JFrink26's Full Review: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell for PlayStation 2
The gaming world has come to associate Tom Clancy’s name with a string of titles (Ghost Recon, Rainbow) that have focused on squad based combat. With Splinter Cell, Clancy has departed from that formula and instead let’s us take up the struggle of a one man, infiltration machine. The results are mixed. While Splinter Cell is great visually, and has some nifty game play elements, it is not the best game of it’s genre.
The main character in SC is Sam Fisher. Fisher is essentially the standard Hollywood hero. The game begins with Sam reluctantly being brought back from retirement into the seedy world of international espionage. Our hero is, well, a guy that likes to do things by himself. Things like infiltrate enemy bases or, say, the CIA headquarters. Sam has an array of moves he can pull off to help him on his way, as well as a millions of dollars worth of gadgets. There are about a dozen levels of stealthy play in SC. Levels usually have the same objectives which boils down to moving through towns or buildings undetected and retrieving bits of information from computers, desks or even recording conversations on the sly. I mentioned earlier that Fisher has a lot of gadgets to help him and I think SC is most impressive in this department. There is his night vision and infrared goggles which has become pretty standard in Tom Clancy games. He’s got a gun, that more often then not comes in handy. But the really fun gadgets are things like his fiber optic camera that allows him to look under doors, his lock picking kit, or his “sticky” camera that he can shoot on to a wall, attract someone’s attention and then release sleeping gas. Just about the only person with cooler devices is James Bond.
On X-Box, Splinter Cell wowed gamers with smooth, jaw dropping visuals. While the PS2 isn’t up to X-Box standards in hardware, it does a great job with SC and the game is probably one of the best looking titles available on Sony’s system. Lighting is one of the most important aspects of this game because Sam Fisher needs shadows to sneak around undetected. So, SC has plenty of shadows as well as interested splashes of light coming from lamps, florescent lighting systems, computer screens and even vending machines. The interplay between light and shadow would be the envy of any old B&W film noir movie. People who compared this version with the one on the X-Box were quick to point out that the PS2 couldn’t handle all the nifty textures. To a certain extent, they’re right and only if you’ve seen the X-Box version would you notice that certain textures (shininess on floors or rough, stucco walls) are absent. Finally, I love the rendering of all the people in this game, especially Sam Fisher himself. Fisher is just so nicely created that you have to stop and look at him for awhile. His body mechanics are perfect, as well as his rippling muscles and face full of stubble. Again, the PS2 version of SC may not have the polish of the X-Box game, but it is still a visual feat.
I was really impressed by the ease and intuitive nature of the controls. Sam has so many body movements, on top of items and gadgets that he can use, that the controls could have been difficult to master if not for thoughtful button layout. Switching items becomes really easy, which is great because sometimes you need, say, a fiber optic camera to look through a keyhole but might have to switch back to a gun quickly. I like that fact that both the night vision goggles and infrared headgear are assigned their own buttons. Because you switch between them often, it’s nice that their given their space on the control. Finally, SC requires that you crawl, jump, hang, roll and press yourself against a wall to move through levels. Again, the control could have been screwed up but SC does a nice job of making these actions easy. Which is good, because this game is hard…
Now, I’ve played a lot of games in my time. Of the hard games I’ve played, I would say that most are difficult because they were made poorly. However, there are games that are difficult by design and SC is one such game. It’s hard for a number of reasons. This is not a shoot ‘em up title, so Sam Fisher is almost always outfitted with a little pea shooter or some non-lethal weapon. Because of this, you have to rely on sneaking around undetected most of the time. If fire fights do ensue, it’s best to run away and let the enemies come to you. However, there are levels with alarms, and if they are triggered, it’s Game Over. But staying out of trouble is a lot harder then it sounds. Fisher relies on shadows to stay hidden and often times, this game is about finding those shadows. There’s an in game light meter that tells you how visible you are to others. However, sometimes you don’t have the benefit of time to look around for hiding spots: sometimes, enemies appear out of nowhere and you have precious seconds to get lost. Needless to say, there are some heart pounding moments in SC. Much of this game is trial and error. You’ll find yourself restarting from the beginning of the level or save points constantly. What’s annoying is actually having to go back and do a whole bunch of complicated sequences over again. Although you eventually memorize what you have to do, suffering through it all can get frustrating. Yet, when I did beat this game, I felt that overall SC was too short. A couple more levels would have been nice.
Finally, let me take a moment on talk about why I gave this game only three stars. And, I’d like to talk about SC and it’s closest rival, Metal Gear Solid 2. SC is like MGS2 in that both games have characters that must spend a lot of time sneaking, crawling, jumping and hanging around undetected. MGS2 even has it’s own systems of gauging enemy awareness. And, both games have an array of gadgets that must be used to get around in a stealth fashion. Because MGS2 really kicked off this whole genre, SC feels like a slight improvement, but there is really nothing groundbreaking about this title.
In addition, I think SC takes itself much more seriously then MGS2 and for this reason, I think that Metal Gear is the better game. Unlike SC, MGS2 has some very lighthearted moments and the characters and enemies are more wacky and therefore far more interesting. In addition, MGS2 has a complicated (if not, at times, confusing and ridiculous) plot that makes you want to play this game to the end. In contrast, I found none of SC’s characters interesting. In particular, Sam Fisher was just like any other action hero out there, even if there were several brief attempts throughout the game to give him some depth. As an older gamer, I feel that I have to judge most games by their plot and characters, as much as I do their graphics and game play. I slaved through SC precisely because there was little depth to this title. It felt more like a chore then, well, a game.
I recommend you try Splinter Cell out. It’s a good rental game that should take you two weeks, tops, to beat. You’ll have some fun looking at the graphics and playing with the gadgets. But, it’s certainly not the best game of it’s type out there. So, enjoy it for a while and then return it to Blockbuster.
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