Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Review

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Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

Review by DavoMay 2005

Tom Clancy’s Haunter of the Dark

The world is a dangerous place. Terrorists, religious fanatics and dictators seek every opportunity to destroy the free world.  Iraq. Iran. Syria. Afghanistan. These countries evoke images of car bombings, terrorist kidnappings and insurgent attacks. The most unstable country of all, however, may be North Korea with its dogged pursuit of nuclear weapons. North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Il, revels in hysterical proclamations that war between the Koreas is an inevitable outcome of U.S. aggression and imperialism.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory imagines a near future in which North Korea attacks an American military target as a prelude to sending its troops streaming across the South Korean border to capture Seoul and eject the U.S. from the Korean peninsula.  North Korea may not be working alone, however. A massive Asian conspiracy is afoot, with China, North Korea, South Korea and Japan all maneuvering behind the scenes to advance their own causes at the expense of U.S. interests. What is the official U.S. response to this morass?  Fire up the nukes and launch a preemptive nuclear strike against North Korea. The only thing that can stop the nukes and uncover the real motives behind the North Korean attack is the super-secret U.S. spy organization, Fifth Echelon.

Chaos Theory puts the player in the third-person shoes of Fifth Echelon’s top operative, Sam Fisher. Fisher is a jaded assassin skilled in the deadly arts necessary to infiltrate foreign nations and gain access to their most precious secrets. Playing as Fisher, you’ll creep unseen through the shadows, breaking into foreign government buildings, capturing enemies, interrogating them for vital information and dispatching them with extreme prejudice when necessary. You’re equipped with the most advanced weaponry available: night vision, remote cameras, sniper rifles, electronics neutralizers, sleeping gas, hand grenades, machine guns and more. Despite the weaponry, you have the choice in most instances of taking out your opponents using nonlethal means. The gameplay is nail-biting, gut-wrenching and nerve-wracking. You’ll creep through the shadows on the edge of your seat totally confident that you’re about to get the drop on an enemy unaware of your presence only to inadvertently trip a hidden alarm that brings a swarm of heavily armed combatants hunting after you with a vengeance. You’re silent death in the shadows but dead meat in the light.

Chaos Theory provides excellent gameplay, and it’s a good thing too because the Gamecube version of the game contains some serious flaws. The graphics in particular are a real disappointment at times, which is a shame because this game relies on its imagery like few others to deliver a compelling gameplay experience. Although this realistic feel is accomplished much of the time, it suffers in the Gamecube version because of graphical deficiencies that pop up throughout the game. Too many portions of the game are plagued by dark, glitchy graphics that are difficult to see. (A side note on the Gamecube version: If you’re wondering whether the graphical deficiencies plague the Xbox and PC versions, the short answer is “no.” I haven’t played the PS2 version at all, so I can’t comment on it. This review is based entirely on the Gamecube version, which also lacks many of the online and cooperative features common to the other versions.)

The Gamecube controller also presents a few problems. It isn’t always up to the task of letting you do what you want to do as quickly as you need to do it.

A lesser but still significant problem common to all versions of Chaos Theory is the story. Although it is steeped in horrifically plausible real-life events, it’s meted out in a rushed and abbreviated style that doesn’t really create a resonant emotional hook. It’s not a bad story—it just ends up feeling unnecessary. It’s a lot of hot air that does little more than provide you with minimal motivation for traveling to exotic places and killing people.

In spite of its flaws, Chaos Theory manages to offer players an incredibly exciting experience. The game excels at forcing you into tense situations that require you to creep behind a guard in the shadows hoping he won’t detect you before you can slip an arm around his neck and drag him into the darkness for interrogation.  Chaos Theory focuses on stealth over gunplay, even during those moments when you’re running and gunning. You can sometimes succeed by charging in with guns blazing, but you’ll always need to return to the shadows to survive. If you get any kind of thrill from sneaking through the shadows armed to the teeth and catching enemies off-guard, you’ll enjoy the game immensely.

