Reviewed: November 6, 2006
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
Ubisoft
Developer
Ubisoft Montreal
Released: October 24, 2006
Genre: Action
Players: 1-3
ESRB: Mature
9
10
9
8
9.0
Supported Features:
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
There are times when I think the software companies are out to sabotage the Xbox 360. Usually these thoughts pop up whenever I played a stripped down EA Sports title, but now I feel I am getting the short straw when playing the latest installment in one of my all-time favorite franchises.
Splinter Cell: Double Agent is a fantastic game on the Xbox 360, with great graphics, that same stealthy gameplay, and a whole new covert mission style that relies on balancing trust between an enemy terrorist group you have infiltrated as well as the NSA. And I was perfectly happy with Double Agent on the 360 until I played this same game on the old Xbox and saw what had been changed and/or removed.
For those who never play the two games side by side, you’ll never know what you’re missing. Just cover your ears when all your classic Xbox friends are bragging about their longer missions, better story development, and superior presentation. You can rest comfortable in the knowledge that even though your game is missing considerable content, you have the prettiest version of the Double Agent available.
Training is optional in this new Sam Fisher game, but I highly recommend you check it out. The cerebral-style presentation is a mix of the Matrix and a Star Trek Holo-deck and if you are playing in a dark room make sure to have some shades standing by – the snow-white screen is blinding.
Double Agent starts the story mode with a flashback mission where you and a new recruit are trying to disarm a deadly missile. This mission covers all the established nuances of Sam Fisher gameplay along with the new stuff like swimming under an ice pack, the new EM vision mode and EMP secondary fire on your pistol, as well as introducing you to the new mission scoring system that rewards you for ultimate stealth. It’s not enough that you hide the bodies…you must now do the entire mission undetected for the best score.
After your first icy training mission and learning of the tragic death of your daughter, you’ll go undercover as you try to infiltrate a terrorist operation known as the JBA. To get in good with these guys you’ll need to break their leader out of the joint. A jailbreak wouldn’t normally be a big deal for Sam until you realize that you probably shouldn’t be killing the innocent prison guards.
And therein lies the new and innovative hook for Double Agent. As the name implies, you have to walk that thin line of posing as a terrorist while not losing touch with your NSA code of ethics. This is fleshed out in two clever ways. From time to time during the game you will be given critical choices, often life and death choices known as "Directed Moments".
The first such incident happens early in the game when the head of the JBA wants you to “prove yourself” by putting a slug in the head of the chopper pilot who flew you out of the prison. Killing the pilot will obviously improve your trust relationship with the JBA while knocking you down a few notches with the NSA. I tried it both ways and no matter what you do the poor guy is dead.
And that is one of the few complaints I have with these Directed Moments. The decisions rarely affect anything other than the trust meter. I have to admit, I was really struggling with some decisions, both at a personal level and by putting myself in Sam’s shoes, but in the end it just boils down to who do you want to trust you the most. Obviously, you have to keep the JBA trust level up to finish the game, and you can’t lose all trust with the NSA if you ever want to go home after the mission.
I even tried to cheat the system. One mission you are instructed to “kill everybody” onboard a ship. I thought I would be sneaking and just incapacitate them rather than kill them, but somebody must have been watching because they caught on to my treachery and my JBA trust started slipping. Ultimate, I got the word from the NSA that I could do “whatever it takes” to maintain JBA trust, so I had no trouble capping anyone after that.
The other extremely cool concept in Double Agent is the dual-purpose mission. These usually take place at JBA headquarters or some location where the NSA wants you to complete objectives at the same time you are doing tasks for the JBA. The way this works is that the JBA will tell you to do something and be back at a certain location by a certain time. You then need to complete that task as quickly as possible then use your “spare time” to do the covert ops for the NSA.
Naturally, this includes a lot of stealth, avoiding cameras, visual contact with real people, as well as not getting caught in certain “off-limit” areas. Anything you do that is perceived as sneaky will lose trust, and anything really obvious will destroy the trust entirely and the game is over.
The trust level carries through all missions all the way until the end of the game where you can opt for three possible endings based on your trust levels with each faction. For those that like to see all possible outcomes, it’s a bit harder to find that pivotal moment to save the game and explore each path, since trust is ongoing from the very beginning. Ultimately, you’ll be compelled to play the Double Agent at least twice if not three times.
The AI in Double Agent has been significantly increased from anything you might be used to from previous Splinter Cell games. Enemies are far more observant, especially in those dual-role missions. As always, your best tactics is stealth, since once the enemy spots you, their new intelligent carries over to their new deadly aim and damage. You can now die as quickly in Splinter Cell as you can in Rainbow Six.
The level design is brilliant, both visually stunning and in the complexity of the design. One early mission has your skydiving onto a glacier, slipping past two guards, diving into the icy water, cracking through the ice and taking out a few guards, blasting a hole through another part of the glacier, swimming some more, then getting aboard a giant multi-level ship. Admittedly, this is broken up into several sub-levels, but they all comprise a single mission.
