Final Review of Splinter Cell
First: my initial impressionsFinished it last evening.
The game is short, which is annoying for 2 reasons:
1. I paid $50 for the game.
2. The game did not feel like a long, trechorous journey, and did not make me feel like I'd accomplished something when I completed it.
Leaving the audience wanting more can be a good thing, but leaving them expecting more is definetly a bad thing.
Petty Gripes:
Sam Fisher has a lot of moves, but you do not need most of them. The basic moves available in almost all other similar games are plenty good enough to get you through the game. I didn't need them.
The "shooter view" employed when you equip your firearm is poor. It's fine for sniping (a big part of the game) and single opponent situations, but forget about trying to take on multiple shooters.
There are few suprises. It would be nice to see something interesting happen, ...for example. In my favorite mission in Mafia (the whore mission), your job is to drive to a hotel that refuses to pay protection money and murder the hotel manager as a warning to anyone else who goes against the family. Also, you need to whack a whore whose been blabbing her mouth about the mafia's business. Finally, you are to steal papers from the hotel managers office to hide evidence and blow up his office with a bomb. It gets better. All out war breaks out in the hotel as the manager's henchmen defend him. There are bodies littered all over that place. When the bomb goes off, you end up on an adjecent roof. Now the cops are after you. You must escape by jumping rooftop to rooftop to escape the police, but they've got you cornered, you need to shoot your way out. Once that is done, you crawl across into a church roof under construction, and end up in another bloodbath as you walk right into a funeral for a man you killed. It is very well done, you never see any of that stuff coming, so it is a huge suprise. In splinter cell, the mission are somewhat predictable.
There is little freedom in this game. You cannot explore the city. You can only go where the game wants you to go.
The game holds your hand. If you are about to come across a keypad locked door, be assured that the code for the door can be found in your immediate vicinity, usually on a guard's body. This is lame. Make us work for it.
Raves:
Graphics rock.
Sound is good.
Gameplay is excellent.
The game is challenging, albeit repetative.
The weaponry is great. There are a lot of things you can do, but unfortunately, you do not need to utilize these weapons very often. Your two guns will get you through most of it.
Speed control. It is very important to change your character's speed throughout the game. Handling this from the mousewheel is very cool.
Overall, it is excellent. I wish the game was longer, freer, and contained more plot twists.
8.5 out of 10
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