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Splinter Cell Review - PC

It is the year 2003, and in response to the growing use of sophisticated digital encryption to conceal potential threats to the national security of the United States, the NSA (National Security Agency) has ushered forth a new dawn of intelligence-gathering techniques. This top-secret initiative, called Third Echelon marks a return to the traditional methods of espionage, improved with leading-edge surveillance and combat technology for the belligerent collection of stored data in hostile territories. When intelligence deemed critical to national security cannot be obtained by conventional means, Third Echelon is granted clearance to conduct physical operations.

You are Sam Fisher, a thoroughly qualified operative, denied to exist by the U.S. government. Trained to handle the toughest conditions, Fisher has obtained a customary anthology of scars, and securing his place in the hall in which Odin received the souls of slain heroes; he has little left to substantiate to the world. Without further proclamation, I give you Splinter Cell. A Splinter Cell is a solitary individual trained to defy enemy eyes, and ears, with the help of a small team in a van. You must leave no remnant on the physical or political map. Although killing may compromise concealment, the preference flanked by leaving a witness, or a corpse is no choice at all. You do not exist.

Game Play

The game play in SC is stand alone, and won't be seen again in any other titles for quite some time (excluding SC2). There are dozens of different moves that Sam Fisher can perform, that will keep you very busy in thinking up new ways to defeat your foe, and with an intriguing storyline, Splinter Cell couldn't have been made any better.

In game, you have a bar in the bottom right corner which indicates how visible you are to the enemy. If it's completely to the left, the enemy will have no idea of their fate. If it's pushed up to the right, chances are you're already dead. The idea of Splinter Cell is to keep in the shadows. As mentioned above, a Splinter Cell does not exist in the eyes of the U.S. government, and therefore you have to remain invisible. There will be tough situations when you will believe that you are caught, and the guards will walk right past you, and then there will be times when you think you're safe, but you're actually positioned on a guards normal day-to-day route.

Splinter Cell also involves a lot of waiting around. This is realistic, but can get a bit painful at times. If a guard thinks he's seen something, he'll spend the next 2 minutes wandering around, searching for anything moving, before he returns to his every day procedure. If you move whilst the AI is more indomitable, you're more likely to be caught. It doesn't really matter if one guard (continued next page)