Anthony's Profile

Splinter Cell is completely awesome from start to finish (except for the displace level, that one's pretty boring) If you own an Xbox and do not have this game, I super strongly recommend you buy it. The story is engaging and the missions are fun, and now you have an awesome co-op mode so you can infiltrate with a friend :D

For those of you unfamiliar with the Splinter Cell franchise, the SC games are mission based stealth games that put you in the role of highly skilled ex-Navy Seal Sam Fisher. You work for the American government as a Splinter Cell, a very skilled, highly trained individual outfitted with all sorts of high tech gear, trained to do all sorts really, but mostly getting information. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (including the co op campaign) will have you assassinating and kidnapping people, retrieving information, interrogating, disabling artillery and propaganda speakers, scanning crates, and saving pilots from death for bonus points. May I remind you at this point you are the good guy.

For those that have played previous Splinter Cell games, there are quite a few minor and fundamental changes to the game. First off, the graphics are among, if not the best, you will find on last gen consoles due to the discovery of proper shaders. Hell, you even get more reflective when you walk through a sprinkler. Every location looks beautiful and rad etc. Only problem being their engine doesn't seem to support movies in game so wherever there should be video there's kinda low frame rate gif type animations. But I don't think anyone actually cares about that. This game is also a lot easier than previous SC games. No more "o teh noes, you set off 3 alarms, now we'll abort your mission of saving the world". You can set off as many alarms as you want, with consequences of AI characters being put on edge and equipping themselves better. Still, if you think it's too easy, the game now comes with 3 difficulty settings and mission ratings, based on how many alarms you set off, people killed or KOed, bodies discovered, and times identified as an intruder among other things. To get 100% on every level (like me =P) you will need to kill no one, and complete all objectives. Missions now have optional objectives you can complete if you're in the mood, as well as bonus objectives which do not appear in your mission briefy thing. This adds to the abundant replayability of this game expanded by less linear level design, letting you approach situations from many different angles. Changes for the worse are mainly that they took away the SWAT turn! But they added inverted neck breaks so that's ok I guess.

Another big addition is the Co-op mode. A separate campaign has been beautifully hand crafted and somewhat connected to the main storyline for you and a friend to play through. Though only four missions long they are a lot of fun and allow for some extra cool spy moves such as boosts up things and using your friend as a ladder (with sexy results). My favourite has to be the Tomoe Nage Manoeuvre, which involves one character launching the other in a big dive roll, useful for getting past laser beams and knocking out guards (my record is 2 guards with one throw) Playing through the Co-op mode has probably given me a few grey hairs due to general confusion resulting in repetitive deaths and large explosions but was still a lot of fun.

I can't really comment on Multiplayer because I don't have Xbox live, but I played through the multiplayer tutorials anyway and it sounds like a pretty intense experience. Some players play spies going on a number of information gathering capers, and other players play Mercenaries, from an FPS perspective. They must protect whatever needs to be protected, shoot things and generally blow sh*t up.

Sound. Hmmm. Now sound is a mixed bag. The music is excellent and very espionagey (that's a real word now) But the voice acting... Well the voice acting is ok, it's just the voices are the same ones from like Far Cry Instincts and are reused quite a lot, which is a bit annoying. But I'm probably the only one that cares, the voices are actually fine lol. Sound effects are great, you fall in love with the sound of the quick knock out and jabbing certain sharp objects into people.

Um I guess that's all I have to say so summary time.

The Good:
-Graphics!
-Improved gameplay!
-Co-op
-Inverted neck break
-Satisfying story
-Hawt Music
-Everything!
-Grenades
-Fun
-Unaforementioned Sniper and Shotgun attachments for your gun

The Bad
-No Swat Turn
-Re-used Voice guys

The Bad that people might care about
*cricket noises*

Buy this game! Buy it. Now!

PS if you hadn't guessed I like Splinter Cell...