Splinter Cell

The old grey haired warrior returns, Sam Fisher is back and ready for action. But there are big changes afoot for the sequel to the smash-hit espionage series. The single player adventure is joined by a new online multiplayer component. Has Ubisoft been successful in taking a single-player game making it work in multiplayer?

The old grey haired warrior returns, Sam Fisher is back and ready for action. But there are big changes afoot for the sequel to the smash-hit espionage series. The single player adventure is joined by a new online multiplayer component. How successful has Ubisoft been taking a single-player game mechanic and making it work as a multiplayer game?



The single player game builds on the gameplay of the first Splinter Cell. Yet Sam returns with a whole new set of abilities such as being able to whistle, use weapons while hanging upside down, half split jumps to higher positions. There's nothing particularly radical about Sam's new abilities - it just gives added depth to a gameplay model that was already well rounded.

The game begins brilliantly with a close up of Sam locked in handcuffs. It's just a training mission - but an interesting way of introducing the return of the lock-picking controls. The training hall from the first game is gone so it's onto a real live mission immediately. The first half of the mission in East Timor acts as a training mode and takes the player through all the moves that Sam is capable of. This mission does no allow the use of deadly force, so the player is forced to use stealth rather than reply on weaponry, a valuable lesson for the rest of the game. The training section isn't as thorough as the one from the first game and newbies may find that it doesn't exactly answer all the control questions they may have.

Ubisoft has revealed that the game is more forgiving than the original - with instant alarms being replaced with a level of escalation in alertness from the enemy. In practice that means upon first detecting Sam Fisher, the enemy guards don flak jackets and at the next stage, they put on their helmets and make greater use of flashlights. In theory, this is great but in practice, the behaviour of opponents can be annoying, it doesn't seem convincing that a guard would use his radio to call in an intruder report before returning fire. Game mechanics has overtaken natural behaviour and left guard reactions a little less realistic for it.

The game really does throw the player in at the deep end. While the overall difficulty of the game may be lower than the original game (which by the end tortured gamers with sadistic glee) one can't help but feel like it throws the player in at the deep end. Pandora Tomorrow starts tough and stays tough. The other problem, and one that plagued the first game, is that the save points are often too far apart. It's fine if one has plenty of time to spare - but it means it's impossible to have a quick go of the game and make a little progress. Frustrating the game may be, but it always drags one back for more despite often getting bogged down into some trial and error gameplay.

If all that seems too negative lets move onto the good. There's a wry sense of humour that permeates the game along with the usual real-world setting. I know it's a matter of taste but I really do prefer the realistic political setting of the Splinter Cell world to the giant robots and strange philosophical ramblings of Metal Gear. There's actually a sly little dig at the Konami franchise via a humorous codename for one of the bad guys, it made me laugh the first time I heard it and knew exactly who Ubisoft was making fun of.

The single player adventure takes in numerous locations and there's a genuine variety between them. Perhaps the most notable difference from the first game is the introduction of more natural environments. The East Timor opener, and the latter jungle missions, makes a real change for the series - as does the wide-open spaces of the Jerusalem mission. Sam has some new moves to aid him sneak around these levels unnoticed. He can now reach from poles to shimmy across ledges, he can do half split-jumps and then jump further to grab high ledges and he has a nifty swat-turn to allow him to cross doorways without being seen. The black button also enables the player to make Sam whistle, which is useful for catching and distracting the attention of guards. There is one move that is oddly lacking, given that there are countless times it seems useful, that is the ability to crawl.

But the real revelation comes in the form of the Xbox Live modes. One has to give a lot of credit here - Splinter Cell's stealth dynamic hardly seemed a great contender for a multiplayer mode but the company has really pulled it off. Pandora Tomorrow's multiplayer system works and it works so well I'm sure we're going to see many more games copy this kind of multiplayer gameplay in the future.



The battles take place between two teams of two players each. The two mercenaries protect particular targets. They are armed with some high-tech weaponry and booby traps - used to discover the location of the spies and neutralise them. The mercs have some very nifty gear including the electromagnetic scope and the motion detector. The former detects the use of electronic equipment such as the spy's night sight. The latter is a very cool feature that bathes the screen in red, but highlights movement in grey - it looks superb and is one of my favourite features of the multiplayer game. Despite all this technology the mercs also have a piece of equipment that the spies fear and can do little to protect themselves against - a powerful torch. Each level is also littered with all manner of detection equipment to aid the mercs including laser beams crossing important doorways.

The spy's arsenal is totally different and much of the equipment will be familiar to those who've played the single player game. Sticky-cams can be used for scouting ahead, and the spies are much more gymnastic than the heavily armed mercs. All the levels feature many places to hide, high structures to scale or narrow tunnels to the crawl into. The spy's job is to stay hidden - they don't even have a firearm, the weapons the spy carries can only stun the mercs, not kill them. Yet, one of the coolest features of the game comes into play when a spy manages to grab a merc by the throat from behind. Normally the two teams can't hear each other - but when a spy grabs a merc from behind, he can trash talk to his/her heart's content before snapping the unfortunate merc's neck. It's one very cool feature.