Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent (PC)

Being a newcomer to the whole stealth genre, my very first foray into this shadowy word was with Splinter Cell. At first I was pretty bored with the whole moving in the shadows bit, but once I really got into the thick of things, I fell for it hook, line and sinker. Pandora Tomorrow, the second game in this franchise was a pretty ‘meh’ experience, but Ubisoft really managed to redeem themselves with Chaos Theory, the third Splinter Cell game that practically re-invented the entire series. Now after Chaos Theory, Ubisoft decided to go the next gen way with Double Agent, which is fine by me, but unfortunately, this outing isn’t a very pleasant one, especially for the PC community.

Not only is this game highly demanding (and unreasonable) on the system, but it’s plagued by a truckload of technical issues that can totally put you off the game. For example, in one of the game’s missions (Shanghai level if I’m not wrong), I had to make my way to a particular room to procure certain documents and every time I approached it, I kept falling through the freaking floor and out of the hotel. Frustrating? You betcha! Want more? How about this; I screw up in one mission and get detected by an enemy who swiftly removes his gun to silence me; only thing is none of his bullets affect me and my health bar remains unaffected after being shot at with an automatic weapon for five minutes. Metropolis called, they want Superman back.

The reason I call the system requirements unreasonable is because you WILL NOT (feel the emphasis here) be able to run the game unless and until your graphic card supports Shader Model 3.0. This has got to be the stupidest move I’ve seen in a long time because Ubisoft has alienated nearly 50% (or more) of the PC gaming community with such high requirements. If that wasn’t bad enough, most of the game crawls at a painful 20 – 25 FPS constantly (even on our GeForce 7900 GTX); in fact during certain levels, it even dips down to a vomit inducing 7 - 8 FPS. I’m sorry, but this is totally unacceptable; I mean I shell out thousands on that sparkling new graphic card, and I can’t even get 30 FPS? Lame, lame LAME…
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Now that’s out of the way (and I’m a lot more calm and composed), let’s move on to the game, shall we? In Double Agent, you’ll be greeted by a highly desolate Sam Fisher who has lost his will to live; well you would too if your daughter met her untimely death in a car accident and you get a rookie killed under your watch. With suicidal tendencies getting the better of him, he undertakes a mission no sane man would, and that is infiltrating a highly nefarious terrorist organization called John Brown’s Army AKA the JBA (Dangerous? Yes; Creative? No!). Infiltrating the JBA is a chore in itself as you’ll have to bust one of their compadres out of prison to earn their trust. Once that’s done, you’re welcomed into their family and find yourself undertaking missions for both, the NSA and JBA (hence the name Double Agent).

How this works is that during every mission, you’ll have two gauges on-screen; one representing the NSA’s trust while the other depicts some JBA love and you’ll have to make sure you keep both sides happy, because if any of the gauges drop to zero, it’s game over for you. This does add an interesting twist to the whole series and forces you to make certain moral choices. For example, you’re given a pistol and made to shoot an innocent pilot as a test; do you (a) shoot him to gain the respect and trust of the JBA or (b) chicken out and show them you’re a bitch who can’t take the life of an innocent man. The first time you’ll be faced with such a ‘moral dilemma’ is when you’re exploring the JBA headquarters, which by the way is where you’ll be spending a significant amount of time gathering as much Intel against the JBA as possible. There’s no excuse for sloppiness in this game and if you get caught doing something sneaky like picking a lock or being spotted in a restricted area, its game over for you.
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Since we are talking about all the new stuff Double Agent brings to the table, you’ll be glad to know Sam is no longer afraid of the water and this newly acquired ability is used pretty well in the Okhotsk level. Since you will be spending a significant part of this level underwater, you can dispose enemies off in a variety of innovative ways; you could (a) break the ice (wherever it’s a bit thin) as and when a guard’s above it making him drown or you could (b) break the ice, pop out, grab a patrolling guard and jump back into the freezing water only to break his neck and leave his lifeless body floating in the dark. Pretty cool eh? In addition to this, the game also packs in a lot of interactive cut scenes (think Resident Evil 4) like the one that precedes the Okhotsk mission when you’re shown parachuting from the sky when suddenly your chute doesn’t open and you have to press the directional keys to pull the pin or you’ll end up a messy spot on the icy terrain. Moments like these don’t affect gameplay a whole lot, but it’s a cool touch nevertheless. Level design as always is pretty wicked and it packs a healthy variety and nearly every level can be played more than once, adding to the game’s replayability factor. Another plus point in the game’s favor is that you can progress along the storyline even if you fail your primary as well as secondary objectives in a particular level.

Unfortunately, all the above mentioned plus points are overweighed by the crappy technical issues I’ve spoken about earlier, and it really hurts me to see Ubisoft treat the PC community this way. Double Agent is a pretty cool game and can provide a pretty enjoyable experience, provided you stay away from the PC version; you’ll be a lot better off sticking to the Xbox 360 version or even the PS2 version for that matter.