by Jody - August 3, 2003

In America, every citizen is guaranteed certain rights. The freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc. As secret operative Sam Fisher, you have an additional freedom: the freedom to do whatever is necessary in order to protect those rights. Featuring a huge emphasis on stealth, UbiSoft has been promoting Splinter Cell as a Metal Gear Solid killer. However, while definitely not knocking Metal Gear Solid off its perch, Splinter Cell draws damn near close to it, and definitely establishes itself as an extremely viable contender.

Sam Fisher, will you be my dad?

The premise behind Splinter Cell is that two CIA operatives have gone missing while investigating the communications shortage in the Soviet Republic of Georgia. Fearing a terrorist threat, the National Security Agency has assigned a member of Third Echelon, their team of elite intelligence-gathering agents, to find the missing operatives. You play the part of this agent, named Sam Fisher, and have to fulfill your mission without leaving any trace of your presence. This is not your average shooter. You do not just "run-and-gun"; you have to be deliberate about your objectives. Every place you visit must be infiltrated using extreme levels of stealth to avoid detection, and without leaving any witnesses of your actions alive. Your first mission within Echelon 3, will be to find two agents of the CIA dispersed in Georgia, a recently shaken country from the coup d'�tat that has allowed Kombayn N. to go up to the power. Without dethroning him, a third World War could be started! Nearly endured in fact the United States they will be hit from a series of attacks, which they unfortunately make to return to the mind those of the September 11, 2001.

In Splinter Cell, you will discover Sam's history through information earned on the field, rather than through random events like in Metal Gear Solid. Most of this will be through cinematographic sequences and in extracts of television news that are done in perfect style. In more, beside such realistic sequences much; during your searches in the game you will discover other information, of not immediate usefulness, but that the history gives sincerity to all.

Sam has an incredibly diverse range of moves that allow you to accomplish many of your missions without touching a single hair on a guard's head. The camera is entirely manual -- you can set it to point in most directions around Fisher and it will stay there until you move it again, allowing you to get the best view of the action at all times without having to fight any automatic camera system. Pressing the B button makes Sam crouch, and you can also move very quietly in this mode, allowing you to sneak up on guards without them hearing you. The Y button is used for jumping, and is context-sensitive, so if you press it next to a ledge Sam will grab and climb up onto it, while pressing it next to a drain pipe will allow you to slide down it.

Although it may be tempting to kill guards from a long distance using your gun, once you start playing the game you'll soon realize that this method is too noisy, and ammunition is in such short supply that you'll want to only use it up as a last resort. Sneaking up behind them, grabbing them, bashing them in the side of the head with the pistol, then shooting them once in the head while he is anesthetized will do the trick more easily. One thing that I absolutely love about this game is the fact that Sam un-holsters his current weapon. It reminds me of the first time I saw Han Solo on Star Wars - the way he un-holstered his blaster pistol to blast Greedo automatically turned me on to being a fan of his. After drawing your weapon, the game switches to a closer, almost first-person view with a cross-hair and accuracy marker showing where you're currently aiming. This makes it a lot easier to aim and sneak with a gun in your hand than that of just shooting while in third person view.

Sam also has a wide range of gadgets at his disposal, and all are modeled on items used by real-life spies. Firstly, he's got night-vision goggles that can be activated at any time and allow him to see in very dark areas, where enemies might be hiding out-of-sight. Also good for finding those little "spots" to hide your corpses so that no one sees them. He's also equipped with lock-picks, which you actually have to operate yourself, optic cabling for looking under doors and laser microphones for listening in on conversations. Later on in the game you also get other items such as thermal goggles, remote cameras and even a distraction device that you can attach to a wall and will emit an unusual noise, attracting the attentions of guards before releasing a poisonous gas to render them unconscious.

You're up against a real challenge with Splinter Cell, it may use what looks like real-world locations, offices, oil rigs, factories, and they remain unpredictable in design. You're just as likely to end up in an empty elevator shaft or hanging thirty feet from a crane as you are to walk into an empty supply closet. The levels are large and can be deceptively full of places to hide. When the alarms sound, suddenly nowhere is safe. The artificial intelligence is high. Although characters will go through looped behavior; that's only until you get involved and then you can find them reacting in wildly different ways, from asking questions first, shooting afterwards, to hunting you down, to spinning on their heels and shooting you before seeing you. They can react very quickly, faster than any game I've played.

You'll be challenged in other ways, from heat-sensitive turret guns and multiple roving cameras, to sniffing security dogs. (Fido?) The elements will go through a complex system of detection before spotting you, it's not a case of simply being caught in a spotlight or crossing an invisible line. Like much of everything else in the game, it's subjective. Also, because killing is always meant to be the last resort, you'll find your ammo and gadget supplies limited throughout the levels so, yes, you'll need to improvise.

The levels in Splinter Cell are quite incredible though, requiring you to make full use of your stealth skills and abilities while also containing secret areas and showing off the game's graphics engine to staggering effect. It's just simply spectacular! Quite often you'll begin with one or two objectives for each mission, but as you progress new objectives will appear and your mission status will be continually updated. Fortunately, you're not alone on your quest; as you complete tasks in each level you'll be given further information from your team via radio, and quite often there are vital hints on how to complete an area in your mission briefing and notes. Although initially the game might seem quite daunting, there's quite a good training area at the start of the game that helps you learn all of Sam's moves, and tapping the Back button at any time in the game will bring up a move summary without you having to refer to the game's manual.

Beautiful.

The cinemas are excellent! They may not be the number one best graphical cinemas, but they sure are close! The in-game graphics are for the most part, incredibly astonishing. The locales all look great and extremely practical, and Sam looks incredibly authentic and moves with amazing fluidity. There only appears to be one problem - frame rate. Even though having a bad frame rate on another other game would matter, it's not really that big of a deal here. I don't think I would take a point off of this game for this though.

Snap, crackle, break

The voice acting is not the best. But then again, it's a lot better than games such as IGI. Michael Ironside (yes, the Starship Troopers dude) provides the voice for Sam, and he does a pretty good job at it! The enemies all speak English in really bad foreign accents. The music is done really well though, knowing right when to start up in order to get your blood pumping, and the effects are just remarkable as you'll hear every footstep on broken glass, every door creak, etc.

The high difficulty makes this game a must-have.

As you probably already know, this is not a game for everyone. It requires you to really think about how to best approach any situation without being caught taking in a lot of things that most would take for granted (like stepping on carpet over wood so you have less chance of being heard). It's also pretty difficult, most players will have to try missions many times in order to succeed, but that doesn't stop it from being a great game.

I wish I could snap people's necks.

Splinter Cell's gameplay, is much like that of Metal Gear Solid's. As you probably already know from playing the game or from this review -- it's purely based on stealth. You use a variety of gadgets & moves to help you keep out of sight and take out enemies all while avoiding detection. And this is possibly the hardest game ever -- stealth-wise. One petite misstep will cost you dearly. Shooting guys is not the best thing to do. That may sound blunt, but it's true. Firstly, you're pistol is not very powerful; secondly, you might trigger an alarm or alert more AI to come to you. Stay swift and stay in the shadows.

Look out Metal Gear, competition has finally arrived!

Overall, Splinter Cell is one of the best stealth games to hit the since the launch of Metal Gear Solid 2. Although it may not be quite as cinematic as Konami's masterpiece, it has more appealing graphics, more atmosphere and a wider selection of moves and gadgets, making it one of the best, if not the best stealthy-action game across any platform.