I am really disappointed. No, more than that, I’m gutted. I feel betrayed, deserted, let down. I’ve been a big fan of Splinter Cell since the original. I’ve clocked at least 500 hours on the previous three games. Yes, over 500 hours. I play the levels so much I know every guards every habit, I know the dialogue by heart and cameras are nothing more than scenery to my learned fingers. So I scraped the proverbial barrel of my wallet to buy the latest incarnation, Double Agent. Admittedly it’s only the Xbox version, but surely there shouldn’t be too much difference between them. So I got the game, ripped off the packaging and I was away. One week later here’s my review.

The beginning was good. It felt like splinter cell and played like splinter cell, for a while anyway. Then I began losing my sense of hope. This wasn’t splinter cell. Not by a long shot. Even Pandora Tomorrow, the weakest of the previous three games, was better than this and that was saying something. Matt Brett wrote on his blog how this was the first SC game he actually enjoyed, and that probably sums up why I didn’t like it. I like the challenge, I like the visceral feel of invading a foreign area and having to cautiously move through it. Not having everything handed to me. Let me start with my biggest gripes first.

The map. Introduced in Chaos Theory and built upon in Double Agent. I hated it in Chaos Theory because even then it gave too much away. Half of this game is Tomb Raider style searching, slowly moving through rooms trying to find switches, passage, crawl spaces. Give the player and a map with directions and you might as well just show them where all the bad guys are as well while you’re at it. Oh wait, that’s just what they’ve done in DA. Yes, you’re friendly map now highlights all nearby enemies ala Hitman. What a fucking crap addition. Erm, I wonder if the room ahead is safe? Could there be three guards waiting just around the corner? I know, let’s check the map! What the hell where they thinking, what about the gameplay experience! Sure, they’re made it much easier for new people to pick up the game and play but at the expense of turning away me and all the other die hard SC fans.

Next is the story. Or lack of. Remember this is for the Xbox version, but the point still stands. If you’re going to release half a game for a console, you might as well not bother in my opinion. I’ll begin with the choices, the much hyped feature. And probably the single most over-rated thing since Halo 2. Do I do this or that? Oh the choices, god which one should I choose! Who cares, all I get is a different cutscene at the end of the level and a few more bullets for my gun. Big whoop. I mean honestly, giving up Lambert’s identity does sod all to affect me. Where are the consequences, where are the repercussions on me?!

And now onto the graphics and levels. In the game you travel to a few places; boring, un-detailed and pathetic compared to previous outings. Iceland looked as if it had been rendered on the Half Life 1 Engine. Splinter Cell 1 was one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played, the shadows and fire just made my jaw drop when I first played it. PT, while a bit dodgy with the night vision flash, did add some impressive elements like the rain effect and CT really upped the ante. And then DA comes along and sets the entire series back to the beginning. Shadows are often inconsistent with light meter readings, the element of stealth is taken away at certain points and the constant abundance of pipes overhead in every level is baffling. The gameplay makes no sense, take the last level; there are three teams spread over three buildings. How come one team gets night vision equipment and the others don’t? Wouldn’t you, as the terrorist leader, distribute it evenly over the teams?

I certainly found myself using the more advanced moves a lot more often this time around, but after the third or fourth level they just got boring. Gone was the once every few levels chance to pull some over the edge of a ledge or crack a guys neck as he strolled below me. Now it became commonplace, and a bit silly. The entire level design felt as if it had been designed with a spy in mind first and then a structure, rather than as a level with spy enhancements as has been my impression with previous games.

I think overall my biggest complaint is simply the lack of challenge. Now I don’t mean to brag but I am good at SC games, easily getting 100% on most levels in CT on expert difficulty. But this time around I just walked through the levels. There was not a single point that I felt frustrated at. This, I am almost certain, is because of the streamlining that has taken place to make the game appeal to the masses, rather than those who liked it because it was a challenging stealth ’em up.

So here’s to hoping that Ubisoft Montreal get to make the next game and not Shanghai (who’ve made PT and DA – see a pattern). Anyway, I’m selling DA and saving up to get a 360 so maybe I’ll check out that version of the game a few months down the line.

My rating: 23%