Splinter Cell(2002) Review

The thing with the original Splinter Cell that is going to throw off many people is that if you come into the game expecting it to be like Chaos Theory, Conviction or Blacklist, or other "immersive sim" style games, you will be massively disappointed.

SC1 is a more of linear puzzle game that gives you different ways of solving the puzzle rather than having open ended levels. In SC1, you are given options but it's more about either finding a path where you can avoid enemies entirely or you can knock enemies out and spend a lot of time dragging bodies to avoid raising alarms. There is lots of trial and error in the game, but I think the handles it well enough mainly because you are given enough mechanics and tools to make it interesting. Like you could kill an enemy(if the mission allows for it), knock them out and hide the body, use a gadget, or shoot out a light and hope you can slip past guards that way. I prefer to mix up all these tactics since ghosting in stealth games is boring and frustrating to me.

The movement and climbing is mostly fine but Chaos Theory would improve upon them both greatly. Games like Conviction and Blacklist would make climbing feel better and I also get why they both have detection arrows since it gives the player more feedback on whether or not enemies are going to be alerted since SC1 can be spotty at times when enemies can see you since there are times where I felt I was sneaking past an enemy just for them to suddenly spot me, there are times where I crouch slowly and get spotted too.

Plus no whistle a guard over to you is a massive bummer since you have to jump and hope a guard can hear you plus alerts can be rather erratic too.

The levels themselves are pretty well designed despite not being being open ended. Abattoir being the worst of the bunch, and feels completely different from the rest of the game. I would not be surprised if many people quit the game here. I know I did when I first played.

The scripted action segments are not very good but I did like how it was done in Kalinatek Headquarters mission since it felt chathartic to kill people after the CIA mission of trying to avoid killing anyone.

Overall, Splinter Cell is a good game if you know what you are getting into, and it feels rather accomplished for the kind of game it is especially for a first game in a long running series, I like this a lot more than I used to.