Your Mission, Should You Decide to Accept It …

Chaos Theory is a third-person mission-based action stealth game. You begin each mission with a series of objectives that you must complete to finish the level. The objectives you receive are varied and compelling. They range from interrogations to kidnappings to rescues to assassinations. Many times, the intelligence you gather leads to midlevel mission changes that flesh out the story and add an element of urgency. You may start out gathering information by hacking into a computer to discover an enemy leader’s motives only to have that information trigger the need to assassinate said leader immediately.

A lot of the fun in the game comes through your interactions with the environment. The game itself is mostly linear. Each level, however, permits a number of ways to complete your objectives. You may decide to pick a lock on a side door and slip into a building quietly.  Alternatively, you could shoot out a light bulb to lure a guard away from the front door, grab him for a little interrogation, and then dispatch him before slipping inside. Or you might decide to take out a guard with a silenced bullet to the head or a nonlethal projectile. Then again, you might find a pipe on the side of the building that permits access to the interior duct system on the roof. You have a great deal of freedom in how you choose to complete each level.

The game promotes this open-ended approach by offering you three weapons and equipment selections at the beginning of each level.  The Stealth Kit provides you with a wide selection of devices like cameras, sleeping gas, plastic bullets and other silent equipment.  The Assault Kit offers a variety of mostly lethal weapons like sniper rifles, shotguns, hand grenades and extra ammunition. Redding’s Recommendation, named after your weapons provider, offers a mix of the Stealth and Assault kits. This kit gives you a little of everything, permitting many opportunities for stealth while still providing the means for an all-out assault when you feel so inclined.

The most important piece of equipment is your visor, which permits you to switch among three modes. Night vision enhances your sight in totally dark environments, bathing everything in a soft green hue. Thermal mode lets you see the heat emanating from objects, especially humans. EMF mode blacks out everything except electrical items like hidden video cameras and light sources. Judicious use of the goggles is critical to your success because you play in mostly dark environments. It’s also a total blast to tiptoe through a pitch-black room with your night vision on and sneak up on a nervous guard who can’t see you at all.

You have a wide variety of moves and attacks at your disposal that further support the game’s open-ended mission design. You can sneak around undetected, attack from behind with a knife or a fist, hang from ceiling pipes, hack into computer networks, shoot light bulbs, open doors silently, bash doors into unsuspecting guards, disable electronics, use enemies as human shields and distract opponents with environmental objects. The sheer number of moves available promotes a real sense of experimentation and freedom while still supporting different playing styles. The Gamecube has one move not available on the Xbox or PC: the water grab. You can crouch down in any pool of water deep enough to hide you, grab an unsuspecting enemy as he walks by and drown him. You don’t get to use it very often, but it’s thrilling when you do.

Most of the game’s moves are easy to perform with the Gamecube controller. Creeping around silently is no problem at all. Switching weapons, however, can be a real pain. There aren’t enough buttons on the Gamecube controller, and the manual doesn’t adequately explain the necessary manipulations. I had a 15-minute wrestling match with my controller before I figured out how to install the sniper attachment.  It requires a combination of button presses that just isn’t explained adequately in the manual.

The enemy A.I. is excellent. Enemies will react appropriately to your presence. If an enemy spots you or sees you moving, he’ll come looking for you with reinforcements. Enemies alerted to your presence will sound alarms, hide behind objects, work in groups, and even try to outflank you.

The single-player portion of the game contains 10 missions, each of which takes about 60 to 90 minutes to complete. My fastest mission time was 67 minutes, and my longest mission lasted 109 minutes.  Add another three or four hours for reloading after death, capture or blowing a mission objective, and you have a single-player game that clocks in at approximately 15 hours. Each of the individual missions, with one notable exception, maintains the excitement and tension until the end of the level. The exception is the North Korea level, which has you maneuvering for two hours through a series of dark, boring, rectangular warehouses.

