Fat Ninja

With a well-established franchise like UbiSoft’s Splinter Cell series, it’d be simple and cost-effective to stick to the formula, pump out some cookie-cutter gameplay, and charge gamers $10 more than they paid to play the last entry in the series. Fortunately, EA’s substantial shareholdings in the Montreal-based developer have not, as of yet, influenced UbiSoft’s philosophy of reinventing their franchises with each and every iteration. While some of these efforts, such as Rainbow Six Lockdown, have strayed too far from their original formulas to be adopted, these attempts to deliver stellar, yet familiar gaming experiences have largely met with success. With Splinter Cell Double Agent, UbiSoft has given fans a radical reimagining of the series that forces them out of the shadows.

If ever there was a chink in the Splinter Cell series’ armor, it’d have to be in the area of story-telling. In the first outing, there wasn’t really that much of a cohesive narrative. Things weren’t all that improved in Pandora Tomorrow, and it wasn’t until Chaos Theory released that any marked improvement was made in regards to story-boarding. With Double Agent, UbiSoft appears to have taken some cues from Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear series, and has injected the experience with a great deal more dramatic flair.In the wake of his daughter’s death at the hands of a drunk driver, Sam Fisher has become a man with nothing to lose and, perhaps, even less to live for. When Third Echelon approaches him with an undercover assignment to infiltrate a terrorist organization known as John Brown’s Army (JBA), Fisher willingly accepts. However, given Fisher’s somewhat fragile mental state and the delicate nature of the mission, the NSA may have unwittingly sent their best man to his grave, or worse, into the service of a radical terror network.

This tightrope of serving two masters really becomes the crux of the Double Agent experience, and as you progress, choices that you make as Sam Fisher will define the way that the narrative unfolds. In each mission you’ll have multiple objectives from both the NSA and the JBA, many of which are optional. However, through the use of an intricate trust system, the completion or desertion of any given task will either lose or curry favor with the NSA and the JBA. Complicating matters is the fact that more often than not, orders from the NSA will conflict with those coming from the JBA, and vice versa. Ultimately, the choices lay in your hands and the choices that you make determine which direction the story moves, be it the tale of a loyal soldier or that of the agent gone rogue. This trust system isn’t the only major change to the Splinter Cell series, though. In fact, Double Agent feels like a very different game than its predecessors. In an effort to broaden the fanchise’s appeal, the developers have taken pains to take a bit less emphasis off of Splinter Cell’s stealth elements. While it still retains some of the techno-ninja gameplay that defined it in the past, you’ll find yourself short of more than a few conveniently ill-lit corridors in which to skulk. Instead of relying on shadows, you’ll need to flit between natural cover or create diversions of your own in order to complete your objectives.

These changes have enabled a great deal more flexibility in the way in which one plays Double Agent. Penalties for being spotted are seldom enough to result in a “Mission Failed” screen, and in that respect the game is a great deal more forgiving of those who prefer to run-and-gun than previous installments. This catering to the softcore demographic might be construed as a “dumbing down” of the franchise by some, but UbiSoft has upped the ante for the purists out there by making the stealth elements all the more difficult to master. Remaining unseen is no longer just a matter of slipping in to the nearest pocket of darkness. Instead, you’ll need to study your terrain and plot movements while carefully considering the consequences of a given action. Take into account vastly improved AI that will, for example, wave back-up over to help investigate a set of foot-prints in the snow, and even the most hardcore of Splinter Cell fans will find themselves hard-pressed to stay off the radar.

The campaign isn’t the only area of gameplay that has been rebuilt. Double Agent’s multiplayer suite has undergone some significant revamping of its own. Gameplay consists two categories: co-op and adversarial. Co-op allows you and up to two friends to get a feel for the multiplayer experience offered by the adversarial mode and familiarize yourselves with the maps by taking on AI-governed opponents. All in all, the cooperative play is fairly shallow, particularly when compared to the groundbreaking co-op offered in Chaos Theory. Still, despite feeling like an afterthought, it’s a good way to brush up on your skills in a more casual setting. The adversarial mode features only one game mode in which Spies are tasked with downloading files from any of the four nodes scattered throughout the map. Conversely, the Merc’s job is to defend against hacking attacks.

