The Splinter Cell series.

Post by **Mozgus** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 12:54 pm

What does everyone think of it? I'm playing through all 4 right now on PC. I beat 1, midway on 2, and sampled a level from 3 and 4.

SC1: A solid game. Good music when needed. The game guides you well, and lets you know about potential risks ahead of time. I liked the story.

SC2: So far, a pretty crappy game. Controls are less reliable (he wont grab ledges when he should have), music is often just an annoyance, the mouse is laggy, the sound has had some popping issues, the nightvisions runs in a terrible low resolution mode, the story just isn't that interesting and isn't put together well. I could be on the last mission for all I know. The game really doesn't give you any indication of the importance of your current role. There is also WAY too much trial and error, rather than real strategy.

SC3: Seems like it could be the best of the bunch. Looks fantastic. Runs fantastic. Really pushes my hardware well. I can't find any bug, glitches, or gameplay quirks. A solid PC port. The new moves are very usuable. The AI seems improved. The music seems more appropriate, just like SC1.

SC4: Insanely buggy. Everyone on the UbiSoft forums are going nuts. It's nearly unplayable. The menus take forever to navigate. Load times are terrible. Performance is terrible, despite the game actually looking no better than SC3. The game takes up over 10GB, whereas SC3OK 3.7GB. The game randomly crashes, and no one can find a fix. Even running on the lowest settings doesn't seem to help. If they are able to patch this game into a solid state, then it might become a great title. The story has a lot of potential, right from the very first mission. I can't say much more unless Ubi fixes this crap.

Post by **Zork** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 4:20 pm

I was really impressed with Splinter Cell, but of course I played it on consoles so I never really experienced performance problems, I played each of them on the X-Box. I like how it's a more gritty and realistic stealth game, it's an alternative to Metal Gear and by no means am I knocking on Metal Gear, I'm a huge fan. I've yet to play Double Agent but I plan on getting it for the 360 sometime.

Post by **Mozgus** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 5:00 pm

Zork wrote:I was really impressed with Splinter Cell, but of course I played it on consoles so I never really experienced performance problems, I played each of them on the X-Box. I like how it's a more gritty and realistic stealth game, it's an alternative to Metal Gear and by no means am I knocking on Metal Gear, I'm a huge fan. I've yet to play Double Agent but I plan on getting it for the 360 sometime.

I think comparing SC to MGS is quite a stretch. That's like comparing it to Hitman and Tenchu. None of these 4 series have much in common, besides a fundamental stealth aspect.

Oh, and I don't have performance issues except with Double Agent. But everyone does. Even the people with the brand new GeForce 8's can't seem to run this game worth a damn. It's really sad. If I turn all settings to the lowest, I get 45 FPS, but it makes some parts unplayable due to graphical aspects vanishing. Like in the training level, you cant even see the walls. Everything is just solid white, when you have no shadows on.

And I just beat SC2. What a crappy, unfulfilling ending. It's obvious that the development time went into the multiplayer portion instead. Moving onto SC3....

Post by **Zork** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:23 pm

Well I was only comparing the two because honestly they're the only two big recognized stealth based games out there, whenever someone mentions one, someone mentions the other. Also about SC2 not being as good single player, it could be because of the developer change, Ubisoft Montreal gave it over to their newly aquired or established Ubisoft Shanghai for that game.

Post by **racketboy** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 10:20 pm

I played the GC demo of the first one.
Seemed pretty cool, but I have a hard time getting in the mood for games like that.

Post by **Mozgus** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 11:07 pm

racketboy wrote:I played the GC demo of the first one.
Seemed pretty cool, but I have a hard time getting in the mood for games like that.

The game was absolutely raped on PS2 and GC. I owned the GC version of SC1, and also had the PC version. The PC version ran at 5FPS on my system at the time, and I enjoyed it more than the GC version. Why? On GC and PS2, the levels are EXTREMELY simplified. Vast areas which served as background beauty were completely removed, and replaced by inappropriate walls or other structures. The levels were split into 4x as many segments, which made the games even more linear than before.