The game allows you to save anywhere, but the Gamecube version has only one save slot that you have to keep overwriting. In addition, loading times for the saves are horrendously long. It would have been great to have at least a few save slots for those moments when you realize too late that you’ve saved after blowing one of the optional missions. Once again, Xbox and PC gamers get the goodies because they have unlimited saves.

The optional mission objectives, by the way, have no real effect on the outcome of the game. The game ranks you in terms of how effective you are at completing your objectives and moving through the levels stealthily. Failure to complete the optional objectives, however, has no impact on the game other than to lower your ranking. It’s not as if a high ranking unlocks weapons, levels, new challenges or anything else. Still, many of the optional objectives were fun to complete because they offered unique challenges.

Mr. Fisher—Will You Tell Me a Bedtime Story?

Despite the developer’s efforts at creating a compelling back story through between-level movies and mission briefings, it’s nothing more than a piece of scenery that frames the gameplay. If the movies and mission briefings were removed completely, it would not detract from the game at all. The game could have delivered the same information through in-game communications between Fisher and his handlers a lot more efficiently and effectively.

The story begins with a Korean/Chinese blockade against Japan and the simultaneous theft of a cutting-edge technology that allows its holder to hack into any computer or bypass any security system.  The hunt for this technology takes you through terrorist camps in South America and a blackout in New York, eventually requiring you to travel to Asia after a successful North Korean attack on a supposedly undetectable U.S. missile cruiser. Although the missile is launched from North Korea, the North Koreans may not be responsible for the attack. The Chinese, the South Koreans or the Japanese may be in possession of the stolen technology and manipulating the attack behind the scenes. This is a great setup for a techno-thriller, but it never reaches its potential.

The story is doled out in animated cutscenes and mission briefings.  The animation in the cutscenes ranges from very good to jerky and unrealistic, while the mission briefings are delivered by smeared static portraits. The story moves from one narrator to the next without pause, giving everything a rushed feel. It’s almost like an MTV video editor got hold of the game and decided to tell the story with a strobe light. The initial story about the hunt for the stolen technology isn’t all that interesting, although there are a few intriguing twists and turns involving a former spy who used to be Fisher’s comrade. The storytelling becomes more problematic when it switches to the Korean crisis because the rapid-fire storytelling doesn’t give you any chance to make an emotional connection with the horrific events unfolding in Korea. If you told me tomorrow that North Korea had just invaded Seoul and China was urging the world to butt out, I’d have a horrible sinking feeling in deepest recesses of my stomach. Would this mean nuclear war is inevitable?  Would it mean we were at war with China? Would the United States be attacked? I never experienced any of these fears during the game because of the rushed presentation.

Besides, the story doesn’t really matter. Chaos Theory is about the journey rather than the destination. The story works best when it focuses on delivering the barest information you need to complete your objectives. It is immensely satisfying when you complete a difficult task and obtain information that advances the story.  This sense of satisfaction makes the between-level movies and mission briefings seem unnecessary and intrusive. As Fisher, you’re a nearly invincible shadow of death. The excitement for you comes through the successful completion of a mission objective that yields valuable information. It’s so exciting to advance the story through your in-game actions that you almost feel cheated when you have to sit through a poorly animated movie or mission briefing. I endured every movie and briefing dutifully, suppressing an urge every time to hammer on the A button and get back to the game.

The interactions that draw us in, at least in terms of story, are the ones that take place between Fisher and his environment. Many of the enemies yield not only valuable information, but also priceless little snippets that linger long after the game ends. My favorite moment occurred when I grabbed a guard in a Japanese pagoda in a choke hold only to have him begin blathering loudly that I was a ninja and he knew that ninjas really existed. I was trying to sneak into a creaky bamboo building filled with enemies and this ninja-worshipping guard was attracting unwanted attention. I squeezed a little harder and threatened to kill him if he didn’t quiet down.  His enthusiastic response: “Cool! I’m going to be killed by a ninja.”

My Eyes!

