GAME CLEAR No. 52 -- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell (2002, Multiplatform)

Developer: Ubi Soft Montreal
Publisher: Ubi Soft, Microsoft Game Studios
Clear Date: 9/19/2021
Clear Platform: Xbox Series X via Backwards Compatiblity

This marks my second completion of an original Xbox game supported through Series X backwards compatibility. I still think it’s neat that I can just put an original disk in and play it in a nicer format. So I continue to give props to that.

Unfortunately, I didn’t love the game.

As a big fan of Metal Gear, I thought I would surely enjoy one of the widely acclaimed stealth series it directly inspired. Splinter Cell does some good stuff, but ultimately its jank made it too difficult to enjoy, which is not something I say often.

The basic premise of Splinter Cell is very similar to Metal Gear indeed. Lone operative Sam Fisher must go solo behind enemy lines (with advanced remote support) and perform his missions without leaving any evidence he was ever there. Splinter Cell even takes it a step further, with many missions ending in immediate failure if Sam kills any of the enemies. I really like that part, as I often play pacifist runs of Metal Gear as well! The game even introduces the visibility meter (which MGS3 would later implement as “camo index”) as a core gimmick taking advantage of then-cutting-edge lighting tech that still looks decent today. Sadly these interesting mechanics don’t amount to much when the game is just frustrating as hell.

The core problem is that enemies are too god damn easy to alert, and you are fucked if you do alert them. Step on the wrong thing in total darkness in a corner, and you could very easily have a guard that previously had no idea you were there do a god damn 180 and empty his clip into you without missing a single shot. Shit just sucks! What this means is that you have to be excruciatingly deliberate with every move you make and agonize over guard patterns. Even on the hardest difficulties of Metal Gear (including the ones that game over when spotted), I never got this frustrated. Perhaps the biggest issue here is that checkpoints are somewhat weirdly and inconsistently spaced. Sometimes I’d get through a single room and hit another one, other times it seemed like I’d run a gauntlet of cameras, hazards, and guards before I’d hit the next one. It got frustrating enough that I eventually just resorted to a guide so I could beat the game.

But I don’t know, maybe I’m just bad! I got the impression from some of the environments that they were trying to open up player freedom in a way earlier, fixed-camera Metal Gear games did not allow, but I just felt like I was constantly fuckin’ up. Again, maybe I’m just bad.

Ugh. Really wanted to like this game. I got the next two in the series at a secondhand store recently too because they were only a couple bucks. Not much lost if I never play them, but maybe they’re significantly improved? But if I have to struggle through Pandora Tomorrow like I did with this one, I’m not sure I’ll finish it.

Oh, and a final though, this game is post-9/11 as hell!!! Lots of ends-justify-the-means propaganda and shit lol. Sort of equal parts interesting and depressing as a time capsule.