Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent
February 5,2007 - January 27, 2007 - If Sam Fisher had hair, it would be turning grey by now. Since debuting in 2001, Splinter Cell has proven itself a game that can hang with the best of the big boys in spandex. Relying more on its action and story than cut-scenes, Double Agent proves that with a little fine-tuning you can make one of the better games for the Playstation 2.

Double Agent's fun comes from knowing and using your surroundings, since avoiding capture is the highest priority in every mission. Double Agent starts out with Sam Fisher going on a simple mission to defuse a bomb with a rookie agent. Things don’t go as planned, however, and Sam finds himself on the brink of a breakdown. To help ease the pain, Sam is put undercover within a terrorist organization preparing to detonate nuclear weapons in the United States.

Your goal is to find out as much as possible about JBA (John Brown’s Army), the aforementioned terrorist group, and try to actually fit in with them, all while performing reconnaissance missions for the NSA. This is when things get interesting. There is a "trust meter" in Double Agent. If you do a botched job for either side, you will lose all trust and ultimately fail the game. Getting caught in restricted areas of JBA's headquarters and killing people you aren’t supposed to kill affects your trust with both the NSA and JBA. Apparently, Ubisoft loves acronyms as much as we do.

Although letting the player decide what he wants to do is a novel idea, the trust meter really doesn’t play that big a role overall. Even though you could easily fail the game for breaking the simplest of rules, it is quite easy to avoid catastrophe. The missions are broken up into three basic categories: Primary objectives, which are required to complete the mission; secondary objectives, which gain you more trust with a certain group; finally, alternative or profile objectives, which basically act as a way to identify the JBA’s highest members.

The secondary and alternative objectives grant you a small gain in trust without ever really advancing the plot. Not completing these periphery missions has no effect on the core game. Still, doing some of them will net you star-objective points, which can unlock new gadgets after each mission. The primary objectives are where the whole point of the trust meter comes into play. Some primary objectives have you choosing to gain trust for the JBA or NSA. Whichever side you choose, you lose a substantial amount of trust with the other. Although you may lose nearly half of your trust for one side, it is never enough to actually fail the game. You could easily make it back by doing some secondary and alternate tasks throughout the game. The amount of forgiveness within this gameplay system is a bit disappointing.

It’s moments like these that make the game worth playing, though: hanging onto the ledge of a high-rise in Shanghai while trying to hide in shadow from strapped enemies and a hovering helicopter. Double Agent is also very accessible for newcomers to the stealth genre. The game prompts you when you need to use certain devices. If you are high on a ledge, it will give you the option to rappel down.

Whatever the situation, there is always a surprising method to dispose of your enemies. Of course, since Sam Fisher works for the NSA, killing should be kept to a minimum. That’s when you whip out his sticky shockers and zap enemies to sleep. Although killing them is much easier (and often causes you to fail some secondary objectives), it attracts a lot of attention, which is why using your non-lethal weapons, or just avoiding everyone all-together, is still the best choice.

The Splinter Cell series has always been top-notch in the visual aspects, with all the games encasing some of the most realistic and impressive graphics.  However, in the PS2's case, it fails to deliver on all fronts this time around.  Compared to the other versions, Double Agent for the PS2 definitely looks the worse, with horribly textured characters and locations that look like they were worked on for only half the time. 

The co-op has also been revamped to allow a much more evenly paced experience. Multiplayer has always been a key aspect in the Splinter Cell series. However, the PS2 version lacks any sense of online gameplay. While the co-op mode is still well intact, players can only use it offline. This seems like a major letdown especially since both Xbox versions have complete online co-op as well as mercenary vs. spy scenarios, which got cut for the PS2 version.

Splinter Cell Double Agent is a solid game with a great co-op component. Fans of a gripping storyline which includes intense action and “stealthy stealth” will no doubt enjoy this game. The lack of multiplayer and online co-op, as well as less-than-average visuals makes this game only worth a rental, with almost no redeeming replay value.

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