The graphics in the Gamecube version of Chaos Theory are, at times, disappointingly mediocre. I’ll take gameplay over graphics any day, but the Splinter Cell games rely on the high quality of their graphics to create a realistic environment befitting the real-world setting. You’re engaged in the dirty work of espionage and assassination. Chaos Theory excels when it places you in a contemporary setting that looks and feels completely realistic.  The game relies on hyper-realistic graphics to create that realism. 

The most noticeable problem is that everything is too dark. It’s true that the entire game takes place in the dark, but do you have to struggle to see the events on the screen because the game renders everything in pitch-black hues? You need to see the game to enjoy it.

Then there are the glitches. The frame rate drops at random moments.  Lights flicker on and off when you turn one way or another. The camera occasionally catches on the scenery or flies straight into Fisher’s head (surprisingly, it’s empty).

It becomes even more disappointing if you compare it to the Xbox or PC versions, which look about the same except for the higher screen resolutions on the PC. The lighting is the best example of the disparity in graphical quality between the PC/Xbox versions and the Gamecube game. On the Xbox and PC, light washes over the characters and the settings, creating realistic shadows and highlighting darkened areas conducive to stealth. The lighting in the Gamecube version looks like a swarm of insects or a cloud of smoke filled with weird rings spinning in the air. It’s not very realistic, and it doesn’t always permit you to identify shadowy areas that allow you to sneak about unseen.

It’s a shame because the Gamecube is capable of graphics as good as anything on the Xbox. Have you seen Resident Evil 4?

The Sounds of Silence

Sound is a critical component of Chaos Theory and just about as important as the visuals. You spend most of your time trying to infiltrate enemy territory unnoticed. Sneaking around undetected in combat boots requires you to move slowly and carefully to avoid attracting attention. Guards will hear you if you try to run past them in the darkness, and if they do hear you, they’ll start hunting for you. You also have to be aware of what kind of surface you’re walking on. Your boots will rap loudly on concrete if you walk in anything but the slowest crouch. Wood floors creak. Other surfaces produce appropriate sounds when walked on. You can also whistle and whisper to guards to attract their attention or try to lure them away from a group of enemies.

Michael Ironside of Scanners and Highlander fame does a great job providing the voice of Fisher. His deep, raspy growl fits the character perfectly.

Although there is some music in the game, it’s primarily used to alert you that you’ve been spotted. It’s fast-paced and appropriate but mostly forgettable.

It’s Two—Two—Two Spies in One

Chaos Theory for the Gamecube has an awesome cooperative mode that is a blast to play but mostly irrelevant because it’s so short. Each of the four cooperative levels can be completed in 20 to 30 minutes. It’s a shame that these levels are so short because it’s great fun to work through the cooperative mode with a teammate.

Cooperative mode is played in split-screen with each player serving as a Splinter Cell operative in training. You’ll work together with moves available only in cooperative mode. You can stand on each other’s shoulders, climb up to otherwise unreachable areas and take out guards using team tactics.

The first cooperative level in Seoul is by far the best because it connects to events in the single-player game. At one point during the single-player game in Seoul, you get a request to interrogate an enemy officer for the benefit of two other agents working in the area. It turns out that those two agents are the very ones you play in cooperative mode. It’s great fun to see these events from two different points of view.

This Review Will Self-Destruct in Five Seconds

Chaos Theory gives a compelling gameplay experience that suffers a bit from a weak narrative and a failure to make consistent use of the graphical power of the Gamecube. Even with its flaws, it’s one of the best games available for the Gamecube and definitely a game not to be missed by fans of stealth-based action games. If you have an Xbox or a capable PC, however, you should really play this game on one of those platforms to take advantage of the superior graphics and more robust online modes. The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Ubisoft Publisher: Ubisoft Release Date: March 28, 2005

Available for: Game CubeWindowsXboxPlayStation 2

Four Fat Chicks Links

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Screenshots

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System Requirements

Windows 2000/XP AMD Athlon or Intel Pentium III 1.4 GHz (Athlon or Pentium IV 2.2 GHz recommended) 256 MB RAM (512 MB recommended) 64 MB DirectX® 9.0c-compliant graphics card (128 MB recommended) DirectX 9.0c-compliant sound card (EAX 2.0 or higher recommended) DirectX 9.0c (included on disc) 4X DVD-ROM drive 4 GB free hard disk space Windows-compatible mouse and keyboard only Multiplay: 64 Kbps broadband (128 Kbps recommended)

Where to Find It

Links provided for informational purposes only.  FFC makes no warranty with regard to any transaction entered into by any party(ies).

