Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory

"Splinter Cell: Declination theory"

Where to begin? C.T is the third [console based] game in the Splinter Cell series. While they tweaked the game mechanics, and in general the whole thing, did it make it better? Barely. On the whole, C.T. is good for new players who want to get into the series. It's very user friendly. It's easy. However, because it's such a departure from the first game, true fans of the original who didn't buy in to Pandora Tomorrow will not buy into this game either.

Again, this game is not for fans of the original. One may grade it based on their point of view. However, in my opinion, because Ubisoft dropped the values of the first game to try to expand to the market (IE multiplayer in P.T.), the series lost it's cult appeal and became an xbox live smash hit. It became popular and full of itself thanks to the developers continued reinvention of the character.

But the history aside, let's get down to the details of Chaos Theory.

1. Graphics 5/10: Even the graphics of P.T. were better than this, because they were a continuation of the first game. Instead of the smooth and beautiful graphics of the first and second games, this one just got weird. They're not terrible. They're not amazing. They look good. But they're not elegant and subtle, and all of the traits that made 1 and 2 look good. What really pisses me off too is that they use ragdoll physics. I don't understand why game developers use that, it doesn't look realistic at all, it looks plain stupid.

2. Story: I really can't give a score for this one. Unfortunately, most Clancy games have the player become so embroiled in the gameplay that the storyline, complex as it is, becomes a macguffin in itself. Basically, a rogue element of the Japanese I-SDF is trying to start a war, and some American character from P.T. is involved somehow. I'd like to explain it, but the story just didn't pull me in at all enough for me to remember it.

3. Sound 3/10: Dreary and irregular. If I want a dark 3rd person game, I'll play Hitman Contracts. Again, the music of the first game was not really uplifting, but it set a mood that really stuck with you. The music here just gets odd and annoying. Fortunately, Michael Ironside is still the voice of our protagonist.

4. Gameplay 4:10: Ah, the real killer of the game that ended any sort of idealism from the first game. There are a few things to be discussed:

- Mission set up: Before the beginning of each mission, you can choose from three pre-arranged sets of weapons and items to use for that mission. One set is for stealth, another is recommended from one of the ancillary characters, and the other is for "shoot em up." The fact that there is a set designed for blasting your way through the game says a lot about how fickle the developers are. The first game was about being sneaky, taking people down silently, and being discreet. In this one, your allowed to use a shotgun and a heavy duty sniper rifle that can take a guy's head off (not in the game, but in reality it probably could).

Again, this could be attributed to the game being "user friendly," but really? It just makes players lazy.

- Stealth: You can run through whole missions knifing people if you want, sounding alarms, gunning guards down by the dozens, getting caught on camera, screw up a main objective, throw grenades around for the hell of it, and STILL beat the mission. Again, the devs. are allowing players to be lazy (oh, pardon me, "user friendly.") Basically they took the stealth philosophy and rules of the first game and through it out the window.

- Levels: Another interesting thing the devs. did was create levels that are not..."one way only." You can reach your objective in a variety of ways. They also added in a 3D map of each level. Both of these developments are big change from the first one. In all honesty, these don't bother me. The maps in the first game confused the hell out of me, and the fact that you don't have to be controlled by certain confines of a level (something the first and second games did everywhere) really allows the player some breathing room. Honestly, I think C.T. is one of the first stealth games that allows for variation in this sort of thing, so I have to praise Ubisoft for at least doing something right with this game. They were also smart and allowed the player to save whenever they want during a mission.

5. Multiplayer 4/10: It's actually quite fun going around with a friend and doing the co-op missions. HOWEVER, what really kills it is that to finish the co-op storyline, you have to download some missions from Xbox live to see what happens next. Of course, then there's also the fact that one or two missions were terribly made.

For example, one of the missions sends the two Splinter Cells in training to a train station to disarm some bombs. The two of you early on reach a vertical shaft, and one player must rappel the other down. So one player reaches the bottom (approximately, say 40-60 feet down) and must wait for the other to rappel down as well.

But wait...how to get down? There is no one to hold the rope...yes, yes, those silly devs. screwed up! For the second player to get down, they have to JUMP (or fall, either or because it's the same result) and die. Fortunately, that means the other player can waste a hypodermic needle on the fallen player, thereby using up that needle that was supposed to be used in case one of the players was taken down in combat.

As for the multiplayer versus, don't even get me started. Ever since I saw large crowds of nerds playing LAN parties of Pandora Tomorrow, that's when I hated Ubisoft and what they were doing to Splinter Cell. It went from ONE quality game to immediately selling out to the masses. This can be seen even in the Chaos Theory menu. Why? Because it shows Sam Fisher's face in the background when you start the game up. In the first game, the music was all you needed to know that it was just Splinter Cell. Simple. Now the series is all about looks and showing off Sam. Such a sad departure.


6. Replay value 3/10: The only reason to replay levels is to explore the large areas, and discover for yourself alternate means of reaching an objective. This would have had a higher score, however Ubisoft really teased and didn't deliver on something else to the game. When you beat a mission, you are shown a progress screen, reporting on how sneaky you were. For example, think of the 'Silent Assassin' ranking from the Hitman games. To get 100% in each mission (and eventually the whole game), you must not get any kills, fire any bullets, not get caught, not sound any alarms, finish all the objectives, as well as optional and secondary objectives.

Now, you'd think that after all that hard work you'd be rewarded with some bonus content, maybe some unlockable cheats (like an option for Sam to use an AK-47 instead, or just to be fun, a Walther PPK) or some such. Nope. Nada. Nicht. All the content that you can view when you first get the game is the only stuff you'll ever see. I don't know what Ubisoft was thinking. In Hitman Contracts, when you achieve a "Silent Assassin" ranking on a level, your awarded some special weapons, usually silenced or dual versions of the original. But here, all you get is a goddamn percentage of how successful you were.

Gee, thanks Ubisoft. Thanks for wasting my time, my money, and wasting the game series that I was rather beginning to like.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 04/20/09

Game Release: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (US, 03/28/05)