I walked down to my EB today to check out some games, as well as put down my pre-orders for Splinter Cell and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. And to my surprise, guess which game they happened to have some demo CD\'s for? That\'s right, Splinter Cell. Well, after racing home and completing the game twice (then going to work
), coming home and completing the demo a third time, here are my impressions.
(Any assumptions I make about the final product is based on the assumption that it is consistant with this demo.)
The game itself is currently being compared to Metal Gear Solid 2. In some circles being called the MGS2 "killah". This
is actually really unfair, because the game actually more closely resembles the PSX shooter,
Syphon Filter. In fact, while playing the demo I was experiencing quite a bit of deja vu.
From the level based structure, to the hanging from a pipe while shooting at people. The game is exactly what I would expect a fully updated Syphon Filter 4 to be like. Which, IMO, is not a bad thing.
If you were expecting MGS2 then there are other factors that seem to separate the two. For example, stealth seems to play a more important part in MGS2 than it does Splinter Cell. In MGS2 you used your stealth to remain undetected and completely avoid guards. In this, you use stealth to remain undetected so you can kill the guards, something more reminiscent of The Mark of Kri. And because (at least in the demo) there were never more than one guard/person near eachother at any one time, that meant only getting close enough to pop off a shot with your Silenced pistol. Once a guy is dead, there are no detremental effects (such as him not radio\'ing in his position at designated times in MGS2).
While Sam Fischer does have a wide array of different moves he can utilize, they are stifled in that they never have to be used in the demo, and I can hardly see why they would be used in the final version. Such as the ability to hang from a pipe for anything other than crossing large gaps, your thermal goggles, and your ability to move bodies, or even throw a can of coke as a distraction.
Due to its mission based structure, and a lack of guards with patrol routes, you really don\'t have to move bodies, ever (at least in the demo) You kill him, and no one will ever know, or stumble across it. The ability to climb on the pipes would be great for avoiding patrolling guards, but only if the games excellent lighting was used to great effect. For example, let say some lights were hanging from the ceiling and the entire ground was completely flooded with bright light, and a patrolling guard comes walking down the hallway. You have no where to hide, EXCEPT, the shadow covered roof. That\'s the sort of thing I was expecting to find in the demo, but was let down.
And that brings me to the lighting. The lighting and shadows are extremely well done. It\'s amazing to walk past a fence to see a perfect shadow coming from every pole in said fence. However, some things about the lighting did bother me somewhat. If there were two lights and a gap between them, the area NOT covered by the lights would be COMPLETELY dark. While this can be used to your advantage, I found it off putting. At one point in the demo guards heard my footsteps and came looking for me, so I backed slightly down the hall into a small area of complete darkness. The guards walked litereally within 2 feet of me, and couldn\'t see me. At all. Even when I moved, he couldn\'t see me. Even when I slowly aimed my gun right between his eyes and popped off a round killing him. And to make it worse, the guy standing a mere 10 feet away had no idea I just killed his friend, despite the large clunk as he thudded to the ground. So his friend was a nice and easy pick off as well.
Another draw back I found, was that it was quite hard, and required a lot of thought and stealth the first time through, however, once I knew where the guards were, it was extremely easy. This one factor could eliminate most of the replay value that might have been found in the game. What made Metal Gear Solid 2 so fun, and so full of replay value was the incredible AI and team tactics used by the squads once alerted to your presense. There is none of that in this game. They simply get up, call out "Huh, I heard a noise" and come walking in your direction.
Another thing that bugged me about the demo was that it was extremely linear. With so many moves at his disposal, I would like to see you enter into room full of people, where you can have the options to pick them off one by one, sneak through the shadows around the walls, find a pipe and climb over the top of them, or even find an object to obstruct their biew of you. But in this, it was merely a "figure out how to get past this guard in the way they want you to and do it". Once again, making the game extremely easy once you know how to do it. I am hoping that this sort of thing was just to show off what you can do in the end product, rather than a direct indication of what the end product will be like.
The controls to the game are very simple. Probably even more simple than MGS2. With a button stucture as follows..
Left Trigger = Secondary Fire
Right Trigger = Primary Fire
Start = Inventory
White Button = Back to wall
Black button = Quick inventory
A Button = Interact. It tells you when you can use this button, and what it will do (example, open door, pick up object, take person hostage etc.)
B Button = Crouch (if you are hanging from a pipe, it will lift your legs up)
X Button = Toggle Aim mode (you can only shoot in Aim mode... I think)
Y Button = Jump (click twice for split jump). If you are standing under some pipes, you will grab on automatically.
Left of D-Pad = Night vision mode
Right on D-Pad = Thermal vision mode
Left Stick = Controls where you go, controls very similarly to MGS2
Right Stick = Controls camera. I like to use the two in tandem (i.e. Max Payne or SOCOM US Navy Seals)
The graphics are extremely good. The aforementioned lighting and shadows are spectacular, and the character models are on par with MGS2. However the backgrounds are much more detailed, and have much sharper textures than those found in MGS2. And you will spend a good couple of minutes playing in the plastic sheets dangling from the ceiling!! And it\'s very impressive to see someone casting a shadow from a desk lamp onto some blinds so you can see their outline clearly, warning you of their presense.
The animation has been ironed out, while still a little stiff and not up to the quality of MGS2, they are very workable. Some small things I\'d like to see rectified in the final version are the fact that if you are crouching, and you want to open a door, he stands up automatically, and you have to crouch again. Just a small thing, but it\'d be nice
Sound effects are very good. The music is (mostly) extremely low key, allowing you to listen to hear if anyone is in the next room. As soon as someone catches you, the music picks up in tempo (the low bell you hear will give you nightmares eventually!). It was very atmospheric to stand next to a door and hear two people have a conversation, and then have them finish and you hear the footsteps as they walk away. You also have to be careful not to make noise otherwise you\'ll alert them of your presense. (ala MGS2, walking on the metal grates near people)
Well that\'s pretty much all I can think of right now, and despite all my criticism I definately enjoyed the demo, a lot. The only major problem that needs to be fixed for the final game is the horrible collision detection for the bullets fired (so annoying to fire about 8 bullets directly at the middle of someones chest from near point blank range and have ALL of them miss!!! Reminds me of Pulp Fiction..) And I am still looking forward to this Syphon Filter/Metal Gear Solid/Head Hunter-esque experience. It\'s sure to be great
