Pros: good atmosphere, complex game, game for "grown ups"
Cons: frame rate issues with the graphic engine, crappy save game mechanism
The Bottom Line: If you're looking for a good "grown-up" spy game for the DS with thinking instead of just shooting and you can overlook the framerate issue, you will like this one.
twofish72's Full Review: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory for DS
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos theory is the third installment of the Splinter Cell game series, which started on the XBox in 2002. Chaos Theory is the third part and also available on the Nintendo DS.
Sam Fisher and Third Echolon
You play Sam Fisher. A top NSA secret agent out of the books. He is part of the NSA's fictitious Black-Ops unit "Third Echolon" and is basically called when nothing else works and nobody can help anymore. Your superior is a guy called Lambert, who will give you orders, advice and warnings during missions. Since this is the Nintendo DS version, conversations are not spoken, but written in little text boxes.
Third Echolon, as a top NSA department of course has access to the most high tech range of weapons and equipment. Much of it is modelled after real life counter part, though for gaming and drama reasons all the abilities of Sam's gear is exaggerated.
The gameplay - to shoot or not to shoot
All the Splinter Cell games (and this one is no exception) copy heavily from old time classics like Metal Gear Solid and Thief. In case you happen to have no clue what those games are, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is a so called "Stealth-Based video game". This means your main objective is to stay hidden, don't raise alarms and try not to raise any suspicion. This goes so far, that in almost half of the missions you have to solve in the game it is not allowed to kill anybody. You can knock them unconscious or distract them, but that is about it. Even in those missions, where lethal force is "authorized", points will get deducted if you kill anybody, even the bad guys. I find this rather refreshing and would rather give my kids this kind of game to play than a ultra brutal 3D shooter. It's also a lot more realistic, as your mission is more reconnaissance than slaughter. You are a secret agent, not a one man army.
To achieve all these stealthy objectives, Sam Fisher has a lot of technical gadgets at his disposal: night vision and thermal view to better see in the dark or identify laser barriers. A silenced pistol and a silenced multi-purpose rifle that can also shoot little electro shockers or remote cameras. You also have grenades to render electrical equipment useless for a couple of seconds, very useful to get past laser barriers or cameras. Of course, the rifle also features a scope for the extra far shot.
Sam Fisher also is like Lara Croft, only deadlier. You can crouch, sneak, jump, climb along edges of walls, climb ropes or pipes or basically anything Sam Fisher can reach. A big feature in all the Splinter Cell games is the sneaking up to an enemy and grabbing him from behind, holding him by the throat. When you do that, you have the choice of dragging him away, interrogating him (if he is a special character), knock him unconscious or break his neck and kill him. Keep in mind though that the latter is not needed and will lead to losing points.
If you don't pay attention, you will raise an alarm. Either by somebody doing that or by yourself walking through a laser barrier or the field of a camera. You can raise two alarms, the third ends the game/level. Sometimes during the game, that alarm level gets lowered to zero again as the enemy apparently assumes you are gone.
Controlling the game
Initially the game came out on the Microsoft XBox and shortly after that, for the PC. The controls are pretty complicated and it was therefor a challenge to port them to the Nintendo DS. With the steering cross, you control Sam Fisher. Moving the pen across the touch screen adjusts the camera around Sam. The right and left buttons are for drawing the selected weapon and shooting respectively. "B" lets you crouch or stand up, walking while crouched makes Sam sneak. "Y" is the interact button used to open doors, pick up objects, etc. "X" makes you jump. If you jump near objects that Sam can climb onto or grab, then he will do that. "START" opens up Sam's "onboard computer" which contains mission goals, intercepted messages, a small game menu (Load Game, Options, Settings, etc). This menu is shown on the bottom screen and can either be controlled with the pen or the "A" and "B" buttons. Lastly, the "SELECT" button opens Sam's zoom optics or the sniper scope, if you have the rifle in your hands.
Thermal vision, Night vision and Sam's inventory can be accessed only over icons on the touchscreen.
As you can see, there are a lot of buttons and functions. Using some of them at the same time can be a real challenge. Try to move the camera around with your right hand (the left one holds the DS and steers Sam), while an overlooked enemy approaches. You then have to press the right button to draw the gun and use the pen to aim precisely (as anything but a head shot could raise an alarm) and use the left button to fire. Not that easy...
Saving the game
Normally the save-game function is something I wouldn't describe in a separate chapter. But in this game, it is so annoying that I have to. You cannot save the game whenever you want. Rather, you get surprised by the game as it asks you if you want to save the game at specific spots during the mission. The game will only ask you once per spot. If you don't use it then, you can't go back to that spot and expect to be asked again.
