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Ever since Rainbox Six became a highly successful PC title many years ago, lots of Tom Clancy games have appeared on Ubi Soft's release list. Just this year, we've got Ghost Recon, The Sum Of All Fears (based on the current film of the same name) and Raven Shield to look forward to. However, while all the previous titles have been in the popular first-person-shooter genre, their latest Xbox game, Splinter Cell, has diversified into a stealth-'em-up ready to take on the might of Konami's famous Metal Gear series.
With MGS2 being hailed as one of the best games of all time, going up against it was never going to be easy, but if this recent playtest is anything to go by, the game's developers have got a fair chance of stealing its thunder when it comes to Xbox early next year. First off, while Metal Gear Substance may well turn out to port the graphics of the PS2 original, Splinter Cell is free to make full use of the Xbox's hardware, and the demo showed this off to spectacular effect. Of particular note were the lighting effects, where light shining through gratings would cast a realistic shadow onto the surrounding walls, and then onto your character when he moved past. The visual effect applied when Thermal Goggles are used is also very impressive, with accurate 'heat spots' appearing on enemies, radiators and TV monitors. If you shoot one of the many monitors dotted about the offices in the game, then switch to the thermal mode, they will even get colder over time!
However, probably the nicest mode to use is Night Vision, which not only contains the same false-colour imaging that real night-vision goggles produce, but also has interference added for further realism! Another major feature we found having played the game was the agility of the game's main character, Sam Fisher. Not only can he knock out guards with a single blow, then carry their bodies off to the nearest cupboard, but by tapping a few buttons he's able to scale the walls of small corridors, then either snipe at unsuspecting guards as they walk below, or drop down onto them and render them unconscious. As you'd expect, the animation for all of these moves is superb, making Sam look even tougher than the mighty Solid Snake.
One of the biggest complaints about MGS2 was the inability to walk during the first-person mode, so you were forced to constantly switch between aiming and moving. Well, Splinter Cell has thankfully addressed this, allowing you to switch to a first-person mode and then slowly strafe at the same time. This means that if enemies are positioned around the next corner, and you want to take them out accurately (always a good idea), you can switch to the first-person view then strafe around the corner, ready to take on whatever may lie ahead.
Overall, we came away very impressed by Splinter Cell, and see it as a very big hitter when it arrives in November this year. With Metal Gear Substance not set to come out until early 2003, Splinter Cell's pre-Christmas release could be just the right time for it to have most effect before battling head-to-head with Konami's behemoth.
Marc Hull
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