Upon returning from a mission to a would-be missile silo in the snowy north, Sam discovers that his daughter has been killed in a car accident. With nothing to lose, Fisher asks for the most dangerous assignment the NSA has to offer. It's up to you to infiltrate a domestic terrorist operation, gain their trust by working for them and then take them down from the inside. The story telling has obviously been given more attention to this time around as it’s much easier to follow and generally more interesting thanks to the fact you’re so involved with the enemy. Splinter Cell has always suffered from identity problems in regards to its main ‘bad guy’ characters - often using forgettable foreign names, it’s always been easy to lose track as to who is actually who. In Double Agent however, you’re right alongside these characters for most of the game, so their names and faces are soon etched into your brain.
The game begins with a somewhat James Bond-esque, film-style prologue chapter as it throws you in at the deep end with the kind of base-infiltration mission the series is known for. Sam, for the most part, controls the same as he ever has. Movement and camera manipulation are controlled via the sticks, jumping and crouching are on the Y and B buttons respectively, and your weaponry is selected using the X button. As you would expect, Fisher has a useful selection of weapons and gadgets at his disposal. His trusty SC-20K automatic rifle returns, complete with gadgets like sticky cameras, airfoil rounds, and sticky shockers, as well as more lethal attachments for shotguns, sniping scopes and grenade launchers. You also have a silenced pistol for when stealthy killing is needed, which of course comes complete with the ever-useful OCP secondary function that made its debut in Chaos Theory, and that gives you the ability to temporarily disable any electrical devices, such as lights or cameras, etc.
Hands up or I'll shoot!
Chaos Theory also introduced the R-Trigger knife attack, and that also makes a return here, alongside a new L-Trigger striking attack giving you the option of avoiding killing your enemy for a better score. Despite this, the knife is still useful, as there are plenty of opportunities to cut through chain fences or slash the power cables to an electrified gate. Some changes have been made to your light detector (which is now just a green/yellow/red light), while the sound meter is gone altogether. On the flipside you now have access to a radar that will detect the position of any surrounding people as long as you are stationary. This is a hugely welcome addition, given how intelligent enemies now are. They’ve got better eyesight and better hearing than ever before. They'll notice turned off lights or when their friends have gone missing. They'll also act realistically at times - they have conversations, smoke cigarettes, yawn, and even sneeze. It all helps build up the realistic feel of the game no end.
The missions in Double Agent are by far the most varied the series has offered, taking you all over the world. Hotels in Shanghai, military frigates out at sea, snowy wastelands of Iceland, Mexican cruise ships and even dusty West African cities all feature. Not only does it offer the player more diverse environments to play around in, but it also moves the game away from the strictly night-time based missions of the previous games. There are still some missions that follow past trends - the cruise ship and Shanghai levels especially wouldn’t feel out of place amongst any of the missions in Chaos Theory - but, for the most part, you play the game in a slightly different way than before. However, there are fewer shadows to hide in when you’re on the streets of Africa in the middle of the day.
Each level has a long list of objectives for both the NSA and the JBA. It’s then up to you to decide which ones to do and which not to do in order to maintain a balance of trust with both organizations. Killing people and planting bombs for example will earn you huge respect with the JBA, but will have the opposite effect with the NSA, so be prepared for some big decision-making, none moreso than in the JBA hideout missions. Here, you are given tasks by the JBA and a time limit in which to do them. These are pretty basic things, like completing an assault course, competing in the firing range challenge or even taking part in mini games to make explosive mines and decipher encoded emails. At the same time, you’re given objectives by the NSA, which require some flawless stealth work to carry out, as if you are discovered hacking into files or bugging electronics, it’s game over. Killing is obviously out of the question, so you have to use everything else at your disposal to collect finger prints, record voice samples and obtain key codes in order to complete these objectives without setting off alarms. This is stealth in its purest form.
Whatever you do, do not look down.
The game isn’t without its problems though. The fact that 4 of the 10 missions in the game take place in the JBA base is somewhat disappointing. You do visit completely different areas of the building in each one so it’s not as repetitive as it sounds, but it does make you wish there were one or two more missions. The 3D map is a mess and is practically useless. After Metroid Prime, there really is no excuse for bad 3D maps. The camera has problems, too. Considering it’s 100% adjustable, you wouldn’t think it would cause any trouble, but it often sticks itself too close to Fisher and you can’t see where you’re going as a result. Enemy AI, especially on ‘Hard’, can be unpredictable and has a habit of spotting you even when you’re not making a sound and are in complete darkness.