The stupid thing with that is... firstly, you have no clue when you are able to save and how often per mission. Some missions can have four or five saving spots, other missions only one. And there is no warning or hint that there is a save spot ahead (sometimes you can tell by the fact that the background story kind of went into a new chapter - expect a save spot to be next). I have found myself numerous times tapping the "I don't want to save" option on the touchscreen because I wanted to move the camera or switch thermal vision on or whatever and before my pen hit the spot on the touchscreen the save message came up and I picked the wrong choice. Since you won't be asked again, that can be very frustrating.
The graphics and sound
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory makes heavy use of fully textured 3D graphics. Something the DS can do, but is not as good at like the Sony PSP for example. The result is a slightly more blocky look (as the DS doesn't feature texture blurring) and a lower frame rate. The latter is the biggest problem with the port to the DS platform. While the regular view of the game offers a frame rate that is high enough for fluent gameplay, the thermal view and the night vision lead to a severe drop in frames per second. This is only a minor problem as long as you don't use them while walking (so basically switch on - look - switch off), but you cannot really use them otherwise. Which is sad, because especially the thermal view looks awesome and would come in handy if you could leave it on in one or the other situation.
Other than the frame rate issue, the graphics are very good or a Nintendo DS system. Chaos Theory actually features a couple of pretty long pre-rendered cutscenes from the PC game including full sound. That is a nice little bonus for the player.
The sound is very good. Very nice ambient music playing in the background...a different one for every level. And even though those tunes are pretty short and loop all the time, you won't really notice since you will be to busy with the game itself. The sound effects are very good too, ranging from footsteps to voices of your enemies, gun reloading to silenced shots. All very clear and nicely digitized.
I would give the graphics eight out of ten and the sound nine out of ten.
Game modes
The game features a couple of multiplayer modes in addition to the single player storyline mode. You can either play co-op in multiplayer or against each other in versus mode. In a co-op game you can team up with one other player and play a special scenario. One player gets to be assault, one gets to be hacker, so basically Sam Fisher's abilities get split up amongst two people who have to work together to solve a mission.
In versus mode up to 4 players can play against each other as either spies or mercenaries. The spies get only kind of a stun gun and have to hack into a specific number of computers within a time limit. Keeping your head down is the goal to winning. The mercenaries of course have to prevent the hacking of a number of those computers in the time limit given.
Things that bug me
As nice as Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is, it has a few drawbacks. First, some of the gameplay itself. This is not limited to the DS version but a flaw in all the Splinter Cell games: As clear as the goals for every mission are, it is sometimes not so clear how to actually get there. And you can maneuver yourself in dead ends pretty quickly because of that. An example: With all the laser barriers and cameras around, you have to use either chaff grenades or electro shockers to disable those alarm systems. If you only have one left and you have to enter a room you better pray that you find some in there. Otherwise, if you have to go back you cannot disable the alarm anymore. If you already have two alarms set off, you might as well just load an old savegame and try again. Since you can only save in 4 different slots (including an autosave which you cannot override manually), it makes Splinter Cell a trial and error game some the time.
The DS does make good use of the touchscreen but some stuff is just too complicated to handle all at once. You can see that this game was initially written for a "big" game console with a full size controller or a PC with a keyboard. If you want to turn the camera, get the rifle out and quickly shoot somebody, you will be in trouble.
The frame rate. Personally I think...if you cannot come up with a 100% fluent graphics engine for a game, then let it be. Even though the graphics look good, I would have liked to seen the frame rate more optimized. Star Wars: Deadly Alliance shows that fluent 3D graphics is possible on the DS. Chaos Theory could have used some more development time for that.
And lastly, the save function for the reasons mentioned above...
Things I like
Splinter Cell:Chaos Theory is a good grown up game for the Nintendo DS. If you want to play something different than Mario Bros or Tony Hawk for a change and especially something with slightly more realism, this game is nice. It's a good way to play something more mature on a longer trip...on board an airplane for example.
Even though the graphics engine (and the frame rate) could be better, the game still looks pretty good. And if you stick to what it is supposed to be, namely a stealth game and not a shooter, you won't notice the frame rate issue too much.
The missions are well designed and offer something different every time. Sure, all in all it is sneaking over and over again, but that would be like accusing Doom or Quake to just focus on shooting.
The atmosphere. I have to admit I am a fan of some of Tom Clancy's books. And while he is only giving his name for this game and did not actually provide the background story, all games under his label are still bearing his trademark. That is also because all games have to be approved by him. It's not a high class spy thriller but definitely one of the better computer game background stories.
All things considered, I can recommend this game. It packs the looks and the feel of the "big" versions of Splinter Cell in the little Nintendo DS pretty good. I don't know if I would get it if I would own the computer or big console versions as that experience is probably disappointing. But gameplay, graphics and sound make this game one of the better ones for the Nintendo DS. Especially since grown-up games are rarer on this console.
I would give it a seven out of ten. Try to get it as a budget version, since it already is a little older. I think you can get it from Amazon for less than $15.
To achieve your mission objectives, you'll kill from close-range with your combat knife, shoot with a high-tech rifle, and use radical suppression tec...More at Amazon Marketplace
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