In case you’ve been in a coma for the past few years, Splinter Cell is Ubisoft’s incredibly popular Stealth Shooter based on the shenanigans of a Tom Clancy storyboard. You are Sam Fisher, master of ass-kickery. Your job skills include sporting a kickin' wetsuit, creeping around in the dark in places you arent supposed to be, and welding an full array of James Bond style gadgets. You are the governmental clean up crew.

Storyline wise, you really don’t need to play the first two games in order to play this one, as there is very little continuity from game to game aside from the characters and base knowledge, which you’ll pick up quickly anyway. That said, the first two games were both quite good (I liked the second more as it was more polished, but the first was more ground breaking and you should go play them simply for that reason (and because both can more then likely be found in the bargain bin).

Now then, what the question of the day seems to be is “How are the graphics”. Well, for those of you who are still feeling the burn from building your “Doom 3 rig” and then finding that Doom 3 sucked llama nards, you shan’t be disappointed. The engine is redone, instead of recycling it (again) this time around. It is a hybrid unreal engine, featuring a core of Unreal 2 code, with some overhauls here and there from the upcoming Unreal 3 code. The result? Magnifico! Full out SM 3.0 support (unless you’re video card is red, in which case you get demoted all the way down to SM 1.1, which still looks awesome, but is kinda crappy, seeing how 1.4 or 2.0 would have been a better idea).

All that aside, let’s see what we Sam Fisher wannabe’s can expect from this latest incarnation of the SC series.

=[What’s new for Chaos Theory]=
-Knife
-Co-op mode
-MANY new moves/elements of play
-Shotgun SC attachment
-Electronic Interference mode on the pistol
-EEV(Electronically Enhanced Vision)

Now then, this knife is a very cool thing. In prior installments Sam would give them a good solid elbow, or crack them over the head with the pistol, but in Chaos theory, we have a whole new way to quietly dispose of particularly nosey security guards. Be it an abdominal jab from behind or a quick slit of the throat, the knife will render them useless in one hit from melee range.

driverheaven uses custom javascripts to display high resolution images, some software may class these as "popups"

Fisher, what a big knife you have!...
…All the better to gut you with, good sir.

The knife also brings with it a new arsenal of very “Tom Clancy” tricks. Many things in this game, lights in particular, power from generators, which run off gasoline. Well, one jab with a knife and you can drain the gas tank and render the generator, and anything hooked up to it, useless. The knife also allows you to cut many fabrics, including the walls of many tents. This is extremely useful in conjunction with thermal vision, which sees through tents, as you can sneak up behind the soldiers and they’ll be none the wiser as to where you came from. You also now have the ability to break locks with the knife. This is however, fairly noisy, and the guards will recognize that the lock is broken. (However, they can’t recognize much in a crumpled heap in the corner of the floor).

What the man inside doesn’t know,
is that I can make my own door : )

Then, there’s the shotgun. It’s loud…it hurts…and wow is it fun if you are not trying to be stealthy. It is incredibly gratifying to lift a guy off his feet without ever touching him.

And there he was sitting all nicely
in his chair minding his own business…

More new tricks involve doors. Ever wish you could just hack those stupid keypad locks? Now you can, as well as the retinal scanners. Take to long to hack it, however, and the alarm sounds and the big men with guns show up.

There are also many levels (particularly the Japanese ones) that now have candles, which you can blow out, although the guards will attempt to relight them. (A swift punch in the temple usually prevents this)

Also, there is now a “Electronic Interference” mode of fire on the pistol (I made that title up all by myself, thank you very much). It renders most anything electronic useless for a matter of seconds, allowing you to move past it. “Most anything electronic” includes lights and cameras, which is good, as you can’t shoot out cameras in this game.

New moves are always fun, and this game has them. Sam moves much more convincingly, with many of the pre-scripted rolls, as well as some slides and such looking much better. But there are also some fun new moves for you as well. The coolest of them all is the dangling attack. As with most moves, it has lethal and non-lethal version. How this one works is that while clutching onto a pipe above someone (with feet up), you simply attack(right or left click). Left click, and Sam will hang from the pipe by his knees, lift them off the ground by their head, and snap their neck before dropping them down to the floor. Good quality fun, I say. Right click for most melee attacks in this game is non lethal, and I THINK it makes Sam lift them up and choke them before dropping them back down, but to be honest, I don’t know, as I find it far more fun to play chiropractor.

