When making these decisions for how Sam Fisher should act be careful because there are little “trust meters” at the bottom of the screen and keeping both the NSA and the JBA trusting you is a priority. Kill too many civilians and game over because the NSA will not trust you anymore, same goes for the JBA, disarm too many bombs or feed the NSA too much information and its lights out. Having the option to save anywhere in a level is nice as well, considering the style of this game it would have been a shame had Ubisoft not implemented this feature. All of these features coupled with a tried and tested control scheme make Splinter Cell Double Agent one of the best single player experiences I have had in a long time. If I had one thing to gripe about the single player portion of the game it would be the time it took to complete. Maybe I am just too used to RPG’s but after 10 hours of gameplay I had the storyline done, of course I could go back and do things differently to get that different ending but at the end of the day a couple more levels would have been nice. Lucky for us beating the single player game isn’t the end of the road in Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Equally as good is it’s multiplayer portion. In classic Splinter Cell fashion you take control of either a Spy or Merc and face off in 9 different multiplayer maps. The goal is unique depending on which side of the coin you choose, no death-match here folks. If you choose Spy then the goal of the game will be to “hack” into one of four (you play 3v3 in multiplayer mode) computer stations and extract information, then move it back to your starting point. These computer outlets are placed in all different locations in each of the maps; from a small dark room to the middle of a huge mission control room the size of a small football field.
The spies can also do all sorts of acrobatic moves like flipping over fences, diving through windows, and scaling walls or pipes to crawl through a small hole in the ceiling. Because the spies do not carry guns they do have a small panel on their wrist that does things like take out lights, break windows, crack locks, and hack information from the computers. Being a spy isn’t easy because your main goal is to sneak around and if anyone sees you run. As a last resort you can sneak up behind a merc and break their neck or knock them unconscious (for a few minutes). This attack is very hard to pull off so make sure you know what your doing before you run up to a merc and scream, “your dead punk”. The merc character in multiplayer is totally the opposite of the spy; they are slow, have big guns, and seem to just walk around the room reminding me of Jason from the horror movies. You can jump off balconies (with the help of your rappelling rope) and shoot grenades but your main purpose is to simply stop the spies from stealing the information. Usually shining a flashlight beam at them will scare even the most daring spies away at least momentarily. The teams in Splinter Cell: Double Agent’s multiplayer mode are surprisingly even as long as one team doesn’t have some guy that hasn’t stopped playing since the game was released, but otherwise I was really happy with the way most of the matches played out. Personally I am a “spy guy” but try both modes and see which one you take a liking too. All in all the multiplayer mode in Splinter Cell: Double Agent is something that Ubisoft should be proud of and we as the gamers should be thankful for. The nail-biting situations that can arise are just simply fun to play and breaking your buddies neck without him even knowing you were in the same room is something to write home about. Add this to the single player game and you have one awesome package that has something for everyone.
Ever since the beginning of time the Splinter Cell series has attempted to break all barriers previously in place in the graphical department. This time around Double Agent may not be so revolutionary but it is easily one of the better looking games on any system out there and the things to complain about are small compared to the whole experience that is Splinter Cell. First up are the character models, which have obviously been given a serious overhaul. Sam Fisher looks almost lifelike, as do most of the other models in the game. More time was spent on the characters that make more of a viewing throughout the story mode but even the spies in multiplayer mode have a nice shine to them. I already praised the levels for the design work but did I mention how beautiful the scenery is? For an example take a look at the Shanghai level where you are hanging off a 100-story building with fireworks going off in the distance, simply breathtaking. The levels are so unique and Ubisoft did a great job complementing this by making the graphical style of each level feel different. When you are sneaking through Africa you get hot along with Sam Fisher but in the snow level I literally had to wrap up in a blanket, it felt that cold.
Graphically I wish that Ubisoft has pushed the envelope just a bit more and shown us something we have not seen before, the wow factor is here but the “oh my god I have never seen that” is not. The animations are great and add a lifelike feeling to each and every motion that you do be it climbing up a rope or shimmering down a pipe, they all seem realistic. Unfortunately you do a lot of the motions over and over again throughout the game and this makes for some repetitive animations. Still, the first time you see Sam pull out his knife to crack open a lock you will be impressed. Once again Splinter Cell: Double Agent features some of the best lighting and “flowing” effects found in any game for any system right now. The way that the lighting integrates with the gameplay is and always has been revolutionary.
