Classic Review: Splinter Cell

A friend of mine got an Xbox for Christmas in 2002 and much like most other consoles the majority of games were uninteresting or too simplistic in scope to interest a pure PC gamer. There was one however that I did find incredibly interesting to the point where I was wondering why it was on a mere console; this was Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. This was the only Xbox game I had really heard of other than Halo: Combat Evolved because of the incredible ratings it got from every game critic, online score generator or review publication at the time. It's marketing and promotion worked but it wasn't until I saw it in action myself that I understood why.

I had knowledge of, but obviously never played a Metal Gear Solid game, but its influence was clear here; (and confirmed by Ubisoft in every interview) this was certainly a Western attempt to capture the essence of the spy/stealth genre while jettisoning what I term "the confusing Jap shit" in favour of a Tom Clancyesque "prevent WWIII" scenario. As popular as Metal Gear Solid and Hitman: Codename 47 were and as well as Deus Ex and Thief: The Dark Project were lauded for establishing the stealth genre and breaking it away from the faster paced 3D shooters, it was clear that there was enough room for something like Splinter Cell to carve out it's own segment of the market and find it's niche from it's day one success to it's many sequels.

I was able to acquire Splinter Cell itself in early 2003 once Ubisoft ported it from the Xbox - an advantage of this was of course that the Xbox was built on a Windows kernel and most of the internal components of the console were standard PC ones, so it wasn't as much of a stretch nor did it suffer from the 'normal' issues that porting games designed for a 'primitive' form of technology to the superior majesty of the PC imposed. Hyperion, my machine at the time sported a P4 2.2GHz processor and the GeForce 3 Ti500 GPU which meant Splinter Cell ran with a graphical fidelity far in excess of it's Xbox cousin. The lighting and shadows alone were key to the way one must play the game and the immersion in the world was easily the reason I spent some 40 hours in it the first time. 

But on to today, now, 15 years later I reinstalled Splinter Cell to see how well it held up. Uplay gave me the game for free in 2016 in celebration of the 30th anniversary of Ubisoft so I had no need to go fiddling around with the original installation CDs. Once the game was installed I proceed to follow the instructions outlined in this thread on Steam which enable most users to get the game running in the highest settings possible and for me, in 4K resolution!

My first (new) impression was that the game certainly did not look as good as this in 2002. Advances in technology in the intervening time meant that there was a HD remaster for a PS3 version and some enterprising individual packed it up as a 64bit texture upgrade patch into the PC - and of course running in 4K with FSAA it can surely look no better than it does now. In comparison to today's games it does look dated but one must remember that this was one of the first games to use Unreal Engine 2 which allowed both light and dark gameplay and thus it's leaps ahead of games that were only out a couple of years before it. 

It had been quite some time since I had been in any Splinter Cell game so it was great to hear veteran actor Michael Ironside as Sam Fisher grunt his way through the script as well as the acrobatic posturing I put his character through on my quest to save the world. Not being a bog standard 3D shooter, instead focussing on a 3rd person perspective meant that most of the controls involved making Sam Fisher, jump, climb, crouch, shimmy, rappel or a hold of other activities and it took me a few tries to create a proper control key scheme in order to successfully retrain my mind to embody the ex CIA, ex Navy S.E.A.L. turned NSA operative once again.

Despite his name adorning the cover, Tom Clancy had little or no input into Splinter Cell (or any of Ubisoft's Tom Clancy brand games) even before his death in 2013. Ubisoft simply bought a 'brand' to represent the techno-futuristic, quasi-militaristic, pro-US jingoism found in Clancy's writings and create game worlds based these concepts. Needless to say the story on offer here is thin, involves a prelude to nuclear war and points to almost anyone with a Russian or Chinese accent as the bad guy, but your true enemy here is of course, light!

Splinter Cell was hard then, and it still is. You can't play it as a shooter because you literally never have enough ammunition to do so. You do have enough ammo to fire a few bullets into the individuals you're allowed to kill, but knocking them out is often worth the 15/20 minutes it takes you to get into a position to do so. You would do much better if you use what ammo you have to shoot security cameras and lightbulbs to remain hidden and undetected. If you raise any alarm and you're not hidden, you're likely to be shot at and you can only take about four hits before you're dead, so the game forces you into stealth, not like Deus Ex where it's a choice. It might not be everyone's cup of tea but it's the hallmark of the series, and if you don't do stealth than Splinter Cell or any of it's later iterations are not for you.

While the genre is stealth, the name of the game is espionage. Think of who you'd be if you're what would happen if you took away James Bond's tux, Jason Bourne's amnesia, if Jack Bauer followed orders and you were a ninja. The game creates tense situations were observation of searchlight patterns and guard's patrol routes and your timing between them is key to success. Sound plays a significant part because you my be relying on enemy footsteps to time your own movements and music will alert you to guard's alertness level. 