      Copyright © Electric Eye Productions.  All rights reserved.  No reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission.

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17 Responses to First Impressions: Heavy Rain

  • Toger

    I hate QTEs, but Heavy Rain is sitting in my Amazon cart waiting for me to push the button. I don’t even own a PS3, but I plan on buying the game anyway. I do have a good friend who’ll let me play at his house. Of course, I’ll have to drive 100 miles, one way, through the snow to get to his house. His chat-happy birds will cheerfully chirp thereby completely disrupting any atmosphere, but I can play.

  • David

    What!?  Heavy Rain is full of QTEs?  I totally did not see that coming.

    The whole dad experience thing sounds intriguing.  I’m already getting odd looks from my girlfriend for exclaiming over cute kids on the bus or at the mall, something like what you described might send my biological clock over the edge.

  • Lewis B

    My sentiments exactly David!

    Mat has been playing the Heavy Rain demo for a while now, and although he admits he is intrigued by the story, he does constantly complain about the control method.

    R2 + Analogue stick to run? *scoff*

  • Gregg B

    @Lew: DEMO?! PS3 DEMO?! *runs off to PS3*

    That sounds like the Batman: Arkham Asylum controls – Crazy Bonkers Design. The sort of design that puts pull handles on push doors.

    @Steerpike: “I despise children. They are disgusting and annoying. They knock things over. They interfere with everything. They’re not useful until they’re at least 13, when you can get them to mow the lawn and stuff. But you can pay a service to do that for just a few hundred bucks a year and the service won’t vomit on you, shit in its diapers, grow up to resent you, or otherwise suck. Don’t flame me and don’t post comments to the contrary: kids are repulsive. Why anyone would want them is beyond my feeble imaginings.”

    HAHAhahaha- I er, – hahahaha – you’re as outspoken as me about demon spawn children.

  • Lewis B

    Yeah its been on the internet for weeks and weeks Greggi.  I think you have to do a couple of online puzzles etc to get the appropriate code or something.

    Search on Kotaku, they first ran with it IIRC.

  • Mat

    The puzzle code was for early access before it hit the PSN Store. It’s been available to all since last week.

    Regarding the demo, it took me around 3 or 4 attempts at it to appreciate it. First time around I couldn’t have been more dissapointed by it, but after the 3rd or 4th I decided I wanted to stick with it. I don’t think the demo is a particularly great example of what the game supposedly does best either – choice. I also HATE the control scheme and some of the voice acting is so wooden. Creating an immersive, realistic game is fine but having characters stumbling into tables and fridges because of the ham fisted controls, and listening to French voice actors impersonate Americans does remove that realism a little!

    Still, I rushed out to buy it this morning and will rush home from work to play it in about an hour!

  • xtal

    @ Toger: I don’t own a PS3 either, and it’s not like Heavy Rain seems to be “that” game which makes you run out and buy one– like Bioshock made me run out and get a 360– and it’s also not like this game looks groundbreaking in any way, because it really doesn’t. It’s just got me curious…and people tend to do crazy things the week after they get their yearly bonus. Soooooo yeah, who knows; maybe I’ll own a PS3 soon, but like hell I would admit that it was for Heavy Rain. Psh. I’d tell people it was because I wanted to watch BSG on blu-ray; though anyone who knows me would see right through that lie since I am an avid non-format-upgrader: I’ll switch my BSG collection from DVD to blu-ray the day I upgrade my copy of Jurassic Park from VHS to DVD. (Hint: never)

  • Toger

    @xtal: I’m in no hurry to upgrade my meagre DVD collection to blu-ray either, but I have to say the movies I’ve watched on my friend’s PS3 are absolutely stunning. Blade Runner was simply breath-taking in blu-ray and it made me want a PS3. I don’t think Heavy Rain will be a system seller for me, but I’m betting the game from the Ico team will.