Another complaint worth mentioning is how the game maybe punishes you a little too much from time to time. For example, shooting a light out with your silenced pistol now triggers alarms while knocking out a guard by slamming a door in their face has the same effect. It seems a bit of waste giving you these abilities only to punish you for using them. The same goes for how the mission scoring works now: previously, you would lose points if you killed, whereas now you even lose points for using non-lethal tactics on enemies, which seems a little too tough. One final beef we have, although minor, is how little use your vision modes are used in Double Agent. Using thermal and night vision has always played a big part in the Splinter Cell games, but given how the environments are generally much lighter now, your goggles are used far less often.
The presentation is of the usual high standard we’ve come to expect from Ubisoft these days. Graphically, the game isn’t quite up there with Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, probably because this is essentially an Xbox game engine so it won’t be until the next game that our socks will well and truly be blown off, but considering Chaos Theory was arguably the best-looking game on the Xbox, it comes as no surprise that Double Agent has many moments of beauty. The diversity and beauty of the environments are hard to fault, and the use of lighting and shadows are better than ever before. The character models are much improved, especially on the facial features, and gone is the waxy-looking Fisher of the previous game, even if the animation is mostly the same stuff we saw 18 months ago. The framerate is around 30fps and is solid for the majority of the game, with only a few minor drops here and there.
Everyone needs a hug sometime.
Audio-wise, the game is equally outstanding. The soundtrack isn’t quite as memorable as Chaos Theory’s terrific score but it fits the game just as well. Audio clues are used cleverly throughout the game, so you can actually tell by the music alone whether you've been discovered or merely if a guard has been alerted by something you did. The sound effects are authentic and the use of 5.1 is some of the best ever, with the noise of each guard soundbyte, each gunshot and each footstep accurately relayed from their respective positions, all of which help create superb ambience. The game’s voice acting on the whole is the best the series has offered, and Sam is packed full of fantastic one liners once again.
A big part of the series since Pandora Tomorrow has been the multiplayer, and Double Agent doesn’t disappoint. It does things a little differently this time around, removing all weapons from spies but speeding up their movement and improving their athletic abilities. This lends the game a much faster pace, and is arguably better for it, especially given the insane amount of vents and tiny passageways found throughout each level. The game modes have been simplified to follow a ‘download a file’ theme where spies have to download files from any of the 4 computer stations hidden in each of the 8 levels. Once you’ve downloaded a file you then have to take it all the way back to your base in order to score points. Multiplayer is not only versus but can be played in co-op against the CPU too. In the Challenge mode, you have to score as many points as you can to win medals. Initially it works much like the versus mode, but as you progress there are many variations that, for example, require you to download 25% from each node before you can return as well as competing against other spies by seeing who can download the most.
Unfortunately it’s the lack of real co-op that holds it back from being as good as its predecessor. Co-op in Chaos Theory was such a great addition, it feels like they’ve taken a step backwards by not including it here when really they should have been improving on it. That said, there’s still plenty of content here. The multiplayer is more user-friendly and the co-op challenges offer a lot for those who aren’t interested in human opposition. The single player campaign is around 10 to 15 hours long on the normal setting, plus the quest for 100% on each level should take a fair while too. The fact that you unlock gadgets as you go along means you are bound to want to play earlier missions with your new gear - the full colour night vision goggles are especially useful.
Although not without its faults, Splinter Cell: Double Agent is a fantastic game. Overall, it's not quite the complete package that Chaos Theory was, but it deserves credit for trying something a bit different this time around, even if the changes weren’t entirely successful ones. Few games recreate the sense of tension the way that the Splinter Cell games do, and this latest version does it incredibly well. All too often you’ll find you have forgotten to breathe for the past 20 seconds as you were creeping along a wall past two guards or cracking into a safe just yards away from an unsuspecting guard. Games that can do that are always the ones worth playing most. Make sure you don't miss out.
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