Don't underestimate the use of your own mind! Often puzzles are presented to you and there may be multiple ways of solving them. You are given objectives, such as find the server and collect the data, but no guidance on how you do it save a crude map and a picture of someone you're looking for. Exploration and your common sense are what you need to employ to get the job done in most situations. That said, don't confuse this with some latter day open world the-sky's-the-limit sandbox Ubisoft is known for today, this is even more linear than a standard 3D shooter and there's usually only a single available route to your objective, you just have some work to to to find it.

After 15 years I can say I remembered only the first couple of levels, breaking into the CIA HQ and an oil rig, but nothing about the rest of the game. I think that perhaps it's because the locations in Splinter Cell were pretty generic, office blocks, embassies, warehouses and the like in comparison to the later games in the series which put you in much more diverse weather environments and in different uniforms with more unique set-pieces like Chaos Theory's lighthouse. or Double Agent's Shanghai. Splinter Cell was the genesis for a franchise that spawned well received sequels with perhaps another on the way soon and cemented Ubisoft's Tom Clancy brand to continue indefinitely, and yes it still holds up today.

Splinter Cell is: €4.99 from  GOG, Ubi Store or Steam but found on sale on one or more of these platforms for €1.70 every few weeks.

Sam Fisher to come out of hiding!

Despite the multitude of serious bugs that Splinter Cell: Double Agent had upon it's release; Anticipation has not been dampened for the return of Sam Fisher in Tom Clancy / Ubisoft spy series . Since we last saw him, Sam has evading the authorities and gone "dark" - deep under-cover. Set two years after the events of Double Agent, he's now forced out of hiding to hunt down the drunk driver who killed his daughter, Sarah in the previous game. Sam's quest will once again take him globe-trotting to Malta and Washington DC in an effort to unravel the most-certain-to-be-conspiracy behind her death.

What makes this quite different from the previous entries in the series is that now Sam will not have the gadgets he has as a member of Third Echelon, a wing of the NSA. Now he has to procure makeshift items in the field or from a network of allies, as well as obtain weapons from downed enemies. For example, Sam can break off a car rear-view mirror and use it as a makeshift snake cam. While his familiar three-sensor night-vision goggles wont be a part of his arsenal, he may encounter enemies who have NV equipment

Conviction's creative director Max Beland said that the goal for the development team was to create the fantasy of being one of the world's best stealth operatives, without the slow pace that's usually associated with stealth games, including Splinter Cell. While using stealth and the shadows is still important, you can move faster than before with a more fluid animation system. For example, you will see Sam run, climb, drop, leap, and kill with a minimum of sound. He can now run up pipes and shimmy across ledges in record time.

One addition is a "mark and execute" feature [also seen in Rainbow Six: Vegas]; it allows you to identify targets before storming a room and eliminating them. Instead of assigning their death to a teammate, Sam will have to do the dirty work by himself. By marking targets beforehand, he will auto-aim and fire once you issue the command. You will need line of sight to shoot targets, and you can not only select people but also interactive objects, such as lights, barrels, or traps.

Due to the personal nature of the mission, Sam's attitude is more aggressive and desperate this time around. This is demonstrated through interrogations. You can grab people by the throat or put them in a headlock and proceed to beat the information out of them. Depending on the circumstances, Sam can either knock them out or kill them outright, doing even Jack Bauer proud :)

The final feature revealed was "last known position." When an enemy breaks line of sight with you, a "ghost" of Sam will be superimposed into the environment to indicate where that enemy last saw you. Sam will be able to use it as a tool for escape, it will aid in creating an ambush while the enemy makes a beeline to your last known position. Conviction has eschewed the light meter for allowing the environment itself to indicate your visibility level. When Sam is exposed, everything will appear in full-colour; but when hidden in the shadows, it will all turn to grayscale. In this mode, objects still in colour are interactive--such as a chandelier that you can use to kill multiple guards.

Players seeking an immersive experience will be pleased to know there are no lengthy cutscenes or loading screens in Conviction. Instead, everything is presented to you through the game's engine. Ubisoft has taken a cinematic approach, and in-game text will be projected onto the world itself, such as buildings (for example, "infiltrate the mansion"), or roads. Fans of Fringe will be familiar with this technique. Video updates will also be projected in front of you. The videos seem to represent a mental projection of Sam's thoughts, including information on suspects and flashbacks of Sarah's death.

Michael Ironside will return to voice the ageing agent and Splinter Cell: Conviction is an exclusive for the Xbox 360 and PC and is currently due to ship in October.

Source: Gamespot

2IGTV Episode 64 - Last In Series

The end has come. Since July 2005 we've brought you more than 57 hours of constant nonsense, hilarity, entertainment and delivered news from our varied and skewed perspective.

But everything must come to an end. We've gone on much longer than either of us had expected and we've both had a blast bringing world of entertainment and technology directly into your eardrums for the past 3 1/2 years.

Grieve not and remember us...

But enough of that crap! It's business as usual in the world of TV, Movies, Comic Books, Video Games and Technology for the 64th and final time!

Get it here.
Discuss or lament in our forums here.