Post by **Indy_aka_Rex** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 11:59 pm

I hate, hate, hate the gameplay in the first and I only have it for completion-sake. It was too much trial-and-error and if things weren't perfect enough, you'd get insta-Game Overs in a lot of missions. The 2nd I loved because of the multiplayer aspect and somewhat improved visuals, and it was less frustrating. 3 is by far the best of them all, it has the most polish albeit 2-3 incredibly frustrating levels (the last 2 anyways) , and visually it's stunning for an XB game. Next-gen almost 8 months before XB360.

4 I love because Shanghai tends to polish the visuals and gameplay, although I hate the alterred multiplayer.

Post by **Mozgus** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:34 am

Indy_aka_Rex wrote:I hate, hate, hate the gameplay in the first and I only have it for completion-sake. It was too much trial-and-error and if things weren't perfect enough, you'd get insta-Game Overs in a lot of missions.

I really think you got that reversed. SC2 had twice as much trial-and-error crap than the first game had. I had to use 40+ save states in most of the levels just to proceed. Your boss totally FAILS to mention vital mission parameters. Countless times he fails to tell you that you cant kill people, or you cant kill innocents. Countless times, he fails to mention that you cant even knock out specific NAMELESS individuals, because you need to use them for retinals. In the first game he warned you about that. In the second game, you had NO CLUE. God damn, that pissed me off. :evil:

Overall, the bastard just offers no assistance at all.

SC2 was also about 2/3rd in length, compared to the first one. Quite a short game. I found that it's gameplay is actually worse than the first game. He's got a few new animations, but really no new noteworthy moves. The only difference is you cant rely on him to perform the moves you want, to the same degree of responsiveness that he did in the first game. I'm soooo tired of falling to my death. -_-

Post by **Indy_aka_Rex** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:57 am

Mozgus wrote:
Indy_aka_Rex wrote:I hate, hate, hate the gameplay in the first and I only have it for completion-sake. It was too much trial-and-error and if things weren't perfect enough, you'd get insta-Game Overs in a lot of missions.

I really think you got that reversed. SC2 had twice as much trial-and-error crap than the first game had. I had to use 40+ save states in most of the levels just to proceed. Your boss totally FAILS to mention vital mission parameters. Countless times he fails to tell you that you cant kill people, or you cant kill innocents. Countless times, he fails to mention that you cant even knock out specific NAMELESS individuals, because you need to use them for retinals. In the first game he warned you about that. In the second game, you had NO CLUE. God damn, that pissed me off.

Overall, the bastard just offers no assistance at all.

SC2 was also about 2/3rd in length, compared to the first one. Quite a short game. I found that it's gameplay is actually worse than the first game. He's got a few new animations, but really no new noteworthy moves. The only difference is you cant rely on him to perform the moves you want, to the same degree of responsiveness that he did in the first game. I'm soooo tired of falling to my death. -_-

Wait, did you FINISH the first? That shit was awful, nigh-impossible to finish without some harm done to a controller (BTW I played it on XB not PC).

I love SC2, I hate SC1. Fuck Georgia and fuck its awful dictator asshole president.

Post by **Mozgus** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:06 am

Indy_aka_Rex wrote:Wait, did you FINISH the first? That shit was awful, nigh-impossible to finish without some harm done to a controller (BTW I played it on XB not PC).

I love SC2, I hate SC1. Fuck Georgia and fuck its awful dictator asshole president.

Yes, I just did a few days ago. Originally, I got until the start of the last mission, when I was playing at 5FPS on my first self-built computer. But now I started over and beat it. I had much more shameful difficulty in SC2's levels, than I had in the last level of SC1.

The hardest level in SC1 for me was the damn CIA building, when I had to carry that fat guy out.