Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Review

In this installation, Sam Fisher must stop an impending Sino-American war over Taiwanese sovereignty. While investigating and eliminating the competition, Sam finds that an old friend may be involved in the plot to start a war. It is his job to untangle the twisted story working from level to level, and figure out who wants to start the war and why they want to start it. The storyline is the strength of Chaos Theory, but it is also its greatest weakness. Since the plot is convoluted and involves many different villains, it is sometimes difficult to get wrapped up in the overall storyline. Sam is supposed to have certain emotions about certain characters, but without having first hand knowledge of the characters, it is difficult to piece together who is important and who is cannon fodder. This, and perhaps the third-person perspective, leads to a disconnected feeling between the player and the game. By no means is this a gigantic flaw, but it is one the player feels aware of on a consistent basis

With an interesting story, incredible graphics, and a solid soundtrack, Ubisoft scores. Ubisoft may not have created the stealth genre with the Splinter Cell series, but it certainly has defined it.

Gameplay: 10
Ubisoft finds small ways to tweak what is already a near-perfect game to make it just so much better, without compromising the streamlined control scheme. In Pandora Tomorrow, Sam could whistle to bring his enemies close to him as he used the shadows to navigate around them, in Chaos Theory, the introduction of being able to "see" electromagnetic radiation through another mode of Sam's night-vision goggles, the ability to bash through a door to knock out an opponent on the other side, and the addition of cut-able fabrics to the game environment, all add a degree of realism and become very useful a different stages of the game. Also, in this edition, the effect of flash grenades last long enough to equip a weapon and take out an opponent.

Sam cannot take very much damage, so rather than running like John Rambo from hotspot to hotspot and taking on multiple enemies, it is wise to use the environment to Sam's advantage. Sam's opponents are not meant to be taken lightly. While they patrol alone, they will buddy up to investigate disturbances. Their weapons are powerful and their aim is true. Previous editions of Splinter Cell had missions that were much easier to complete by assault rather than by stealth. This lead to an imbalance, making the stealth levels much harder than the rest of the game. This is no longer the case in Chaos Theory, as being stealthy is the only way to survive, especially on the harder difficulty settings. More importantly, the no fatalities commands come at intuitive points in the game, so they do not feel tacked on. In many levels, creating escalating alarm conditions will cause your enemies to suit up and become tougher and tougher to take down. There is no longer a three-alarm limit, something the game tries to point out in a tongue-in-cheek fashion.

Another great inclusion to the game is a seemingly Hitman-inspired scoring screen at the end of each mission. The scoring screen gives you an overall performance percentage, as well as recounting which objectives you completed and which you missed. Missed objectives have a way of coming back and haunting you, as they become mandatory and more difficult in future missions.

The only real knock in the gameplay is that some elements seem to come from the dictionary of plot convenience. There always seems to be a crawlspace at the right moment, and some enemies never get out of the bathroom stall. Some of these elements take a very tense situation and almost feel like a cheap way to get out.

Overall, Chaos Theory's fluid gameplay and intuitive control scheme firmly demonstrates to others in the genre exactly how a stealth game should play and feel.

Graphics: 9
Some of the graphic elements are so lifelike that you can nearly reach out and touch them. Sam's suit in particular, looks so shiny and wet it almost pops off the screen. The game's levels are very well done, and very pretty to look at. The different types of glass play with the lighting in very intriguing ways--in a way it is a shame that so much of the game has to be played with the grainy light-vision goggles on.

There were no texture problems in Chaos Theory, and the lighting and animations take the genre to a new level. Each successive Splinter Cell edition makes a leap over its predecessors and other games on the market. Only a single game to date has better environments and character animations, and that is Half-Life 2.

The graphics would be perfect if all the basic enemy characters didn't look the same.

Sound: 8
Chaos Theory becomes a story of good news/bad news concerning sound. The musical score is great: it gets in your head and sticks there. It changes as the game warrants, becoming more rousing the faster your heart beats.

The voice acting is another story. The lead characters are all convincing, but the rank-and-file hooligans you'll find yourself fighting for the most part are laughably bad. The phrases they say are not varied enough, so they say the same things over and over again. The accents incorporated are likewise bad. This is truly a shame, because for the most part, the enemies act and react intelligently, so making them sound so inane detracts from the overall feel of the game.

Multiplayer: 9
Ubisoft has incorporated a cooperative-mode to go along with the versus-mode introduced in Pandora Tomorrow. The co-op mode is great, as you can do moves with multiple characters, like stand on one another's back to reach a higher vantage point, or do a judo-throw of an ally to propel him or her a long distance.

The co-op and versus levels all seem pretty well balanced, but it will take a little bit of online playing time to see if there are distinct advantages in the maps.

Replay Value: 9
With the scoring system, encouraging the player to score as highly as possible, and an improved multiplayer system with a co-op mode that is very well thought out, Chaos Theory is very replayable. This game is destined to stay on the reviewer's hard drive for quite some time.

THE GOOD:

- Genre-defining gameplay
- Top-notch graphics
- Improved multiplayer
- Strong AI

THE BAD:

- All-to-coincident plot devices (crawl spaces, etc)
- Horrible minor character voice acting