Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Double Agent

Men like Sam aren't supposed to exist. And I suppose by and large our own government would never admit to having someone on the payroll who does the things like Sam does, but we know the truth. And that is that there is indeed people like Sam operating in our own and pretty much any other major government in the world. People who officially don't exist yet are granted the freedoms that are necessary to keep you and I from the silent harms that seek to damage the U.S. way of life. Sounds dangerous huh? Well I have never met anyone like Sam in real life (or didn't know so) so I can only speculate the above statements, but whether or not they really do exist, it sure makes for an exciting game series.

Following some wet work operations (see previous games) abroad our man Sam has been locked up in prison and the key has been flushed down the proverbial toilet. And being that the title of the game is "Double Agent" you can know that Sam has hooked up with a domestic terrorist unit known as John Brown's Army (JBA). Being asked to join JBA is all part of a master plan hatched by the National Security Agency (NSA) in the hopes that Sam can discover what the JBA is up to and destroy it's deadly plot from within. Anyone who has played a previous Splinter Cell game will understand the complexities of a game like this, the stealth missions, the tension, the action, all of it is here yet so is a little something else called trust. What makes this so cool is that as you gain the trust of the JBA your contacts at the NSA start to question your allegiance as you make the tough moral decisions it would take to play both sides of the fence.

 
"Man that HDTV really looks real!"

You are in really familiar territory here if you have played a Splinter Cell game, Sam must travel around the world doing missions for both JBA and the NSA; always spying, always sneaking, the action is intense but it is fairly restrained. Since the game is a stealth based action-er you can expect to save often and therefore reload often as you will routinely blow it by getting caught trying to sneak into areas where JBA does not want you to go, and if you are like me, you will play the game on the harder difficulty, which does not allow for so much leniency like the easy mode. Silent kills and knocking people out are all par for the course as you sneak about the various levels. It should be noted that the game does recycle it's visuals and locations. Most notably the fact that you constantly have to sneak off into the JBA compound quite often throughout the game and that does tend to get a bit old.  

If there is a problem with the graphics (and there is) you can download the first patch here on the Web site http://downloads.gamezone.com/demosfiles/t21319.htm this will clean up some of the lagging technical issues the game does have. Framerate speed can begin bogging down and I noticed some clipping issues while playing. It froze up on me the first time I played it. So the game is not without it's problems. And again, this is a game that really wants to be played on a pretty big system with a 3.5 Ghz preferred and a video card with shader 3.0 enabled. I know this because during original installation I only had 2.0 shader installation installed. Time to download new drivers.... sigh.

"Yes, he's in big trouble."

Back to the game, the gameplay is still the tried-and-true formula that has made the Splinter Cell games so popular, however, there is very little use of Sam's trademark night vision as most missions are in broad daylight. The biggie is the trust meters. As you play each faction (JBA, NSA) has a line on how much they are currently trusting you depending on your actions, if you do not tend to the trust issues and let the meters (either one) deplete, then the game will be over. Depending on the difficulty you select in the game, this could be a forgiving concept or one that is very limited. I recommend playing it on the medium difficulty as it does allow you some flex in the trust area, and you are not killed immediately for snooping around. One thing I thought quite odd, the JBA has you doing some pretty high level stuff from the get go, nothing like I would expect in a undercover job like this. It would make sense for a government hating group like the JBA to have any new recruit pull guard duty or some other menial task for quite a while before assigning high level operations, but then we may have a really boring game if the first 12 missions only involved you guarding a warehouse full of munitions. Still, a simple plot device could have fixed this, but as it is, the plot is generally left a little open to interpretation and not fleshed out quite as much as I think players would have liked.

Michael Ironside http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000461/ returns as the voice of Sam Fisher, Mr. Ironside is a movie veteran with a low growly voice that just oozes deadly when the right wording is spoken. He sounds great and keeps the character alive. Sadly though this is the least plot-driven story in the series; it sets up great, but there are plot points that never seem to go anywhere. Action sounds are well delivered and I would find myself tightening my jaw as I moved about in the stealthier parts of the game. Even the light background noises came out of my computer speakers crystal clear.

There is several multiple paths that play out through the game and the end is one humdinger of a situation, with your previous actions pretty much coming full circle and presenting you with several different endings. I enjoyed this new setup and believe that while they did not flesh out the trust meters as much as they should have, the game is a decent one and will be another notch in a winning franchise.

Gameplay: 7.0
This is my first PC Splinter Cell; I am used to a controller, so there was some re-learning going to the mouse and keyboard. It still plays pretty tight and the way Sam switches to stealth movement automatically lets you know it's time to get sneaky. Get the patch, there is some bugginess out there. You get to go all the places a super spy would go, underwater, in the air, in Hackensack, NJ. This game has it all.

Graphics: 7.3
Sure things bog down, but they do look good, I wish the graphics weren't so reused in some situations, but when you go to the various locales around the world, the developers did a bang up job of translating them to the game.

Sound: 8.1
Michael Ironside, as always, delivers. The sound effects sound very clean and Sam's experimental rifle really hums when fired. Am I hearing different gunfire pitch from those enemy weapons?

Difficulty: Medium
The game can be beaten in about 8 or 9 hours, depending on the difficulty you select; save often so you don't have to replay scenarios over. Keeping the trust meters up is darn near impossible on the hard setting; now that is a challenge.

Concept: 8.2
The introduction of the trust meter was brilliant but unless you play on the hard level, never of any real consequence. There are a few times throughout the game where you are forced to make a gut-wrenching decision; sadly they come very infrequently, but still, a little taste of honey is better than none.

Multiplayer 8.5
A sweet six-on-six game where spies must infiltrate an installation and download info from a computer while mercenaries must try and stop them. It's a totally new multiplayer game that is one of the strongest reasons to purchase this title. Each side has it's strengths and weaknesses and the balance actually works out really well. Plan on seeing more multiplayer action in the months to follow because this is really fun.

Overall: 8.1
With the minor technical flaws, and the unrealized potential of a story, Double Agent is still a darn fine time. Fans will love it, and newcomers will quickly go and buy the previous installments in the series. Here's hoping we see a bit more of Sam in the future.