Shanghai has to be one of my favorite missions. Just after I got to rave about this city in my Tomb Raider review, Sam Fisher gets to pilot a chopper onto a rooftop, then sneak around, rappel down the side of a building trying to hide in the shadows between the bursts of the brilliant fireworks display, use a laser mic through a windows, then sneak back inside, crack a safe, ride on the tops of glass elevators, and all during the countdown to Happy New Year.
Controls are simple and intuitive. The left trigger is a non-fatal attack while the right does damage up to and including death. Once you grasp this simple concept it’s easy to EMP a light rather than shooting it out and revealing your position. Sadly, if you play the game as intended with ultimate stealth you’ll use very few of the weapons in the game and only a few of the cool gadgets.
There are some great mini-game moments like cracking a safe using an X-ray view of the tumblers, or hacking into countless computer systems by locking down access numbers within a certain time limit. You also have all your favorite toys like remote cameras with knockout gas and explosives, the snake cam, and all sorts of other nifty gadgets.
Double Agent takes the online experience to new levels, even beyond what was established in Pandora and Chaos Theory. It’s now far easier to get online and get hooked up with similarly skilled players in a quick match or you can go hardcore in ranked matches and try to move up the highly competitive leaderboard.
There are plenty of modes for versus, team play (Mercs vs Spies), and even co-op play makes an appearance in limited fashion. It is nowhere near as robust as Chaos Theory, and Double Agent only offers three specially designed co-op levels for two players online or off. As before, whether you choose to play as a spy or a merc will greatly impact the way in which you play these multiplayer modes.
Double Agent is by far the prettiest Splinter Cell game in the franchise history, and you can tell the designers really put some effort into Sam’s next-gen debut. The training scenarios are a bit deceptive but once you get into the game proper you will be literally blown away with real-world level design, photo-realistic textures, lifelike animation, and some ultra-cool effects for vision modes, speed blur, and a chilling visual halo effect while swimming in arctic water.
The character model for Sam is amazing and all his gear is rendered so you can see everything he is carrying. I found the new visual indicator a bit odd. It’s a yellow or green light meter that Sam is always wearing somewhere on his person, but neither the JBA nor the prison guards find this “beacon” remotely suspicious.
Double Agent offers full HDTV support for all resolutions and widescreen and delivers solid framerates for both single and multiplayer. I did experience a bit of online lag but that was more connection speed than graphics engine. Overall, a stunning experience which each new level getting better than the one before it.
Michael Ironside turns in another outstanding performance as the grim, sarcastic, (and this time bitter) Sam Fisher. He does a fantastic job of adding that “edge” to Sam, so you just never know if he is going to go too far or not far enough. There is a great story being told and for the first time Double Agent tells it in a linear fashion without jumping around to various locales and random scenarios. The game shows much more structure.
Michael McCann provides a wonderful score that ranges for upbeat techno and spy-tingling tunes you might hear in an episode of Alias, then it cranks down to some edgy atmospheric orchestrations that cue with the suspenseful action. Chances are if Sam is about to be detected, the music is going to let you know a few seconds ahead of time.
Sound effects are fantastic as always complete with realistic weapon sounds as well as all sorts of futuristic noises for all the toys on your tool belt. There are also some amazing environmental effects that bring all of these amazing levels to audible life. You’ll actually get cold chills walking around the ice and diving into water that is only a few degrees from becoming solid.
The solo game is only about 8-10 hours long, which isn’t that bad, especially when you figure that most will play the game at least twice if not three times to experience all the endings. Plus with the fluctuating nature of the trust meter and branching missions and storylines, there are a lot of ways this adventure can unfold.
The online modes will certainly keep you playing this game for months to come. Just look at all the people still playing Mercs vs Spies from the last game. The multiplayer has been definitely tweaked making it much more accessible to the novice gamers, but learning the maps is always a key factor, so learn them fast or get left behind.
There are 1000 achievement points spread across 38 goals that range from simply completing the training, to finishing each mission, going totally undetected in a mission, turning off 20 lights with your EMP, then they get harder like collecting all gadgets, getting the best ending, obtaining all profiles for JBA members, plus numerous online achievements awarded for multiplayer excellence.
Splinter Cell: Double Agent is a great game but it reminds me of those DVD’s that come out and are quickly followed by a special edition with more content put back into the presentation, only in this case the special edition is only available on another system. And what is really disturbing is that this is Sam’s first foray onto next-gen so why isn’t the best version on the 360?
Double Agent is fun, exciting, intense, and definitely a showcase title for the visual elegance of the 360, but if you want a fully fleshed out story, extended levels, more dialogue, and an overall richer Splinter Cell experience, I’d have to recommend the original Xbox version over this. But if playing the Xbox version isn’t an option, the 360 version is still an award-winning experience that’s not to be missed.