Story wise, this one is perhaps the most intriguing of the series thus far, and is far more enjoyable if you take the time to listen to guards conversations and watch the playback on the TV screens. I won’t go into any details though, as this is a review, not a spoiler.

Be sure and watch all the amazing looking cutscenes

I will say that along with this game’s full out “M” rating comes appropriate scripting. When you throw a grenade at a guard, he’ll run from it going “Oh sh-- oh sh--!” and other such properly placed profanities.

On to multiplayer. The graphics system was dumbed down for multiplayer, my guess is to keep framerates higher and pings lower. It still looks great, but doesn’t have all the bitchin SM 3.0 effects and is much more sparing with bump mapping. Modes Versus and Co-op.

A brief heads up for those who missed Splinter Cell multiplayer until now. There are Spies (stealth and mostly non-lethal) and Mercenaries (big, loud, and deadly). This is the premise for most gametypes.

Versus has the following gametypes:
Story – Mini-missions in each game level, ranging from extraction, neutralization, and detonation. Spies complete objectives, mercenaries protect objectives and kill all the spies.

Disc Hunt – Spies steal and keep discs, mercs kill them and protect the discs. This is Splinter Cell’s rendition of “Infiltration” or “Steal the bacon”.

Deathmatch – Straight-up kill the other team before they kill you. Abilities/special items are limited in this game type to even the playing field a bit.

Then, new for Chaos Theory, is Co-Op mode.
Yes, you heard right…online/LAN co-op action where everyone gets to be Sam (Will the real Sam Fisher please stand up?). This comes fully loaded with it’s own special “tag-team” moves, from standing on one another to see over walls, to boosting one another up to reach high ledges. Also has 2-man rapelling, where one holds the rope and the other rapels, and a 2-man “long jump” where one essentially hurls the other for added distance.

I must say that while I like the multiplayer a lot, the “community” are a bunch of idiots. They remind me very much of the whiny 4th graders you find on counter-strike. This game comes with built in DirectPlay voice support so there’s no need for TeamSpeak, but it’s infuriating to hear all of them asking you why you’re so quiet and why “you suck”.

=[There’s a pessimist in all of us]=
Yes, well, I can’t rave about the game without pointing out some of it’s flaws. Perhaps most annoying, are some of the rendering bugs. Lighting gets “stuck” some times. This is very rare, but very annoying. For example: If you kill a guard who is in the process of lighting a candle, the lighter in his hand never goes out, nor does the candle. If you move him, he and the lighter in his hand move, but the spot on the floor where the lighter WAS will continue to emit light. The game will eventually realize something is up and the light will re-center around the lighter, but it takes a good 10-15 seconds.

There is also the usual substandard AI that manages to get stuck inside doors/walls on occasion, but this is present in any game, so I can’t really make a strike against Chaos Theory, but I can point it out.

This idiot never saw it coming, even though I whistled at him several times…
his loss...sadly the flare never went out either.....

Perhaps most infuriating, however, is the CD KEY. To those who haven’t installed it yet, the CD KEY has five sections on one line, and two on the second line. The digits on the top line are the ONLY ONES YOU ENTER. If you enter those last two sections on the second line, it will reject your CD KEY…over…and over. Also, there is a separate CD KEY for multiplayer. This is located on the back of the manual, just to add to the confusion.

Lastly we have the issue of the 82MB patch and the 32MB patch that are already out for the game. That really sucks for those on slow connections who just wanna play the game, but c’est la vie.

=[That’s great, but how’s it run?]=

256 MB XFX 6800 GT @ Stock(350/1000)
1600x1200
High Resolution Textures – ON
VSync –ON
SM 3.0 - All options ON
Shadow Density – MEDIUM
Anisotropic Filtering – OFF
AntiAliasing – DISABLED
AA/AF – Application Controlled

All benchmarks taken from the same save point using Fraps.

Needless to say, very acceptable framerates for such amazing graphics, especially the SM 3.0 settings.

NOTE: AA is not available in game while HDR is enabled, but to be honest, it isn’t much needed as the game looks plenty seXXXy without it.

Everyone loves SM 3.0 when it’s done right…except perhaps ATi owners.

=[Summing things up]=

Sam Fisher fans rejoice, our favorite hero is back in all his ass kicking glory, with a newly revamped engine and all kinds of shiny new toys. While the game does have it’s downsides, there’s nothing glaringly wrong with it that should detract from the overall experience.

All in all, I must say this is the most fun I have EVER had with a single player game, and it has some of the most creative/inventive multiplayer play I’ve found to date. I give it a good solid 9/10.