On the surface, it sounds like the multiplayer gameplay has been left relatively untouched, but, again, there’s an apparent emphasis on making the experience accessible to a broader range of gamers. In past iterations, Splinter Cell’s multiplayer has been an acquired taste. With its intimate 2-on-2 gameplay and its hardcore followers, it was difficult for newcomers to find a comfortable foothold in the ultra-competitive world of Spies and Mercenaries. UbiSoft now allows for 3-on-3 matches and has gone to great lengths to level the playing field between the two classes.

Mercenaries are now a great deal more versatile than they were in the past. Increased agility and new abilities such as fast-roping from terraces and lethal spin attacks have made playing the role a great deal less frustrating. Much of the Merc’s arsenal has been stripped away. Gone are the proximity mines and spy-traps from Splinter Cells past. Instead, Mercs will rely mostly on brute force. Still, the addition of explosive drones to the Merc’s repretoire allows them access to the ventilation ducts and other small spaces that were once the unchallenged territory of the nimble Spy. Other changes are more drastic, such as the “spider sense” that cues the Merc to the presence of a nearby interloper through a combination of a steady thumping sound and a rumbling of the controller that increase in frequency according to the Spy’s proximity. While the design of this feature is really aimed at compensating for the limitations presented by the Merc’s first-person perspective, Spies will find that it is often a bit too effective.

Nonetheless, Spies will still find that they have the upper-hand in many respects. New escape maneuvers make them more quick and dexterous than ever. In fact, Spies in Double Agent are lightning fast compared to their forerunners in Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory. Even in a crouch, they move at a healthy clip. Using an all-purpose “Power Glove” style wristband, Spies can hack nodes, disable lights, break glass, and even hack into the weapons system of a nearby Merc. Despite the seeming advantages in these abilities, using the Power Glove will automatically change the Spy’s perspective from third-person to first-person, virtually eliminating the enhanced peripheral vision that has long been their biggest advantage.

When it’s all said and done, Splinter Cell’s multiplayer elements have never felt as balanced as they do in this most recent iteration. It still retains much of its charm, while lowering the learning curve just enough to increase its general appeal with as few sacrifices as possible.

Moving on, Double Agent’s visual designs are once again divided between those found in the campaign and the multiplayer segments. Looking first at the solo campaign, the Splinter Cell franchise has never looked better. Using a modified version of the Chaos Theory engine, Double Agent is one of the best games I have seen to date. Character models are absolutely incredible. From the scarred and stubbled pate of Sam Fisher to the bulging eyes of the hostage he’s holding at knife point, there’s a stunning realism on display here. The same attention to detail has been invested in level design. Whether you’re pushing through a Russian blizzard in search of an ice-locked oil tanker, or slinking through the sweltering heat of a war-torn Kenshasa, every locale oozes unrivalled ambience and immersive detail.

On the multiplayer side, you’ll notice a significant drop in detail on the graphics end. In the interest of ensuring solid performance and framerates during online play, it’s a necessary sacrifice. That’s not, however, to say that Double Agent’s multiplayer is ugly, by any means.

In terms of audio, Double Agent maintains UbiSoft’s track record of delivering stellar sound engineering. The campaign features a well-suited soundtrack that builds and fades according to the action. Voice-acting is first-class as always, with Michael Ironside reprising the voice of Sam Fisher. Sound effects are, as always, authentic, be they the report from an AK-47 or the wet chink of Sam’s knife severing some poor sap’s vertebrae. The result is a aural landscape that is both moving and engaging. While the multiplayer side doesn’t offer the sheer variety of audio elements found in the campaign, in nonetheless provides a strong contribution to the overall experience through expert use of 5.1 surround sound.

Double Agent is a noteworthy installment in the Splinter Cell franchise. In terms of offline play, it offers a compelling campaign that retains the franchise’s core elements while also deviating enough from the recipe to reinvigorate it with a dash of something new. Its emphasis on the game’s narrative is a welcome change to a series that has long been sparse on dramatic exposition. The multiplayer, while barebones in terms of customization options, is nonetheless a strong performer that has, perhaps, finally managed to strike the balance that its two-class system has needed. While long-time fans of both the single- and multiplayer components of the Splinter Cell franchise will find everything that they love fairly intact, they’ll also find a number of new challenges that have never really been faced in past iterations. On the other hand, newcomers will find the incline of the learning curve a bit easier to scale. Once again, UbiSoft has proven that there’s always room for innovation, and that sequels can be so much more than a simple redux of yesterday’s game.

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