Splinter Cell Double Agent

Do you have what it takes to break Bauer and blapse Bourne? Fisher fists them in his most suicidal mssion yet.

	Version Xbox 360	Developer Ubisoft	Publisher Ubisoft	Genre Action

By Alex Wollenschlaeger

Every day we lie to one another. You tell your partner they look great in their new jeans, you tell your mother that you're still going to the gym, and you tell your waiter that the meal was fine. But do you have what it takes to live a lie, to portray a character in your own life? It's this dilemma that forms the heart of Sam Fisher's latest adventure.

With nothing left to lose after the death of his daughter, Sam takes on his riskiest mission yet in Splinter Cell Double Agent - the infiltration of John Brown's Army, a ragtag group of terrorists out to cause mayhem. In game terms, the effect of this new story direction is a pair of meters added to the onscreen HUD that show how strong your allegiance is to the JBA and to the NSA.

Maintaining these relationships is crucial. Disappoint the JBA and you won't get far in your mission, but lose the trust of the NSA and you're dead in the water. What this means is that you need to keep an eye on mission objectives, which clearly outline how your affiliations will be altered. If you're solely interested in making it through the game, all you need to do is make sure you complete the primary missions and check off enough of the secondary ones to keep you in both good books.

Doing that isn't always simple. As in previous games in the series, Double Agent is challenging. Unfortunately, the game is also stuck in its ways, and you'll have to study patterns once you get into a cycle of dying to make it through the trickier spots. You're given the illusion of free will, but there are really only one or two ways for you to get to your primary goals. You can get there silently or in a storm of lead, but you're not going to make it very far taking the G.I. Joe approach.

The frustrating thing is that you'll spend a lot of the game loading save points as you find out where you should be going and what you should be doing. This has the effect of making the game seem like you're inching your way towards its multiple endings, putting down markers along the way so you don't have to repeat whole missions every time, rather than it providing an absorbing experience. The game also suffers from a few technical flaws - mostly long loading times and uneven framerates. It's still great fun, though, and the varied mission locales and the NSA/JBA relationship matrix make for a different experience from the previous games in the series.

What does a better job of distinguishing Double Agent from previous Splinter Cell games, however, is the improved multiplayer, which feels like a whole new game using similar themes. As in previous multiplayer offerings, it's all about lithe spies and brute mercs. These are as dissimilar from each other as they are from Sam Fisher, and their unique attributes offer twice as much to learn and enjoy. In the versus mode, spies are tasked with downloading files from various locations on the map while mercs need to find and crush them. That's it. But the situations jut from tense to frantic in seconds, making each match interesting.

Graphics Sound Gameplay Depth Presentation OVERALL 8.0 8.0 8.0 8.0 8.0 8.0

THE VERDICT: I've played Splinter Cell games in the past but none of them has ever gripped me as much as Double Agent. Despite its flaws, the game is still an excellent way to spend the dozen hours it'll take you to exhaust it, and the online modes are gravy. The new relationship mechanics are interesting too, adding another layer to the familiar Fisher gameplay and leaving you with a few meaty decisions to make. Whether or not you need to pick up the game, however, is a no-brainer.