Splinter Cell Chaos Theory Review

Really the only pleasing parts of the game’s graphics come in terms of the cinematic cut scenes that help drive the story of the game as well as the very design of Fisher himself in missions. The cinematic cut scenes are rendered beautifully and it will really feel like you’re watching a movie when viewing them. Well, perhaps they may look something like that considering the rather strange “Splinter Cell” movie teaser trailer available for viewing in the game’s main menu. But really, the cut scenes just look awesome, with everything modeled with a realistic approach in mind. While some of them last only seconds, most of them are a good 20 seconds or more in length, and ever more satisfying to see.

In the campaign’s actual missions, Fisher was designed very well and his detail is just great. He does wear two main uniforms for his “sneaking around”, as they look very nice and just like what any Third Echelon operative may dawn. One is basically for urban environments, being completely black in color and not having too much fancy work done on it. It could really be compared to Solid Snake of MGS’s “sneaking suit”. Then you have his natural terrain uniform, which is a more camouflage-inspired design. It’s not exactly camo, but it’s pretty darn close. With the camo suit, Fisher tends to wear black face paint underneath his eyes to help keep the sun out. While in his darker suit, he either only wears his goggles, or utilizes a full head covering face mask that only allows his eyes to show. His goggles also look very realistic too, as they are always glowing that trademark green color. The last thing about Fisher that looks quite intimidating is his brand new knife. Utilized in enemy interrogations, he has that thing strapped just above his buttock region and has it ready for drawing at virtually any time. Then just seeing him hold that razor sharp blade neck to an enemy’s neck when grabbing them from behind is enough to make you cringe.

Other than those things, there isn’t too much else that is impressive about the game. The rest of the game’s presentation is either flawed in the sense of what should happen realistically, or it just plain looks bad. In the sense of what looks bad, that would probably be the rest of the game’s characters, and the attention to detail in your surroundings. Your enemies actually do move with fluid and realistic animation, but they look so bland it can make you cry. There’s really just nothing to them! Their detail is just so underdone you’ll almost wonder if you’re actually looking at people sometimes. Their uniforms can look decent , but their actual faces and such are just pitiful. To make it even worse, during interrogations, neither yours or their mouths even move. There’s definitely something wrong with that picture. Sure sometimes it’s neat to see enemies have a face of fear on them, but most of the time you aren’t even treated to that. Interrogations just don’t seem like what they should, even with Fisher’s knife at hand.

The same thing applies in dealing with your level design and detail. Just like your enemies, sometimes it just seems like there’s nothing much to your environment. Now granted, certain aspects like water and certain office equipment look rather well-designed, but even that can be a stretch. A big thing in the game is lighting, and that was actually emphasized a lot. Of course this is a stealth game, so having it dark as often and as much as possible is key for Fisher. But this is where a huge hole in the game’s logic comes into play. It doesn’t matter who you are in this world, if someone walks mere inches next to someone in the dark, there’s hardly a chance that person won’t be seen. When you have the darkness meter down the lowest possible setting in the game, you are virtually invisible to anyone around you. That doesn’t make sense on the account previously mentioned, and with the fact that Fisher has glowing goggles. Isn’t it rather odd that Fisher isn’t given the option to turn off the glowing goggles so that someone couldn’t actually see that glow? If anyone is anyone, they can see a set of glowing goggles in the dark, considering that’s what they’re for anyway. Ubisoft should’ve paid more attention to that and changed it accordingly. Splinter Cell is supposed to be a challenging franchise since it’s of the stealth genre, but when you are given an unfair advantage over your enemies, that challenge is practically null and void.

To make matters worse, your weapons just look pitiful. It’s sad enough that you only have a pistol and submachine gun available at your disposal in terms of guns. But both just look so shoddy and not even like guns it’s unreal. It almost looks as if all the textures and polygons constructed in the design of the guns were meshed together so both look like entirely one object. Sure it is nice to see both weapons have that “cocking back” in allowing you to see the fired bullet casings come out of them, but that doesn’t make up for poor overall design. They don’t always look terrible depending on the lighting around you, but more often than not they will like nothing more than run together textures.

Overall, Chaos Theory could’ve had a far better graphical presentation on the GameCube version. Ubisoft just seemed to be incredibly lazy in delivering this package to us, which begs you to wonder why they even bothered in the first place. They didn’t even seem to try to use the GameCube’s graphical capability to its fullest, so just what were they doing? The whole game doesn’t look terrible, keep that in mind, as a few missions actually have pretty good looking environments and cosmetic appeal. But in an overall sense, Chaos Theory for the GameCube just doesn’t do enough to satisfy.

Thankfully, Chaos Theory gets a little boost to the graphics presentation’s poorly delivered feel in offering some great voice acting and fairly well-done music and sound effects. Just about every character in the game is given a voice role. This includes yourself talking to Third Echelon and enemies, enemies talking to each other or enemies saying various phrases as they possibly detect your presence. No matter what the scenario, all of it was done very well. Fisher’s voice has returned yet again, and does a great job again. He has that same older aged man, gruff and intimidating voice. He can utilize that voice as he pleases to rip information out of enemies he grabs a hold of. Then hearing enemy voices and their various dialects during interrogation is another very nice touch. It is a shame to not see their mouths move, but hearing their fear and human expression through their voices helps to make up for it somewhat.

It can also be rather humorous to hear the things they say as they sense you around them but can’t pinpoint your location. At first they may say things like “Did I just hear/see something?” to the more expressions of extreme fear. The most laughable line is probably something alone the lines of “Ok, I hate to admit it now, but I’m scared!” Hearing that phrase for the first time can give anyone a nice chuckle, as it’s you being the cause of it. This voice acting between you and the enemies is coupled with great sound effects. You can do one of three things when approaching an enemy from behind to grab or not grab them. One is grabbing them and then knocking them out by quickly cutting off their air supply. Another is coming up behind them, drawing your knife quickly and stabbing them in the spine. Yes, quite painful sounding. Finally, you can also knee them in the back if you don’t knock them out with a chokehold while holding onto them.