So here we are getting to what may be looked back upon one day soon
as the final cycle of this generation of Xbox games. Soon the Xbox 360, or
whatever the final name, will be grabbing all the headlines and wowing us all
with its golly-gee high definition graphics. And I am looking forward to those
games. Yet I am marveling at how good the current games on the Xbox are right
now. It seems to me that there is still a ton of life left in the ole Box and my
proof of this is Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (CT) brought to us by
the nice people over at Ubisoft. If this was one of the release titles for the
360 we would all be very impressed and be calling it one of the best launch
titles for any system. But, hang on, you can play this sucker right now! Heck,
I’m getting hounded by my editor to stop playing it long enough to write the
review! So here I am putting down my weapon, well at least my controller, and
trying to put into words why this game is so enjoyable...
 |
| Death from not so far above. |
While I think it almost insulting to explain to you my gentle reader the
basics of the Splinter Cell series, because I know that no self respecting gamer
would not be acutely aware of these gems, I must for those among you that are
new to gaming. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, we were all new at one time. So
here’s a quick summary of what to expect. Chaos Theory is a third person stealth
action game, well mostly...the online mode can put you into first person, but
we’ll cover that in a bit. We’ll focus on the single player mode first. You play
as Sam Fisher who is a field operative, or Splinter Cell, for a very secret U.S.
government agency call Third Echelon. These are the guys that do the things that
we never hear about but have huge effect on the overall safety in the world.
They want to keep the lowest profile possible and would rather no one know that
they were even at a certain place. That’s where the stealth part comes in and as
Sam you are one of the best. You use cool gadgets, shadows, and sometimes force
to achieve your mission goals. Sam may be by himself while on a mission but he
is not alone as there are others at Third Echelon that provide Sam with
information throughout the game.
The story involves a slightly confusing situation revolving around North
Korea and China where they are blockading shipments to Japan in retaliation for
Japans creation of an Information Self-Defense Force. Through this Force Japan
has learned that a huge collapse of their economy may have been a deliberate
attack. The story continues but honestly you are not playing a Splinter Cell
game for it’s storyline. The true fun here is doing something like hanging
upside down from a pipe and breaking a bad guy’s neck as he walks under you. By
the way, that’s a new move for the series. There are several new additions this
time around. Maybe the biggest is the simple addition of giving Sam a knife.
It’s kind of strange when you think about it, but why hasn’t he always had one?
Whatever the reason he has it now and this allows Sam to provide a rather nasty
new way to kill. You can also use your new toy to cut through different
materials, like the rice paper walls in Japan, and snag a dude on the other
side. This might not sound all that special, but darn is it cool to do! Or if
the door is a regular door you can now do a door bash where you smash in the
door and this can take out the person on the other side. It makes a lot of
noise, but can do the job if there’s only person in the room. One move that is
not in CT that made it’s debut in Pandora Tomorrow is the SWAT turn. Honestly I
didn’t use it that much so it’s not that missed. I am a little surprised that
there isn’t any type of tutorial to help new players learn the game. There are a
few videos that allow you to see what to do but I think it would have been nice
to at least have the option to do a little training before you start the
missions. That said there are hints throughout the first level as what to do,
but new gamers to the series may be a little nervous at first. I really liked
the new function for your pistol where you can fire a small EMP bust that
briefly disables electronic items, like light bulbs, in an area. Very cool.
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