Gaming Target - Xbox: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell

Written by Ryan Smotherman on June 19, 2002

First Impressions: Metal Gear fans -- meet your new masta!

Stealth based games, such as the Metal Gear Solid and Tenchu titles, have always been very popular with gamers over the years. There's just something compelling, and remarkably rewarding, about sneaking around undetected as you complete important mission objectives and silently take out your enemies. As opposed to running in killing everything in sight and having them attempt to kill you. No one would argue against the fact that Konami's Metal Gear Solid series is undoubtedly the absolute king of the genre. However, if Ubi Soft has their way and Splinter Cell lives up to just half it's promise and potential, gamers might just be forgetting about that little man called SnakeЕ well, at least for a while anyways. Let's take a look at this sure fire hit.

In taking a turn away from other Tom Clancy related videogame titles, Splinter Cell has you playing the role of a single character, instead of controlling a squad of troops, who's job is to protect the U.S., as well as the entire world, by any means necessary. His name is Sam Fisher, and he's a member of an elite NSA (National Security Agency) group known as the Third Echelon. Members of the Third Echelon are basically highly trained badasses who work alone and specialize in stealth, allowing them to infiltrate areas unseen to complete whatever mission is assigned to them as efficiently as possible.

Even at this fairly early stage the game really seems to be taking stealth based gameplay to an entirely new plateau, and it's certainly more simulation like that what is found in Metal Gear (what else would you expect from Tom Clancy?). Overall, though, the game is basically set up like MGS -- you take control of Sam Fisher in the 3rd person as you sneak into various locales and find ways around guards, security cameras, and whatever else would prevent you from completing the task that is at hand. Fisher himself is dressed in total black, armed to the teeth, and able to pull off many different techniques that are imperative to his survival. These include the ability to hang on and shimmy across just about anything in the game (walls, windows, etcЕ), crack a door open to peak out, shoot around corners, and even zip line to certain areas. Fisher's weapons and gadgets come a variety of forms as well. He's armed with assault rifles, a sniper rifle, silenced pistols, a tazer, spy cameras that he can set just about anywhere so he knows what is going on in certain locations, and thermal goggles (good for seeing enemies in the dark environments). And those are just the few items that have been revealed. So there's no telling what other nifty gadgets that will be making it's way into the final version of the game.

Just about everything in the game will play a huge factor in whether or not you get detected. If you step on broken glass, bump into a table, step in front of an open window, or even get near dogs, you run a good chance of becoming discovered. And thanks to the games Stealth Meter, which is located at the bottom right of the screen, you can immediately tell what your situation is and if you're running the risk of failing your mission. This is definitely one of the nicest features found in the game.

Yet, another interesting feature comes in the form of the decisions you must make. For example, some Russian terrorists have gotten their hands on some nuclear missiles and have set them to launch and blow up the U.S. So you enter the complex and make your way to the control room. You have 2 choices here Ц go in with guns blazing, or sneak in and surprise whomever is in there. Going in with blazing guns will probably freak them out and force them to quickly launch the missiles, as sneaking in will give you the advantage to put your gun to one of their heads and force them to disarm the missiles. Your environment will also play a role in the gameplay, such as what was shown in one scene involving an aquarium and your tazer. The player shot the aquarium and water went everywhere. When the guards came down to check out on what was going on, Sam put his tazer in the water and fried them. Extremely cool stuff.

Splinter Cell was marked as one of the top games when it showed up at E3 last month. In addition to the exciting gameplay, many also couldn't get over how amazing the visuals are. Foremost are the lighting effects. The game simply makes the best use of dynamic lighting and shadows I've ever seen. Everything in the game, including you, reacts super realistically to every form of light. One scene has Sam sneaking down a hall with a row of bars to his right that cast a shadow on the left side of the hall. As he walks near the area you can see his shadow interfering with the bar's shadows, and as he passes it they go back to normal. It's really quite incredible. Just like in MGS2, your enemies will spot your shadow, so you must pay careful attention to how and where a light will disperse your image. And if necessary you can even shoot out or turn off lights that are causing you problems This is extremely helpful when the room is full of baddies Ц shoot the light, turn on your thermal goggles, and blast away with out being spotted.

The game's engine is basically a modified version of the Unreal engine, and it simply looks fabulous. Sam is highly detailed and looks extremely cool in his stealth get up, and the environments are varied and sport hi-res textures that are almost to the point of being photo realistic. The guy's at Ubi Montreal have really done their homework, and as a result, are using just about every graphical technique in the book, and you can tell, as these are easily some of the best looking graphics yet seen on the Xbox.