Splinter Cell Chaos Theory Review

The chokehold sounds very realistic to what someone might vocalize if having that done to them. This is a rather nice relief too, since another popular stealth franchise in Metal Gear Solid has yet to nail that sound down. It really sounds like someone chocking for air when you do that to them, which can be very satisfying every time. When you stab them in the spine from behind, it just sounds cruel. Fisher’s blade is so razor sharp that the sound of his knife going into an enemy’s back just sounds so “clean”. It’s rather creepy, but ever so satisfying just like choking them. Kneeing them in the back isn’t quite is exhilarating, but it also gets the job done. Your guns also sound quite realistic too, which begs one to wonder why Ubisoft didn’t make them look so as well. Each weapon carries some kind of suppressor, and that device sounds like the job it was intended to do when it comes to firing a silenced gun. It’s not perfectly mute, but enough to keep certain distant guards away from you.

Finally we have the game’s music. This was an unfortunate disappointment. All the scores composed for the game just don’t sound entirely interesting. Sure hearing the theme for almost being detected sounds very dramatic and heart pounding, but after so long it begins to wear thin on you. There also isn’t a whole lot of music to the game either, at least in terms of variety. It’s normally the same stuff for every mission, and that obviously doesn’t help keep the excitement in you all the time. Some of the missions actually do carry a nice collection of immersive music, but more often than not you will end up disregarding it to focus on the actual play because it just doesn’t really do much. Sure the music you do hear can have dramatic effects like it should, but it wasn’t delivered well.

How would you like a game that is extremely repetitive in terms of the overall gameplay? Well if you do, look no further than Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Now while the objectives you have for each mission help keep the gameplay fun for the most part, you pretty much end up doing the same thing every mission. You sneak up on people to “relieve” them of their presence, or simply sneak around them if possible. Then you have your lights to worry about busting or disabling, your cameras to blind and your claustrophobic passages to utilize. Computers are also a big thing in this game, but interacting with them isn’t exactly interesting either.

Let’s start with the actual stealth aspects of the game. Fisher is given darkness, sound and ambient noise meters. The darkness meter allows you to determine just how visible Fisher is to the enemy. Sound obviously helps you to know how much noise you are making that would be detectable by nearby guards. Ambient noise is sound produced by your surrounding environment that can actually help “mask” the noise you may be making. That can help you if you want to walk a little faster than you would be otherwise, or to sneak up on guards quicker. Overall, these meters prove their use, but the sound feature does moreso than the darkness.

If you do anything from walk too hard on the ground, whistle to catch a guard’s attention or fire off one of your weapons, chances are you will be heard. The darkness meter can give you an unfair advantage because the enemy AI apparently isn’t smart enough to see someone in ‘the dark’ that is two feet in front of them. Since you have this unfair advantage, this can almost make the whole stealth aspect pointless, because just as long as you never make too much noise, you can keep yourself hidden at all times. Now granted you do have to strategize at times to keep yourself in the dark in terms of the lighting in your mission. However, most of the time that will hardly be a problem, so being caught will either happen because of your own stupidity, or because a guard somehow “miraculously” detecting your presence. Now if you aren’t that great playing stealth games that may be a different story, but even then it shouldn’t be entirely difficult. It just seems too unbalanced to make the stealth be as realistic as it could’ve been, so let’s just hope the next console generation warrants a better system for this.

Now enemy AI actually has been improved from previous versions on a certain level. This is in the sense that they think and function more like humans naturally would. This basically means anytime a guard may catch a glimpse of you or hear you walking (or whistling) nearby, they will become “suspicious”. No longer will they immediately assume that something is wrong and signal for backup or an alarm to go off, so that’s a good thing. Instead, they will first investigate the situation to see if they can confirm their suspicions, and if you keep yourself hidden well-enough during such, they will disregard what happened. However, if this continues to happen, they will discover at least someone is there, even if they don’t necessarily know it’s you. This can cause them to call for help or simply begin firing off their weapon randomly towards your direction in hopes of eliminating the threat they know is there.

You will also find yourself interrogating a lot of your enemies in missions. This is done by simply grabbing them from behind and choosing the ‘Interrogate’ option from the in-game interaction menu. This will simply start a nice conversation between Fisher and his captive. In it, most of the time the enemy will reveal useful information to you such as door codes, or how you can accomplish your objective more easily. Sometimes the conversation is for nothing more than intimidation and you get nothing out of it, but it is a nice tough to the game at least.

To help with all this, Sam can utilize his goggles in three different ways. One is thermal vision, another is night vision and the third is IMF. In the game’s campaign, thermal and night vision will probably the only ones you actually need to use. Thermal vision can help you see any nearby guards and how many there may be in the current area. Night vision obviously allows you to see better in the dark, which can help you see darkened guards and the infrared beams that certain cameras may carry. You also have your EEV (electronically enhanced vision) at your disposal. There are actually many uses for this nifty gadget. You can use it to scope out distant areas ahead with its zoom capability. You can toggle your goggle settings while using it. You can record conversations with its integrated microphone feature and you also use it as a laser designator for certain missions. To top it off, you can also receive information about scannable electronic devices. This can be anything from whether it’s affected by your OCP (optically channeled potentiator, explained shortly), or whether you can hack it through the EEV. A very nifty device that you’ll end up using quite frequently in your missions.