Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell®

It's the best stealth I've ever played when your in it, but between sections of stealth you are wandering up to arbitrary geometry and pressing the space key.

It's an okay game, and I played through all of it, but it does not even come close to the earlier Thief and Hitman games (let's forget about Thief 4 or Hitman 5 :). The levels are extremely linear, which takes all the fun out of stealth. Sure, there are possibilities for variation, but these are of the type "jump on this object rather than walking straight through the door" rather than "enter the building from the opposite direction and take a completely different way", i.e. more room-centered than map-centered. A lot of potential is wasted here, probably due to being a console game originally. The AI is also pretty stupid and all-knowing at times, which I think was much better in earlier Thief and Hitman games. And then there are those sections that are outright frustrating, like the final mission-critical and long-distance shot you have to fire - you will most likely have to load the game a dozen times to get it right. Graphics are still mostly nice and can be made wide-screen and HD - just find the necessary INI settings using your favourite search engine.

Not the best in the series, but a good introduction to our favourite NVG goggles wearing super spy.

The core of splinter cell is quite nice, the movement offered is fun if a bit clunky and the gadgets provided to you are a great way to allow you to tackle a situation in the manner you choose. The problem is, you'll very, very rarely make use of any movement out of your own volition, as the game is terribly linear. It's basically a long corridor, no room has any alternate entrance, and even though Sam can run, jump, and climb freely there's nowhere to climb to, nothing to explore. To add insult to injury the game forces you into combat on 2 occasions, at which points the game devolves into sitting in a corner and popping the heads of incoming enemies, who have a tendency to gain nightvision when alerted. The game feels like a huge waste of potential, were it not so linear it could have been great. The end result is just mediocre.

No Spoiler here. Just worth playing. To me it'a like an interactive film/game. The subsequent chapters should be here as well. A plus: the voice of Sam Fisher here in Italia is Luca Ward (doppiatore in Italia di Russel Crow, Samuel L Jackson and many great others) : that only grants a Movie like experience in italian language. A classic as of now I suppose and the script of Tom Clancy really counts, it set the story