DescentBB

So, has anyone played the demo yet? How does it look?

I loved the first Splinter Cell. The story was pretty good but I felt dissapointed that they never really got that personal with the main character. The story didn't really seem to involve Sam Fisher on a personal level. Although the information warefare was pretty cool and the game overall was well made and challenging.


Then Pandora Tommorow came along. I felt the ending was a tad cheesy, I heard multi was unbalanced but decent, the graphics were a tad better, the music was lacking the Crystal Meathod's intro music and they gave you too many moves and not enough stratagy based action. Some of the moves made the game far less challenging than the original. Such as the ability to whistle. After a while it became a simple game of walk around corner, whistle, wait, knock guy out, walk around corner, whistle, wait, knock guy out, rinse, wash, repeat... The story seemed like a rip-off of the events in Iraq or at least what Bush was claiming were true events but it took place in Indonesia instead. The ending was cheesy, the environment wasn't nearly as dark and gritty, the sniper rifle was a lot nicer though. I'm not even certain if it was actually written by Tom Clancy either. It seemed like too much of a run of the mill spy game story. I guess I wish the conspiracies would rain down on Sam Fisher on a much more personal level and that the game would change its pace a bit and get darker and grittier.

I've read reviews that claim the new game is darker and grittier and it also has a mature rating instead of a teen rating and Sam Fisher apparently uses a knife in this game. But I wonder, how is the story, the music and the ambience? Is it at least as good as the original game?

I guess I just want to know if this game is worth my time and money.

nab the demo and find out.

Yes, there is a demo.

Yeah but on a 56k... that should take me... oh about 5 years. I also heard a report of the demo being buggy. :\

mob-messenger wrote:Yeah but on a 56k... that should take me... oh about 5 years. I also heard a report of the demo being buggy. :\

I was talking about the one for the Xbox. IIRC it was released with one of the Xbob game mags this month.

That being said, the visuals are a drastic improvment. Think Doom3 but much brighter(tho the demo itself takes place in cave on a rainy day).

He does use a knife, which you can use to cut fabrics to make an entry, and can use it to take out peoples steathly.

Yeah, and this one is supposed to be based on what is going on with N.Korea. Remember that these events in the game are in the future, albeit the near future. Even though they might be in different world locations the events are supposed to be real enough to be believable.

I hate the SC games. It's a FPS, but on all of the levels you can't run, and on some of the levels you can't shoot. I will give you the graphics are nice, but they put me to sleep.

Yawn

Gooberman wrote:I hate the SC games. It's a FPS, but on all of the levels you can't run, and on some of the levels you can't shoot. I will give you the graphics are nice, but they put me to sleep.

Yawn

That's probably because your not into stealth. You like gun toting more. I prefer stealthy attacks myself. More stratagy in taking your apponent down than just running in and shooting everything in sight. BTW, a lot of the levels you CAN run to an extent. You may have missed this little detail but Sam's rifle is also a machine gun. There is a button that changes his rate of fire on his rifle. In the final level of the first SC you HAVE to use it.

It has nothing to do with weather or not he likes stealth, but rather the way SC series pulls it off with LINEAR levels, its deathly boring.

Actually the game isn't that linear other than you get an over the shoulder view. You can still run, jump, grab any surface and climb it if you like. It doesn't run like an FPS but it works for Steatlh. I don't think it would be much fun if you had to play the game like an FPS. (Can't do any of the cool moves). Some people just prefer the way it plays over other games. Just depends on what you like and what you do not like.

i have a copy of the game for xbox, its pretty good. like goob though, not really my cup of tea.

the kids and the newbs tend to whine about it being slow, not enought kills, big guns etc. but how many have the skill and patience to play it at max and only have to do the minimon of nessesary kills to complete the missions?. the game will be harder cos the badguys will react to moved/missing items as well now and they say multi-choice of routes and methods of completing the mission, so not so linier afterall.

oops i forgot it,ll also have a map editor

mob-messenger wrote:Actually the game isn't that linear other than you get an over the shoulder view. You can still run, jump, grab any surface and climb it if you like. It doesn't run like an FPS but it works for Steatlh.

How does the camera view & running, jumping and climbing surfaces make the game non-linear?
It being linear means that you're forced to play the game down a certain path.

Defender, TW was mostly refering to how the camera and running, jumping and climbing function. Not me. I see what you mean though. SC:3 is supposed to have more than one path available.

When TW, usually complains about a game being too linear I know he is usually complaining about combat. In other words, you can only look up oh so far (KOTOR), you can't jump, ecs. In SC you can do all of that. Though the path is linear.


I've heard 3 shouldn't be as linear in its pathways to goals.

Personally 1 was still my favorite. Part of it was the places you went. Think about it, you go to Russia, the United States, Hong Kong, and even an abandoned oil rig. Every mission was different. You also mostly infiltrated building structures. In SC2, you stuck pretty much between Indonesia, Belgium, and the United States but the last two were a bit short. There was far less infiltration into buildings and facilities, there was a lot of hiding behind bushes and really long walks. Only mission I really cared for was the train mission and the Belgium mission.

Ya, there's more ways to get to each objective now.
You can take the direct route, hacking slashing, and shooting (though the shooting route don't work too well ), or you can sneak around, trick guards and gather codes to get through doors.
Or you can just hack the doors.

Good stuff.

But i'll say, coop mode is awesome!
Played for a few hours with a buddy from work.
They put in coop moves. Like you can launch a friend head first into a guard, knockin him out.
Or, drop him on a rapel rope onto an objective.
You can climb up your partner to reach otherwise out of reach areas.

LOL, Messenger that is not exactly what I meant.

Kotor's flaw to me (now that I finished it 2 times to me it has no flaws now )is that it canot be played in first person and you dont really feel like you ARE the character, just controlling it, thats it. But later I realized thats the game style. Ok, still one of my top games ive played.

SC flaw is that for example you are forced to go down a certain ally and the only way you can do it differently is instead of walking you climb a rooftop. THis hardly counts it as not being linear. I haven't played the series much but based on the last demo of the second game I was turned off that I had no other choice but to complete a mission only one certain way, thats it. I want multiple paths.

I picked up the X-Box version. I don't have enough space left on my hard drive and I want to play Co-Op with my buddies and my connect is still a 56k. So figured I would make it worth it. I did manage to get my hands on a limited collectors edition though.

I love Co-Op and the game thus far holds the same ambience and feel of the first game. A lot of the environments are the same. Feels like SC 1 but better! The new moves, Co-Op and the knife really add to the game. I do miss Crystal Method's theme for the first game though.

BTW, I love turning on my thermal goggles and waiting for a guard to come through a door while preparing to bash the door in. Can we say.... "WIIIILMA! I'm home!!"

Too bad there are only 4 co-op missions though. I hope the next installment will have more. Would be a blast to play the PC version on-line.

They are missing the special ops move from Pandora Tommorow where you can turn around an open doorway without being seen and the ability to shoot around corners. :
The AI is a lot smarter though!!

Ya, I'm pretty peeved at the lack of more co-op missions too.
My buddy and I beat em pretty quick.