. They move a lot faster and have some
crazy athletic moves. They have a device on their forearms that sends
out signals that will break glass, interrupt the guards' weapon systems
and destroy lights. The guards are controlled in first-person (unlike
the spies and Sam who are controlled in third-person) and have a
big-ass weapon with unlimited ammo and grenade launcher. On every map,
there's four color-coded computers. The Spies' goal is to download a
file from one of the computers with the forearm-device and return to
the starting point. The guards goal is of course to stop the spies.
Downloading the files take a lot of time, especially when you're
pushing the 10 feet connection limit, but you can stop and continue the
download. Although a guard is not to mess with, it seems to me like the
spies are superior. The maps are laid out so that spies have a lot of
room to move where the guards can't. Pretty much the only athletical
moves the guards have is jumping and lowering down from heights with
ropes. The spies are also extremely fast, and they tend to have enough
life to avoid encounters. Guards also don't have the motion detector
anymore either.There's other things to do in the multiplayer, however.
There's the coop challenges, where you can play with a group of people
to achieve more specific objectives. Unfortunately, there's no longer
the more intimate coop that was featured in Chaos Theory. It's more
about competing than working together, and there's no specific coop
levels.
There's also a big bonus system, with stuff like new skins and videos.
Double Agent is an entry in the series that's highly enjoyable, yet
some changes have been made for the worse. I loved the light and sound
meters and co-op gameplay in Chaos Theory, but this have been altered
for the worse. The game is also a lot less about darkness, and this is
also where it might disappoint. Only fans that have played the whole
series will recognize them, however, and newbies can easily get into
it. Splinter Cell remains a lot of fun for people who wants to
infiltrate and eliminate.
