Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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122 of 129 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Great game... too bad, April 26, 2005
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
This is an otherwise excellent game that unfortunately uses the intrusive copy protection software known as Starforce. Normally I don't care a whit about copy protection, but Starforce installs itself as a hidden hardware driver and sits between your IDE / SATA hardware and the operating system. This causes all kinds of system glitches, crashes, slowdowns and on occasions requires a complete reinstall of Windows. Much of this comes from careless and poor programming - but the truth is, as long as the game is protected, the publishers don't care at all what happens to your system. This attitude makes little sense, really since it only takes about a month for the latest protection schemes to be broken anyway.
Oh, and as an added bonus, the Starforce garbage remains on your system even after you uninstall the game. And the Starforce folks won't tell you how to remove it.
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31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fun game with some unresolved issues, April 11, 2005
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
Sam Fisher is back in the best Splinter Cell yet. I must confess that I've never been as impressed by the Splinter Cell series as other people. The hook to Splinter Cell is the interplay of light and shadows. It creates a visually impressive backdrop for Sam Fishers' skulking and SC remains the best stealth action game on the market. The improvements in Chaos Theory are mostly restricted to superior level design. Also, Sam Fisher can now slash with a knife, killing instantly rather than delivering a series of elbows to the face. There are more opportunities in CT to do the old sneak up and grab move which is always a lot of fun. Plus UbiSoft has made the game more replayable by including statistics at the end of each level. I can see myself going back and replaying CT a lot more than I did with the first two games.
My issues with the series still persist. When the first Splinter Cell came out the producers promised unparalleled interaction with the environment. In fact quite the opposite is true. Sam Fisher can no more push a rolling desk chair as push a mountain. Whether it's an aluminum cabinet, cardboard box, clipboard, shipping pallet or whatever, everything is immovable and unalterable as if the world were all carved from a single block of granite. Shooting lights is cool and all but you could do that eight years ago in Goldeneye for the N64 and unlike Splinter Cell, Goldeneye allowed you to shoot out glass.
Splinter Cell is a getting a little silly with its use of shadows. What was cool and innovative in the first Splinter Cell now seems almost like a crutch for the series. In one level Sam Fisher infiltrates a 36 man cruiser. I made my way to the engine room and found it nearly pitch black just like the rest of the ship and it suddenly struck me. Why would the engine room be so dark? Who would sail around in a completely dark boat? The engine room had three guards but it was so dark that I could literally creep within several feet of a guard and stare them in the face without them seeing me. Ubisoft should try and be a little more creative than just load every area with a ridiculous amount of darkness.
I must also say that the in game map is HORRIBLE. I used it a few times to help out but it is incredibly difficult to read. The tutorial is also very poorly done. The first Splinter Cell had an entire level devoted to teaching you the ropes. Chaos Theory only offers some boring and insufficient training videos.
When Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is good it's absolutely fantastic. The Bathhouse and Cruiser levels in particular were brilliantly done. The Seoul Korea level on the other hand was completely devoid of fun and I hated every second of it. Essentially I recommend the game but with some reservations. Hopefully the next entry in the series can actually advance the game play into some new areas.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best in series, co-op can be buggy, April 25, 2005
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
After being disappointed by Pandora Tomorrow's thoroughly mediocre single player campaign, I was highly skeptical of this title. However, Chaos Theory is vastly improved over its predecessors in every way. The level design is much better, production values rival any game on any platform, and the co-op mode is a fantastic addition to the series - provided it actually works. If the co-op mode had a few more levels and hadn't been so terribly buggy, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory would have been the best PC game in years. As it stands, it is still one of the finest stealth/action games ever made, and every fan of the genre should own it.
The cornerstone of this game is still the single player campaign. The previous titles have featured strictly linear levels with small maps. Chaos Theory features much larger maps and a much larger degree of freedom. It also boasts a much higher degree of interactivity with the environment. The levels are still not open-ended by a long shot. They are best described as "semi-linear". Each level features a linear series of mini-challenges that usually have two or three solutions to them. You might be able to enter a room through the front door or by a vent that comes from a storage room, but you still end up in the same place. On average though, the design and flow of the levels is excellent. The game keeps you moving towards your objectives without ever making you feel like you are on rails. The best part about each level is the size. The levels are very large and typically last you an hour or more, depending upon your style of gameplay. The game's ten levels will probably take you between 10 and 15 hours to finish.
Each level also contains one or more optional objectives, and a scoring system that rates you based upon how many alarms you set off and how many objectives you accomplish. This system works much better than the "three alarms and you fail" or "one alarm and you fail" system of the previous games. It also gives you incentive to replay each mission until you achieve a perfect score.
In addition to the better level design, the single play game features some other improvements. Chief among them is much improved audio - namely, a huge number of sound bites and well-written lines of dialog. The terrific voice acting from the first game has returned. You can interrogate most guards, and most of the interrogation dialog offers some amusing moments, as well as some useful gameplay tips. The atmospheric sound is superb as well. The terrific audio complements the game's gorgeous visuals, which easily rank amongst the best that the PC has to offer. Sam is decked out in detail all over his body and all of his moves look very cool. The environments are beautiful and the lighting is simply perfect. Chaos Theory sports arguably the finest production values in any PC game to date.
Does the gameplay have any faults? A few. One of them is inconsistency in the AI. The sharpness of the AI occasionally changes, based upon the level. Sometimes guards won't notice if their buddy gets knocked out three feet away from them. Other times, they will notice their KO'ed buddy when he is in complete darkness 35 feet away. Another minor flaw is that the game favors an overly aggressive approach versus a nonlethal approach. For most of the levels, You will have to self-impose a "no-kill" rule to give yourself some challenge. Also, like its predecessors, the campaign lacks lasting value, and the story is average.
Once you are done with the single player campaign, a true treat awaits you on-line with the game's innovative co-op mode. This assumes that you can actually get it to work. More on that later. The game mechanics of the co-op mode are largely the same as the single-player campaign, only this time you have a partner, and there are more guards. The game also throws some high walls at you that can only be scaled using special co-op moves. For example, you can give your friend a boost to the top of a wall, and then he can let you climb up his back to get up over it. The result is usually quite thrilling. The co-op mode is full of "you take the guy on the right and I'll take the guy on the left" moments. Quietly taking out a room full of guards with your buddy is an experience that is a unique and very memorable This part of the game is a long, long overdue addition to this genre, and you will probably be left hoping for an exclusively co-op game in the future.
Unfortunately, the co-op mode is riddled with so many bugs that there is less than a 50% chance that you'll actually be able to play it. Ubisoft has patched the game twice, but I wouldn't rely on being able to play co-up just yet. Plus, there are also only four co-op levels, and you can't save your progress. If these issues didn't exist, Chaos Theory would be worthy of a 9.3+ score. Nonetheless, co-op mode adds a lot to the overall package and helps elevate the game to elite status.
"Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory" has breathed new life into a series that was on the risk of going stale. It sets high standards for production values and, in the meantime, provides an innovative new gameplay mode. The single player is by far the best of the series, and co-op is pure ecstasy --- if you can actually get it to work. As an added bonus, you can get the DVD-ROM version for this game, instead of some clumsy 5-CD job. Sooner or later, you should own "Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory".
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