Splinter Cell

Sam Fisher is a CIA Black Ops Agent codenamed "Splinter Cell" who is recruited to infiltrate the Georgian government in an effort to locate two missing US spies. He soon uncovers a political conspiracy involving presidents, hackers and so on and so forth.

Games are not known for their plots but to be honest "Splinter Cell" has a pretty good one - it's a good starting place for a Tom Clancy novel and one can imagine that Clancy had the idea once, considered it unworthy compared to his other stuff and tossed it aside and later decided to use it as a game. It's never expanded upon fully as most of the time is actually spent on gameplay, not plot...but it does have one of the best video game stories of all time.

I liked the voicework by everyone's favorite villain from "Total Recall" (Michael Ironside) but the best part of this game was the beautiful rich textures and actual gameplay. In "Splinter Cell" you do stuff I've never seen in other games - stalking villains instead of shooting them. I do like shoot-'em-ups but it's come to a point now where new stuff is welcomed - and this is great! You can climb through windows, pick locks, open doors, stalk people, grab them, interrogate them, hold them at gunpoint (and use this as a neat defensive trick when surrounded by numerous villains), etc - and instead of just using a lockpick, for example, you really do pick the lock by pressing keys on the computer keyboard! And to open doors you don't just walk up to one, you have to manually push it open.

The graphics are great, fluid movements on characters...one of the best games of all-time!

Even though the game-play is great the story implies a world view which gives me the creeps. The essential freedoms and the human rights can only be protected if the "good guy" break undermine these rights? Terrorist and unliked politicians have to be executed. Not even the government is being informed...because it is just the right thing. Even though many games use these ideas the normally don't promote them in such a naive propagandistic style.

With such naive distinction between good and evil implicating that the end always justifies the means, promotes fascistic ideas. it is a shame that such a great game is being destroyed down by the infantile world view of its designers.

game-play 4.5 out of 5 story ought better be banned

This is the first Tom Clancy Video Game I've ever played.

I'm familiar with his video games, but this one interested me the most.

Splinter Cell is taken place in an alternate late 2004. The story is similar to the real world. Including Terrisum, World in Crisis, and a war between the middle east and the USA.

You play Sam Fisher, a highly trained Agent for the NSA(National Security Agency). Your mission is to enter enemy territories and find out info and secrets on the terrorists. It's a challenging task including sneaking around in the dark, hacking into computers, disable security cameras, threaten terrorists to spill the beans, & killing off terrorists. Mission Failure is not an option in the NSA.

There are 9 missions in total with a very long game play. You can play this game for hours till you succeed in stopping the terrorism from rising.

The graphics in it are very well done. Photo realistic backgrounds, people, and objects. The light/shadow is top notch. A few cool gadgets to use, a few weapons and special Night/Thermal Vision goggles. The voice acting is great to. Plenty of catch phrases from Sam Fisher.

Those who like Tom Clancy, Stealth, or Shooting related games will like this title.

Whilst Splinter Cell might have made a pretty good game for the Xbox, it simply is not up to the standard expected by more discerning PS2 owners.

Whilst it absolutely is not in the same league as MGS (1 or 2), the game itself is actually more akin to Syphon Filter on the PS1 - which it has "borrowed" greatly from in many areas.

Most annoying of all, it keeps the S-Filter approach to stealth - in that once you are spotted then it is game over on many levels (!!) Wheras in MGS, Solid Snake had to deal with the consequences of being discovered.

So in S-Cell you find yourself repetitively going over and over the same sections of the levels.

On the levels that dont have this drawback, the AI is so stupid that you can simply charge through as if you were playing a shoot 'em up.

And as for all those fancy moves you see on the box, forget it, I completed the game and not once did I find anywhere to perform the promised moves - they simply arent required.

And also, the box says "creat your own darkness path" - ie all lights are supposed to be shootable - rubbish, very few lights are shootable.

The game is very very linear, you simply can only take the route laid out for you, you cant climb on stuff that the programmers dont want you to - even though they are low enough.

This game could have been so good ! But quite frankly it is just plain ordinary. If you have never played MGS then you might think this was pretty good, but otherwise just rent it from Blockbusters (PS2 owners) before you consider buying it.

And poor PC owners need a 1gb, 256mb, 64mb GFX PC to run this !! Talk about sloppy coding !! It runs with all the same FX on a 300MhZ PS2 - the only difference being in a lower screen rez ! When will PC programmers learn to code as efficiently as Console coders ? Probably never.

8 out of 10 - The Game That Lit the Shadows

The original Splinter Cell wasn't just a stealth game. It was a statement. Released in 2002 during a time when action-heavy titles dominated, Ubisoft's Splinter Cell did something bolder: it made you slow down. It made you think. And it brought shadows to the forefront in a way gaming hadn't truly seen before.

The Birth of Sam Fisher

This was the world's introduction to Sam Fisher, voiced with grizzled perfection by Michael Ironside - a no-nonsense operative for the NSA's ultra-covert Third Echelon. Fisher wasn't a superhero. He was a ghost. No regenerating health, no bullet-sponge bravado. Just a man, some gadgets, and a grim mission to stop a geopolitical catastrophe.

Set during a fictional uprising in Georgia (the country, not the state), the story spirals into international espionage with cyberterrorism, military coups, and the threat of global destabilization. It was a political thriller delivered with grit and realism - and it set the tone for the series.

Gameplay: Light and Shadow Redefined

Splinter Cell's greatest innovation was how it weaponized light. You weren't sneaking in darkness just for style - you needed it to survive. The light meter became your gospel, and every flickering fluorescent bulb or exposed hallway became a puzzle.

You could shoot out lights, crawl through vents, use fiber-optic cameras under doors, and deploy non-lethal gadgets like sticky shockers and ring airfoil rounds. You weren't encouraged to kill - you were encouraged to evade, extract, and disappear without a trace.

It was challenging. Brutally so, at times. But when it worked, it felt incredible. You weren't just controlling a character - you became an operative.

Level Design: Industrial, Tight, Tactical

From CIA headquarters to oil refineries and foreign embassies, the environments were tight, cleanly designed, and built to support stealth. They weren't open-ended playgrounds like later entries - they were missions, with very little room for error.

It was linear, yes, but deliberately so. Every corridor had a purpose. Every guard had a patrol path. And it was your job to crack the code without ever being seen.

Presentation & Audio

For its time, Splinter Cell was visually stunning. The use of dynamic lighting and shadows on the original Xbox and PC was a generational leap. Ubisoft built an atmosphere of tension through minimalist music, ambient sounds, and Ironside's iconic voice work.

Every interaction had weight. The sound of a guard's footsteps, the hum of a nearby security camera - it all mattered. This was immersive stealth done right.

Why 8, Not 10?

Brutal Trial and Error: The game demanded perfection, sometimes to a frustrating degree.

Limited Save System: Some missions could be punishing due to sparse checkpoints.

Linear Paths: Unlike later games in the series, there was little freedom in how you approached objectives.

No Multiplayer: This was a solo affair - and while gripping, it lacked the innovation Pandora Tomorrow would later bring with Spies vs. Mercs.

Final Verdict

8 out of 10. A foundational stealth classic.

Splinter Cell (2002) wasn't perfect, but it didn't need to be. It invented the modern stealth blueprint for Ubisoft and introduced one of the most iconic operatives in gaming. Its atmosphere, challenge, and use of shadow-based stealth were years ahead of their time.

It's not the easiest game to revisit now, but it commands respect. Without it, we wouldn't have Chaos Theory, Conviction, or any of the greatness that followed.

It's not just where Sam Fisher began - it's where an entire genre evolved.