Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.

Please be constructive, its my 1st review.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (PC-CDROM/DVD).
...be a stealthy bastage!



Game Overview:

The 3rd game in the Splinter Cell franchise sees Sam Fisher return to the PC in another spectacular stealth ‘em up. Sam Fisher is a top secret agent, hired by a secret special operations splinter cell of the US government. You are sent out across varied locations throughout the globe to do the dirty work for the US government and push the balance of various dodgy political situations into their favour. You control Sam from a third-person perspective as you infiltrate enemy compounds and sneak around trying not to alarm anyone of your presence.

Features:

SC:CT comes with a single-player campaign, a brand-new co-op mode and a spies vs mercs 4 player multiplayer mode. The game also comes with a much grittier, darker humour, which has tagged the game a "Mature" rating certificate. The changes to the game play mechanics are marginal, so it essentially offers a familiar experience to Splinter Cell veterans.

The game engine has been overhauled to include support for the latest wizardry of the Shader Model 3.0 (SM3.0) graphics cards from Nvidia and ATI. Legacy support for users of PS1.x+ and PS2.0+ are provided by default or with the latest patches. However, SM3.0 does provide a much nicer experience. High resolution textures, bump-mapping, soft-shadows, specular lighting, parallax mapping, hardware skinning and HDR are used extensively throughout the game. The Havoc physics API and Dolby Digital Surround sound, alongside EAX-HD are also present.

Gameplay:

Though the game offers extensive multiplayer and cooperative game play, the single player campaign is essentially the highlight of the game. Yet again Tom Clancy has written the storyline to which the game is set, providing a somewhat believable, World War III scenario between the USA, Japan and North Korea. The story is told in typical Splinter Cell fashion, with CGI cut scenes and in-game voiceovers.

Veterans will probably see the plot twists coming a mile off, but it does not detract from the game play, which is what it’s all about with this franchise. The best parts of the story develop during the missions themselves, which is why the game excels. The chat between Sam and his team is generally quite funny and excellent mission advice is offered throughout. Sam, once again brought to life by husky voiced actor Michael Ironside (Total Recall, Starship Troopers), is portrayed brilliantly and is IMHO now one of the greatest characters in video gaming, his dry and despondent sense of humour hits the mark every time and helps lift some monotonous parts of the game play.

Before the missions start, you have your usual de-briefing and complementary equipment load-out screens. You have the choice of Stealth, Assault or Recommended settings. All offer subtlety different variations of a default specification. The missions are bigger and more open-ended and simply more enjoyable and believable than the previous games. After the first level you soon realise Sam is somewhat deadlier than ever this time around. New moves are tucked away and thanks partly to his new combat knife, you can stab and choke in a number of dastardly ways. Even though you are able to threaten your hostages with a knife to their throats, you can't actually cut them once you have grabbed them from behind. You have the choice to either choke them to unconsciousness or deliver a painful strike to their lower back, before pushing them to the ground. Much fun can be found near railings or the edge of buildings, because, thanks the Havoc physics API, you can enjoy decent rag doll effects and watch the bodies fall, sometimes screaming, to their deaths. Prior to grabbing them, you can now also stab your foes to death quickly from the front.

Other new moves are a rail grab, where you can run and hurdle a railing, whilst grabbing it and hanging off the other side. Once an enemy walks past, you can quickly jump up and grab them, hurling them to their death. The animations are a joy to behold. Actually all the animations in the game are superb and are very different to the previous games. You will find it hard to distinguish it from SC:PT if you are running around aimlessly with a gun, but once you settle down into stealth mode, you will see and feel the difference. There are so many subtle moves, that I recommend you spend 10 minutes watching the excellent and entertaining tutorial videos. You also have a new electronic shock tool attached to the pistol, which allows Sam to remotely access electronic devices or short circuit them and temporarily disable them long enough to dim the lighting low enough to pass a hazardous area. I actually believe this tool makes the game too easy, but I am an expert at Splinter Cell, so I will leave that judgement down to personal preference.

As I have already said, Sam is more of a meaner character these days, which helps out during the game. It is now quite possible to get through most of the levels using melee combat. As before you can use your guns and shocker peripherals, but the ability to dispatch your foes with numerous grabs and chokes, means it’s easier to do this than accidentally set off an alarm or run the risk of attracting other unnecessary attention. Funnily enough, unlike the previous games, you can now set off more than 3 alarms without mission failure and, more notably, you are no longer ‘required’ to hide bodies into dark areas out of the line of sight. The developer have chosen to implement a rating system, where you are awarded a percentage score based on your ability to be a stealthy bastage. Veterans will find it quite easy to obtain scores in the 80-90’s without trying, but thanks to the high replayability of this title, it is quite enjoyable to go back and try to obtain elite 100% ranking on all of the levels. The usual Splinter Cell rules apply to the rest of the mechanics and AI. Turn Lights off, put night or thermal vision on keep to the shadows and away from patrol paths. A word of warning though, The AI is generally more intelligent, something which I found out to my cost, 15 minutes into a level without quick saving it! Guards will now notice pick-locked or open doors, broken lights and disabled electronic equipment, such as computers and hacked keypads. If you leave enough clues, they eventually catch up with you! An excellent example of this is shown in the tutorial videos.

Missions also have optional secondary objectives and multiple paths to the main objectives. Considering you can even go into each mission with a different loadout, suited either for stealth, assault, or a balanced combination of the two, there are always 2 or 3 different approaches to a given situation. Pick a lock or bash the door? Grab the guard and use the retinal scanner, hack it or risk running down the adjacent well-lit corridor? The game is full with situations like this and makes the game feel strangely reminiscent of my all time favourite game, Deus Ex. Which considering the titles accolades, is definitely not a bad thing.

Replayability?

The single player campaign is close to 10 hours long, but thanks to the openness of this game you will always feel there was a better way of completing the mission objectives. There are several difficulty options, which dramatically affect your ability to withstand enemy fire and also the alertness of the enemy AI. Optional objectives, and relatively free-form game play make it more highly replayable than the previous Splinter Cell titles. Of course, you've got other modes competing for your attention. The cooperative multiplayer mode is very entertaining. Considering the lack of co-op support on the PC and the endearing feature of seeing your mate rappel a wall in tandem with yourself, this offers excellent replayability and value for money.

Conclusion:

This is one of the first games to really captivate my attention since Half-Life2. It is intelligent and fun and offers excellent game play with outstanding DirectX9.0 graphics. A true movie-like experience that I will be replaying for months to come.

Try out the demo:
http://www.gamershell.com/download_8455.shtml

Splinter Cell Wallpaper, courtesy of GM aka InfinityX @ Deadly-Designs.com:

very nice gm

if i hadnt already bought completed and traded the game i would go out and buy it

Yeah wasn't it released over a year ago from now? I enjoyed the game, and thought it was just as good, if not better than the first and second installments.

:thumbup: