Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Genre Stealth-Action | Publisher Ubisoft | Developer Gameloft | ESRB Teen
I was always one who scoffed at the Splinter Cell games. Coming through this generation with a healthy serving of swordplay games like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, God of War, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time; I always tended to believe Sam Fisher was a pansy for not fighting enemies like a man. Recently, I finally got past that belief and rented Chaos Theory for the GCN. The adrenaline rush coming from sneaking up on an innocent mercenary and bringing my knife right to his jugular was something completely different then fighting an enemy face-to-face in my before-mentioned games. As I passed through the game, I learned to love the ways of Sam Fisher’s infiltration, data retrieval, and extraction.
Unfortunately, that was only a week-long rental. Soon, I learned that Ubisoft had announced the Nintendo DS is going to receive a version. I became very enthusiastic for it, as the DS would now be capable enough to handle a 3D version of the console game I loved so much. If you were thinking that the DS would not be able to handle the myriad of options available to Sam in his latest console hit, you were right. Problems appear in this version of Chaos Theory around every turn.
At its core, the DS version retains that ability to sneak up on enemies and bring your knife to them, or silently cap some heads with your handgun. Admittedly, those abilities are still present, as well as the excitement that revolves around doing them. The problem lies in the fact that getting to the exciting parts requires digging through a lot of bugs, troublesome controls, problematic graphics, and, mainly, a dumbed-down adventure.
These problems start with the presentation. The graphics do look sort of good for a DS game, but the real problem lies when they are in motion. Running is really annoying because Sam tends to lack every fifth frame or so. Sam’s different view options, thermal and night vision, experience that problem with everything Sam does. What’s worse about those view options is that they will cause the screen to shift from left to right in a glitch-like manner, while sometimes only shifting one third of the screen in a completely different direction then the other. So while the DS does showcase some fairly decent models and details, they weren’t just able to flow smoothly during gameplay. Even the rare, FMV cutscenes can be fairly ugly to look at.
The audio portion of this game fairs a bit better, but still suffers its own problems. The score from Amon Tobin is replicated nicely and sets the mood for the levels at first. Then when you hear the same 2-5 minute clip repeated over and over again throughout the entire level, it just becomes annoying. Ubisoft was nice enough to change the music speed when an enemy spots you, but it still is enough to just force the volume to go down. All the effects are pretty much forgettable, and voice-acting is rare. In fact, the same voices are used for every guard in the entire game. It may be because the only lines shouted in gameplay are: “Must have been nothing” and “Hey you!” or that all the guards have no personality.
If you played this game on the consoles, you may be thinking that the stealth-gameplay experience is still a great reason to buy the game. No, silly, the graphics weren’t the only thing to take a toll. I’ll make a list in the upcoming sentences about everything taken out or annoyingly condensed.. The levels are no longer open-ended; Sam is forced to follow one route. The enemies are stupid in a number of ways: 1) You can make a small noise in the dark by running, have a guard come to check out the disturbance, and then grab him by the back. Repeat for all guards in the area 2) Three guys in the same room won’t notice each other getting shot in the head 3) “Hey, I just felt a bullet whiz past my ear, maybe I should stop walking and become an easy target for them to hit my ugly face.” Oh, and interrogations are almost completely gone. The rule of thumb is that if you aren’t asked to interrogate the enemy (by grabbing him and not killing him right away), then you won’t be able to anyway. If an enemy sees you, you are dead. No questions asked, as by the time it takes for you to draw your weapon, assuming you have the right thing equipped, and aim right at the enemy, he will already have killed you. Probably the most painful thing cut out was the ability to run up to an enemy and pimp-slap them to knock them out. Nope, you can’t even run up and knife a guy without grabbing him first.
While the above make Sam’s entire journey an annoying and boring one, the thing that hurts the most is the controls. Moving Sam is on the d-pad, and you can slow your speed by holding the L-button. This is manageable, all it takes is a good 10 minutes to get used to Sam’s movements and the rest of the game would be fine. However Ubisoft decided to drop a turd and use it as a camera for the game. Honestly, every freaking corner you have to rotate the camera. No, they couldn’t help with the camera a little in the needed places like corners. They only decided to rotate it when you are running down a straight hallway. All other controls can be best described as weird and annoying.
You should take note of a few things if you are considering this purchase. First of all, some of the console versions are cheaper than the DS version at this point. Secondly, the storyline remains the same, but the lines are changed and you will most likely not understand a lot of events without reading a FAQ. The levels share the same names and some objectives, but level design is again linear and completely different from the console versions. If you are catching my drift, then you should know that a better purchase in most, if not all, regards is the console version. While the DS version does have the “Spies vs. Mercs” multiplayer (which I was unable to test), it requires another copy of the game for each player. From what I heard, the multiplayer is just as problematic as the single, but Mercs are limited to aiming mode only (first person view). This can be a good thing, because if you use your stylus to aim, the game becomes similar to a FPS using a mouse and keyboard.
I honestly see no real reason to buy this game. Unless you only own a GCN and desperately want to play the Spies vs. Mercs minigame, then I’d really advise to get the console version. If you do get this game, there will be a lot of things to deal with. If you can get past the bad camera, weird controls, messed up graphics, repetitive sound, linear gameplay design, and a lot of other condensed features, you will still get Sam’s Stealth Happy Time. It could be worse, luckily, but I have a feeling all the problems with this title, including the lagging menu screens, should turn consumers towards the better console version.
Gameplay...5
Controls...4
Graphics...6
Sound...7
Lasting Appeal...6
Overall...5.6 /10
Topic: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (DS version) (Read 2374 times)