  • xtal

    A game from the Ico team, you say? Hmmm. I’ve been making rounds on Kijiji and Craigslist looking for a copy of Ico (eBay prices are so shudder-inducing) for a few days now. I really need to play that game after my experience with the indescribable Shadow of the Colossus.

    It’s good to know they haven’t died some Interplay-esque death in the meantime.

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Nope, they’re a small team that works within Sony. Fumito Ueda is the lead and he’s got like ten or so people who’ve worked with him on all his games. Sony pretty much lets them do what they want.

    The Last Guardian is the game that’s coming up from them. It looks more like Ico and less like Shadow of the Colossus to me, which is to say it appears to be focused on platform elements. If I didn’t already have a PS3, it’d be the game that sells it.

  • Gregg B

    @Toger: Ooh, Blade Runner on Blu-ray, gorgeous in all its gorgeosity. In 5.1 it sounds incredible too.

    I bought my PS3 for Team Ico’s unnamed-at-the-time game, Heavy Rain (back when it was just a teaser), LittleBig Planet (yes, yes, I know), Dead Space and Motor Storm: Pacific Rift which sort of pushed me off the fence.

  • Toger

    Gregg, oh yes. The surround sound was spectacular. Did I mention my friend’s HDTV is 72″ (obscene, isn’t it)? It’s like being at a high-class theatre: better food, pauses for bathroom breaks and no one talking through the movie.

    Is Trine up on PSN, yet? If so, that might be my tipping point: Last Guardian, Heavy Rain and Trine.

  • Gregg B

    *spits tea out, despite not drinking any*

    O_O

    72″?! I’m speechless. I can only imagine how awesome that is. Size does matter.

    Not so sure about Trine… hang on. I think it is.

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    I think it is too, Toger. I’ll check.

    To be honest, though, I doubt you’d be disappointed with the purchase even if Trine’s not there yet. I’ve been way happier with my PS3 than with my 360. Demon’s Souls, Valkyria Chronicles, Uncharted, Folklore, even little games like Flower – I’ve had more concentrated fun with the PS3 than with Microsoft’s console, which tends to gather dust for months between game releases.

    72″???? I thought size didn’t matter!

  • Toger

    Size doesn’t matter. 😀

    In my friend’s defense, it was a great deal: opened box, itty-bitty scratch on the case, not a dead pixel to be seen and it was less $$ than the 60″ he originally wanted.

    Thanks for checking guys. I’ve played a tiny bit of Uncharted, but I’m horrible at the combat. Flower intrigues me. As does Demon’s Souls, but I know that game will crush my soul.

  • Gregg B

    There were certain moments in Flower where it just totally succeeded in conveying a feeling that I can’t say I’ve had in many other games, usually when rushing across a field through the grass or through a canyon or just skimming a pond, but it was never anything to do with collecting bloody petals or fulfilling some rudimentary puzzle. I think my problem with it was that it felt like it was trying to be this deeply emotional piece but in the end there seemed to be too many concessions to being a game rather than just running with the emotive side of the experience. One thing I am sure about though, is the trophies. Don’t get me started on the fucking trophies…

    One of my favourite little games on the PS3 is Everyday Shooter. It’s got a brilliant soundtrack that suits its raw visual style and I love how each level requires a certain tactic or strategy to survive it. It’s a very satisfying game in small bursts.

  • Hanover

    Unfortunately Cage mucked up the ending yet again.  The problem is that the mechanic of the game forced them to have to cheat in order to prevent spoiling the mystery of the game.

    There is also a red herring that makes no sense and is obviously put there to misdirect the player.

    90% of the game is awesome, the last 10% while not as bad as the indigo prophecy, is still sloppy.

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