Splinter Cell: Double Agent

[el Chi]

I bought it yesterday and it's good fun. I've not finished it yet and to be honest it seems fairly standard SC stuff which personally I like a lot.

The idea of balancing trust between NSA and JBA (John Brown Army) is pretty cool although so far I haven't gotten into any situations where it seems like the NSA's trust in you has been seriously challenged. However given Sam's track record and the nature of the mission (infiltration), that's fair enough. I'd imagine/hope things get a bit more difficult to balance later on in the game.
I've yet to see how severe repercussions are for losing trust/failing a certain party's demands on you.

There are some very odd plot holes - one of the JBA leaders talks about "your experience" but surely they can't be referring to his history with NSA? Why he's using his real name I'm not sure; there are a few others - maybe they'll be explained, maybe not.
In fairness, if there's one way to spoil an experience, it's to pick holes in it, so perhaps better to leave that and carry on, blissfully ignorant and accepting...

However, it's one of the most enfuriatingly buggy and inconsistant games I believe I've ever played.

SC bad-guys have always had wildly varying eyesight from not being able to see you if you were waving your nob three inches in front of their face to having such amazing vision it'd be worth gouging out their eyes to use instead of your night-vision goggles. In fairness it hasn't been too dreadful until the bit I'm at now where there's a specific character I HAVE to sneak up on from behind so he doesn't see me. If he DOES see me, game over man. Hiding behind a large engine valve in the bowels of a ship, in the shadows where I'm supposed to be "completely hidden", this guy spots me. This is not challenging: this is simply annoying.

The thermal imaging goggles are ridiculous as well - sometimes they work very well at a distance, other times they won't show up unless I can see them in normal vision, which sort of defeats the point.
They can penetrate the metal walls of a container crate and the doors of ships, but try and look through tarpaulin into a tent? Tarpaulin is, apparently, some sort of magic, hiding things far better than solid steel. Naturally.

Also, there are severely stupid bugs that have seen me unable to get up from crouching, unable to slide under or jump over certain obstacles (some of these may just be stupid design decisions, but some of them definitely are bugs) and sometimes just getting plain stuck (you want to walk up that mild slope you just walked down? Don't be ridiculous!)

However so far there have been some very fun moments - always fun to crack someone over the back of the head whilst they're not looking; drag someone under the ice.
So far - and I'm seriously hoping it'll pick up - I'd give it a score in the high 70s to low 80s.
Make of that what you will.

[JNightshade]

Hmm, very interesting.

[Sainku]

Best splinter cell since chaos theory. I may try the xbox version when my friend gets it, I hear it is better.

[el Chi]

I only played the demo of CT - it seemed veeery good. DA is very good, but the bugs are angry-making. Oh yes.

[DeusExMachina]

Are you playing the 360 or Xbox version? For some reason, the plot is better presented and more coherent in the Xbox version while the 360 version has a few plot holes.

[el Chi]

I'm playing the PC version. How can there be a difference?

[DeusExMachina]

No idea. For some reason, that's how they made it. Doesn't make a lot of sense, I know.

[StardogChampion]

I'm playing the PC version. How can there be a difference?
I heard that the Montreal team (SC1+CT) made the Xbox1 version of DA, and the Shanghai team made PT, and DA for the 360 + PC.

[bigburpco]

Is this coming out on anything another than both the Xboxes and the PC?

[el Chi]

It's out on the PS2 and they made an "Essentials" package for the PSP which is, as far as I can tell, a hodge-podge of different missions from all the SC games plus one or two specially-made ones and I'd guess they've been chosen a) because it's easy money, b) the PSP can handle those levels but not other more demanding SC levels.
Just guessing though.

[bigburpco]

Oh, okay. Thanks.

[Hypnosos]

Is this coming out on anything another than both the Xboxes and the PC?
Other then those, it has been released for PS2 and Gamecube, and a Wii-version is under development.

[el Chi]

All Ubisoft games are, as I understand it, are released across most platforms.
Except Red Steel, which is only for the Wii. And quite good actually.

[Shippi]

The XBOX version is incredibly different. I wasn't too impressed with it - it lacks the 'wow' factor the PC version has, but the story is MUCH much better. Xbox also has co-op

I've just got to the Shanghi level on SCDA PC.. awesome, awesome stuff

[Steel.Inferno]

Did anyone else not understand what the hell was going on after the 1st mission and during 2nd? You get on the chopper and the mood totally changes but you dont find out what happened to make Fisher ANGRYMAN until later... Maybe I accidently clicked past a cutscene or something though.

The only thing I don't like is going back to the JBA HQ constantly and just doing minigames for half an hour.

[ĐynastҰ]

Aye there are a few bugs. For me, it always happens when i climb up something.

*SPOILER ALERT!!!!!* -

when you climb the rope on the right side of the ship, and start the killing spree, i got stuck at the top of the rope TWICE as he transfered from rope to ship. I could turn and shoot and stuff, just not move from the spot.

[tvharti]

Did anyone else not understand what the hell was going on after the 1st mission and during 2nd? You get on the chopper and the mood totally changes but you dont find out what happened to make Fisher ANGRYMAN until later... Maybe I accidently clicked past a cutscene or something though.

