Splinter Cell
by: Ross
      Fitting a combination of intense stealth, gripping action, a killer story, and awesome graphics into one game is a hard task.  Yet, Splinter Cell rises to the challenge quite well.  As in all of the other Tom Clancy games, its stunning graphics and innovative gameplay make it so the gamer won't ever want to put down the controller.  Splinter Cell was released for the XBOX in October 2002, showing the entire gaming world just how far games have come.  Not only can you realistically climb, crawl, shimmy, rappel, zip-line, etc. but the A.I. is in my opinion more realistic than most other games.  Your enemies, whom mostly are patrolling up and down the passages you need to move through to accomplish your objective, can see your movements, hear your steps, and track you down.  It's crazy how the enemies in Splinter Cell compare to those of Doom or Duke Nukem or any early game.  Even more recent games such as Brute Force or Return to Castle Wolfenstein, both tremendous games, can't amount to that.  Neither can they amount to the fact that you can download new content for Splinter Cell on XBOX Live.
       In Splinter Cell you play as NSA stealth agent Sam Fisher.  Your first mission is set in the Georgian Republic and your task is to recover info on two previously downed agents.  From there on, the game launches into a crazed story of international war, intelligence crisis, information moles, nukes and other secret weapons, and more.  Your main target is Kombayn Nikoladze, the Georgian president at the center of the whole mess.  You have a wide variety of stealth tools with you in the game, including a pistol, optic cable (to see under locked doors), camera jammers, destraction cameras, lockpicks, and of course, the SC-20K M.A.W.S. (Modular Assault Weapon System).  Easily the most beast gun in the game, the SC-20K can shoot armor piercing bullets as well as distraction cameras, sticky shockers, ring airfoil projectiles, etc.  Also, you can snipe with it, a major plus in basically ALL of the missions that you have it.
       What Splinter Cell lacks is a multi-player.  Now, it's understandable why it doesn't have one, seeing that it's a stealth-based game and a slayer-type multi-player would defeat the purpose.  But then again, a little Capture the Flag would be nice.  Sure, the levels would have to be huge to play stealth CTF well, but hey, it'd be worth it.  Also, there is only single player.  Again, not complaining since it was made to be a single player game.   But no co-op agency missions?  That's its main deduction of points. 
I give Splinter Cell a:
                                                                   9/10.
There are amazing lighting effects in this game.
Do whatever you can to avoid contact with enemies, and if you can't; kill them. There are many ways to avoid your enemies.
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