One wouldn’t think that the DS is capable of running a game like Splinter Cell effectively. The E3 demo does not fully prove that the final game will succeed in this, but the potential is there.

I went through a training mission and part of the first level taking note of the moves and controls. Ubisoft is porting all of Sam’s moves to the DS version of Chaos Theory, but the lack of dual analog has forced them to make significant changes to the control. Movement and strafing are controlled via the d-pad resulting in a loss of precision. However, the touch screen looking mitigates this. Unfortunately, the touch screen isn’t used only for looking (ala Metroid Prime Hunters). It also has 4 large buttons for digital camera control at the four points of the compass. Three of the four corners feature buttons for activating the visors and selecting weapons. This leaves precious little space for analog touch screen looking and aiming. Additionally, the look sensitivity is currently far too low. The four face buttons still function much as they do in the console versions of Splinter Cell. This means that to control the game as effectively as on a console players will have to use the stylus and the four face buttons at the same time (it’s actually possible although far from ideal). As bad as this may sound, this is only a demo. These things can all be fixed or improved, and I’m sure this is one of the team’s primary goals.

The other significantly changed portion of the game is its graphics (naturally). Things have been scaled back significantly for the DS, but the basic light and dark areas that drive the gameplay remain (no stencil shadows of course). The levels in general don’t look quite as good as Metroid Prime Hunters, but they’ve amazingly implemented a very convincing replica of the thermal vision and night vision from the console versions. The extra processing power required by these modes is likely limiting the graphics quality of the ordinary mode. This is suggested by the framerate dips that occur while using night vision in some areas. The framerate is already relatively low during normal gameplay as well. It’s very playable, but definitely not sixty frames a second. If Metroid Prime Hunters is any indication, the DS could run the levels of Splinter Cell DS at an excellent framerate with some improvements to the rendering engine (how well alternative vision modes should work I can’t say). Ultimately, there is definitely room for improvement in this area, but the project is quite ambitious, so it is understandable if they haven’t gotten a handle on it just yet.

One interesting change to the demo is the manner in which locks are picked. In the console versions, lock picking relies on the analog stock. Without an analog stick on the DS, Ubisoft has implemented a completely different method of lock picking using the touch screen. The view is the same, but you grab the pick and move it around. As you move some pins it affects the position of the other pins making lock picking require a bit more skill than before (or perhaps I just need to re-learn how to do it quickly). It’s good that specific DS features such as this are being added.

Overall, the DS version of Chaos Theory shows a lot of promise. There are some issues with the control and framerate that need to be resolved before the game is released, but otherwise the game is shaping up nicely.