The only thing I don't like is going back to the JBA HQ constantly and just doing minigames for half an hour.

You didn't skip a cutscene - there are just parts missing in comparison to the Xbox/PS2 versions. You don't really get what happened, and why you go to prison - the supposed bank robbery is not mentioned in the opening.

Personally DA is not yet fun, the Iceland level was ok, the JBA HQ was just plain boring. I hope it gets better, for now I'm totally underwhelmed.

[Fliko]

The HQ thing sucks horribly, but in my opinion, it gets better as you go on

[ChiChi]

I beat the 360 version and the xbox version and can tell you the xbox version is far better. No timed missions, better story and a visibility/sound meter. But I do like how the 360 took more chances and was more different than previous SC.

[Steel.Inferno]

By "as you go on" what mission do you mean Fliko? I'm in the (first?) Congo mission, and it remains rather bad. Unless you mean the HQ mishes, in which case #3 is actually not so bad, you get to make real choices...

Also this game is really, really bright... Maybe I fiddled with my settings too much but even when my stealth-o-meter is green I'm pretty plainly visible from my POV. Doesn't help much that almost every mission is during the daytime (A welcome relief from the previous games)

[Shakermaker]

Too bad the PC version is for SM3.0 cards only. Weird choice to make by Ubi.

[Hypnosos]

Too bad the PC version is for SM3.0 cards only. Weird choice to make by Ubi.
You could think it's kind of a revenge for Ubisoft. ATi owners probably "forced" Ubisoft in to making that patch to Chaos Theory that added SM2.0 support. At first, there were only 1.0 and 3.0 support. Now they went with only 3.0 support.

Now they cut them completely off, so they don't have to make that patch.

I don't see any other reason not to add SM2.0 support. The game is running on the same engine as Chaos Theory, only it's a multithreaded version of it. Why not?

[Dalamari]

I'll get SC for xmas, but I'm not gonna buy a new card for the PC version

[tvharti]

You didn't skip a cutscene - there are just parts missing in comparison to the Xbox/PS2 versions. You don't really get what happened, and why you go to prison - the supposed bank robbery is not mentioned in the opening.

Personally DA is not yet fun, the Iceland level was ok, the JBA HQ was just plain boring. I hope it gets better, for now I'm totally underwhelmed.

So I just beat the game. My favourite level was the 3rd one, Kinshasa was quite well done too - though I would have loved some more detonations/explosions. And there is no real ending ... Here's my summary:

Pos:
+ pretty graphics with everything turned to max
+ great outdoor missions
+ solid gameplay

Neg:
- No story, no explanations, no real characters (at least for the PC version)
- JBA HQ
- Lots of Bugs and Crashes (the patch made it even worse, I wasnt able to play the Shanghai level, only after re-installing the game without the patch)

Rating 7/10

[StardogChampion]

You could think it's kind of a revenge for Ubisoft. ATi owners probably "forced" Ubisoft in to making that patch to Chaos Theory that added SM2.0 support. At first, there were only 1.0 and 3.0 support. Now they went with only 3.0 support.

Now they cut them completely off, so they don't have to make that patch.

I don't see any other reason not to add SM2.0 support. The game is running on the same engine as Chaos Theory, only it's a multithreaded version of it. Why not?
They didn't patch CT. CT needed SM1.1 or above.

[Gargantou]

StardogChampion, originally CT didn't support 2.0 actually though, just 1.1 or 3.0 for its effects, so if you had a 2.0 card you couldn't get HDR and parallax mapping and whatnot, I myself owned CT on the PC at release so I can confirm this, my previous comp having a ATI 9800Pro, with a latter patch they added support of running all the SM3.0 effects such as softshadows, parallax mapping, HDR etc with a SM2.0 card.:)

[BHC]

The SC:DA demo was GARBAGE.

[Angel_Mapper]

Mine finally shipped today. I'm so glad they dumped StarForce, I doubt I would have bought it if they were still using that.

[warden]

got my copy on 360- had it for a while and im really enjoying it, but why did they make the versions different?

I loved the coop in chaos theory, it was absolutley awesome so why only include it in the xbox 1 version... seems like an odd decision to me, also whats with the different story (well at least more detailed story in the xbox 1 vers).

In fact there are quite a few things they have changed that im not so keen on- but mainly the fact that the light and sound meters have been removed- that light on your back seems a bit arbitary where your hidden. In places you can be stood in open daylight and not be seen becasue the light on your back is green, seems very strange and a bit crap to be honest!!

Also anyone else with the 360 vers having to wait about 3 0r 4 mins just to get into the menu where you save- doesn't take long to actually save or load but to get into the menu takes ages, anyone know of any fixes?

[Fliko]

By "as you go on" what mission do you mean Fliko? I'm in the (first?) Congo mission, and it remains rather bad. Unless you mean the HQ mishes, in which case #3 is actually not so bad, you get to make real choices...

The things you do in HQ actually start effecting you... I thought I had to restart because I ran out of trust for the NSA, but I managed through with help on the HQ.

You also get some cool choice moments.


Oh, and some missions are pretty cool later on. I don't want to spoil anything though