Splinter Cell: Double Agent - Review

Well this took a while I'll admit (my last preview for this was in August '06). Due to some techn- ical difficulties, Bellerophron was not able to handle SC:DA as it did not have Shader 3.0 technology required by the game's engine. However it was just as well, as upon release it became clear for most gamers that installed it- it was one of the most bugged games of all time. Severe crashes, glitchy graphics, missing textures and impassible puzzles were what you had to look forward to if you were "lucky" enough to actually get the game running. It's only now a year later that many of the problems have been addressed both by Ubisoft and graphics card manufacturers. It's considered a small miracle if you can get the game running in Vista so I installed it on an XP environment on Maxximus, a few patches and driver installs later and I was good to go, I was going to find out was it worth keeping SC:DA on my shelf for a year and if all the research I undertook was going to be rewarded.

First of all, I'm pleased to say that in many ways, SC:DA is much the same as it's predecessors, the original Splinter Cell, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, in so far as you are the now legendary Sam Fisher, the NSA's greatest field operative, once again voiced by one of Canada's greatest exports: Micheal Starship Troopers Ironside himself. Your in mission operational instructions continue to be provided by the inimitable Dennis The Unit Haysbert as Colonel Irving Lambert. It's still a game of stealth where darkness silence are as much your weapons as your assault rifle, pistol and knife, however this time there's a twist: You're working for the bad guys!!!

Well when I say you're working for the bad guys I mean you're a double-agent who works for the bad guys while trying to simultan- eously complete objectives for the NSA, unfortunately these often conflict and you must decide if you should increase your influence with the terrorists so they'll trust you more by completing their heinous objectives or let them down as you covertly complete the NSA's assignments. You're not completely trusted by either side- Sam became a down and out after the death of his daughter and went off the rails which earned him a stay in the state pen so he's not 100% committed to either cause, it's only through your own actions as Sam that he will find redemption or ultimate destruction.

When the game works, it works well. Graphics are as good as the Unreal technology will allow and you find yourself in many different environments that Sam hasn't visited before, this includes Antarctica, where you make your way across the ice, swim and take down bad guys from below and assault an oil tanker, the Caribbean where you make your way through a cruise liner swarming with Mexican coast guard personnel and you rappel down a Shanghai skyscraper as beautiful fireworks ignite the skyline. However the most extraordinary levels were set in war-torn Kinshasa, The Congo where you literally have to discard a lot of the ideas you've learned in this and the previous games as you make your way in broad daylight - yes DAYLIGHT with little or no cover, avoiding or eliminating rebels or government forces who will shoot at a heavily armed Caucasian even if he's trying to steer clear of you.

The game plays very heavily on your own personality and can be somewhat psychol- ogical. Throughout the game there are moments where you much make hard choices that will obviously effect the story's course as they will seriously impact the level of trust you have with either the NSA or the terrorists bout the choices are very clearly open. Do you rescue the civilians? Do you take the sniper shot? Do you shoot your own boss in the head?!!! By the games end it's clear that whatever path you follow- Splinter Cell 5 is going to be quite different from all that have gone before...

Final Verdict: A high tech morality play and a deeply engaging and beautiful game. Fans of the Splinter Cell franchise will not be disappointed and the kind of people who absorb Alias or 24 will lap it up but if you can get your hands on a console version instead of the PC game then I'm forces to suggest those instead due to the hassle that even a PC guru like me had to get the damn thing working, it was this that lowered the score from 5-Stars.

Colonel Creedon Rating: ***1/2

I Spy With My Little Fly

The Telegraph recently reported that the United States was making insect spy robots and deploying them above liberal hippie anti-war wasters. No government agency has admitted to developing insect-size spy drones but various official and private organisations have admitted that they are trying.

Left: A mechanical fly being developed at Harvard College

The CIA secretly developed a petrol-powered dragonfly drone back in the 1970s but the "insectothopter" was considered a failure as it couldn't handle crosswinds. The CIA refused to discuss its subsequent work but it is known that the Defence Department has been funding research into inserting computer chips into moth pupae to create "cyborg moths" whose flight muscles can be controlled remotely.

Also denying the deployment of the miniscule spy devices is Lieutenant Colonel Creedon of the United Nations Extra-Terrestrial Invasion Defence Agency.

"Nonescence" he said after a meeting in Frankfurt this morning. "Pure science fiction. But hypothetically, if we did have them, they'd have explosive charges and they would be everywhere and there's nothing you could do to stop them. Muahahaha! Hypothetically..."

The full story is here.

Source: The Telegraph

People should feel safer already!

The House handed President Bush a victory, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States.

The 227-183 vote recently, followed the Senate's approval and sends the bill to Bush for his signature. He had urged Congress to approve it, saying "Protecting America is our most solemn obligation."

The administration said the measure is needed to speed the NSA's ability to intercept phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals "reasonably believed to be outside the United States." Namby-pamby Civil liberties groups and the idiotic Democrats naturally said it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congress.

The bill updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. It gives the US government leeway to intercept, without warrants, communications between foreigners that are routed through equipment in United States, provided that "foreign intelligence information" is at stake. Bush describes the effort as an anti-terrorist program, but the bill is not limited to terror suspects and could have wider applications, some lawmakers said.

Source: Fox News