Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

Written by Nick Doukas  on March 11, 2005

Hands-On Preview: I take the lives of a few to protect the lives of many. I commit acts of war to preserve the greater peace. It's my job. It's my duty. My name is Sam Fisher, and I am Ц a Splinter Cell...

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Punta Blanco Lighthouse. Outside Talara, PeruЕ

Insertion is on a small beachhead just south of the lighthouse. Sam Fisher moves quietly and purposefully towards a rock wall behind him as lightning crashes, illuminating Third Echelon's best against the stark, dreary backdrop. Moving silently, Sam scales the wall with ease, and entering an opening about 15 feet up the face, he proceeds forwardЕ.

Finding himself in some sort of natural cave, Sam presses on, eventually crawling through a tight fit and into a larger cavern. Climbing up the rock wall, he hears gunfire. Peeking out from cover, he glimpses a huge chasm Ц across which a rickety wooden bridge is strung. He also sees two guards, terrorist foot soldiers for Hugo Lacerda - leader of a Peruvian separatist group called The People's Voice. They've got Morgenholt, and more importantly, the opportunity to torture him and extract the devastating information locked inside his head. Time to go to workЕ.

Two ways in. Sam sees clearly that he can simply wait - crouched and deadly, like a coiled viper ready to strike Ц hidden behind a natural outcropping just across from the foot of the bridge, and shoot them both in the face. Either his SC Pistol, or the SC-20K assault rifle with multi-attachments, is more than up to the task. Or use one of those attachments to incapacitate them Ц something like the Sticky-Shocker. Better yet, just avoid them altogether by creeping along the ledge that hooks around the opposite side, and enter through the opening in the opposing wall, about 15 feet below where the guards are milling about. Doing just that, Sam finds himself in another small cavern, facing a steel ladder that stretches up into the fortress itself. Again, gunfire Ц and it's coming from directly above. Climbing silently, he waits at the lip and has a look around - a long concrete room with two smaller rooms on each side split by broken and crumbling walls. One guard, messing around popping off shots from his assault rifle, unaware that he's about to take his final breath. Sam stealthily moves to the right towards a generator, and uses his combat knife to pierce its gas tank, almost instantly killing the meager lights the insurgents have strung around this area of the old Spanish fort. As the guard bumbles about in the sudden inky blackness, Sam pops on his Night Vision, draws his rifle, and double taps the bastard with two in the chest, and two in the head. The enemy drops like a sack of laundry, and Fisher proceedsЕ.

Finding a weapons crate on the far side of the room, Sam is contacted by his commanding officer Irving Lambert and advised to scan it. It turns out to be one of 5 belonging to a missing Lot of arms. Be on the lookout for the others as you search the compound for Morgenholt. УAnd assassinate Lacerda, my objective of opportunity, if I can as wellФ Sam thinks. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it. Pushing on, he moves through the room to a long hallway that leads to stairs. These terminate in another room with another noisy generator and another crate of weapons. Kill the generator, scan the crate, and take the next set of stairs. As Sam pads upward, the horrific screams of a man being brutally tortured assaults his ears. УBet my next government paycheck that's Morgenholt. Poor bastard.Ф

Moving to a door at the top of the stairs, he carefully pops it open, and looks down into a huge industrial chamber. Sliding down a slippery grade, he takes cover in a dark corner behind a huge box. Looking towards an adjacent hallway, he sees shadows on the wall - a man hung from an overhead pipe, and two guards arguing over how much more juice they should give the unfortunate victim. УI'm going for a walkФ one says -pulling his silenced pistol, Sam patiently takes aim and waitsЕ

Once both are dead, Fisher heads into the room. It's a stomach turning sight, as Morgenholt has been completely fried by his captors Ц ears smoking; tongue a lump of coal Ц horrific. Sam suddenly remembers the terrorists he's killed tonight, and he inwardly smiles, though perhaps a bit grimly. More contact from Lambert. Time to press on and find out what information Morgenholt spilled to his killers Ц but we can spare 30 seconds for some simple dignity as Sam cuts the body down and lays it in the tubЕ.

Into another dank chamber of interconnecting hallways, and this time radio contact comes from Grimsdottir, Lambert's right hand. She's detected a wireless uplink from a technician who was in the room just before Morgenholt expired Ц we're looking for a computer now, and there's no time to spare. If the classified information on algorithms gets out, there's no telling how grave the threat could become. Leaping forward, Sam comes to a locked door Ц break it off, and risk attracting attention from whoever is on the other side, or pick it? First, Sam pulls his optical cable to have an undetectable look at who - or what Ц is behind the door. Using the cable's Thermal Imaging feature, he sees two guards. Picking the lock will obviously be the more prudent approach, and it certainly applies in this situation. A large open courtyard lies beyond. Sam moves immediately to his left, and slits open the back of the tent there. Grabbing the unsuspecting guard standing inside from behind, Fisher interrogates him with a knife to the throat Ц seems Lacerda left by boat hours ago. Too bad, Sam thinks УI would have liked to have met the man.Ф

Checking the other tent he finds another crate of weapons Ц a quick scan, and he's moving to the left side of the yard, where there's a passageway leading out to an even larger courtyard, with several places of egress and elevated walkways. There are also two guards, jabbering away about some meaningless nonsense, unaware that a merciless exterminator is deciding Ц at this very moment Ц just how to take them both out. Sam moves through the area, melting into the darkness by the left wall. Spying another crate, he ducks behind it and fires a Sticky Camera at the far wall. Hearing its noise creating mechanism, the first guard is drawn to it and subsequently knocked out as noxious gas is released and pours into his face. His buddy lights a flare and cautiously moves towards Sam's hiding spot. Tossing a flashbang grenade at his feet, Fisher pulls the SK as soon as the guard is blinded, and easily takes him out with several rounds to the chest. Into an entrance at the far side of the area, and up the stairs to yet another room with two soldiers, just sitting in front of the fire, unaware of the enemy presence not 15 feet awayЕ

Once they're down, it's off to the next hallway and across an open wooden bridge that runs above the area Sam just passed. Approaching an entrance covered by a flapping curtain, it's time to take out the next thug and access the computer he's guarding. Once done, Grimsdottir makes it look like a memory allocation error - when in reality - Sam has any and all information regarding Morgenholt. Moving along, Fisher takes out two more guards on the outer deck of the fort, then takes the next hallway Ц which leads to a long passage cut into the rock. He also finds the last weapons crate Ц good news for the analysts back home. Finally, he reaches the lighthouse and spies a terrorist patrolling the perimeter. Using his pistol's EMP surge to temporarily disable the single light above the guards head, it's a simple matter to cap him in the face once he's disoriented by mother night. Time to enter the lighthouse and get up top, since that's the extraction point. Once past the door, Sam kills the radio operator, and takes the spiral staircase to the top, stopping only to tear through a filing cabinet to gain access to information on where the guerrillas got their arms and other equipment. One guard left patrolling around the catwalk 150 feet in the air. Sam shoots out the huge rotating light, kills him, and calls for helicopter pick-up. Another successful mission for Third Echelon...