| Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent |
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North American Windows cover art |
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| Developer(s) | Ubisoft Shanghai (Xbox 360, Xbox, Microsoft Windows, Wii & PlayStation 3) Ubisoft Montreal (PlayStation 2 & Nintendo GameCube) |
| Publisher(s) | Ubisoft |
| Designer(s) | Chris Smith, Hugues Martel, Julian Gerighty, Daniel Roy, Mathieu Ferland |
| Composer(s) | Michael McCann and Cris Velasco |
| Engine | Lead Engine (based on Chaos Theory engine) |
| Version | 1.02a (October 2, 2008) |
| Platform(s) | Xbox 360, Xbox, PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Microsoft Windows, Wii, PlayStation 3 |
| Release date(s) | |
| Genre(s) | Action-adventure, Stealth |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | |
| Media/distribution | Optical disc |
| System requirements
Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz or equivalent CPU, 1 GB RAM, 10 GB hard disk, DirectX 9.0c, Shader 3.0 enabled 128 MB video card (256 recommended) |
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Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent is an action-adventure stealth game, developed and published by Ubisoft. The series, endorsed by American author Tom Clancy, follows the character Sam Fisher, an agent employed by a black-ops division of the National Security Agency, dubbed Third Echelon.
Double Agent was released for the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox and Xbox 360 in October 2006. The Wii and Microsoft Windows versions were released in November 2006. A PlayStation 3 version was released in March 2007.
Originally the game was set for a March 2006 release, but Ubisoft moved the release date to October 2006 in order to have more development time. Ubisoft then released their fiscal quarter results for Q1 2006 and announced that Splinter Cell Double Agent would be put back at least one month in order to boost Q3 2006 income.
There are actually two separate versions of Double Agent. One version (Generation Seven version) was made by Ubisoft Shanghai, who developed Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and was released on the Xbox 360, Windows, and PlayStation 3. The other version (Generation Six version) was made by Ubisoft Montreal (Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory) and was released for the Xbox, PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube and Nintendo Wii. The version for mobile phones was developed by Gameloft. The Generation Seven version features a completely custom engine while the Generation Six version plays more like the classic Splinter Cell games. The games share the same general plot but feature different storylines, plot twists, and levels. Even the levels they share have completely different level designs. They do however, share the same background music and a few cut scenes.
Contents |
The two versions of the game feature different plot lines. They share many of the same locations, but with completely different level designs and in a different order.
Shortly after the events of Chaos Theory, Sam Fisher must deal with the recent loss of his daughter to a drunk driving accident. But he has little time to mourn, as he soon has to go on an undercover assignment which requires him to pose as a criminal in order to infiltrate a terrorist group based in the United States. This new mission forces Fisher into a new and very dangerous gray area, where the line between right and wrong is blurred even beyond what Fisher is used to, and thousands of innocent lives are in the balance.
The game begins in September 2007, shortly after the events of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory as Sam Fisher and rookie John Hodge are being flown to Iceland to investigate suspicious activities at a geothermal plant. After he averts a missile strike by insurgents during which John dies, he is met by Colonel Irving Lambert aboard the Osprey to deliver bad news. Sarah Fisher, Sam's only child, has been killed by a drunk driver. Overcome with grief, he is unable to concentrate on his work and is pulled out of active service.
Shortly thereafter, Lambert offers him the rank of a NOC (nonofficial cover operative), hoping that it will help him refocus. NOCs are operatives with backgrounds from both the CIA and NSA, trained to infiltrate organizations for HUMINT purposes. The government denies any involvement in their activities. The NSA stages multiple bank robberies and killings to set up Fisher to infiltrate a domestic terror organization known as John Brown's Army (JBA). He is sent to Ellsworth Prison in Kansas where he is placed in the same cell block as Jamie Washington, a JBA member, and begins digging a tunnel for escape. By February 2008, Fisher helps Washington escape, and is welcomed into the JBA.
At their compound, Emile Dufraisne, the leader of the JBA, gives Sam the order to shoot Cole Yeagher, the pilot of the helicopter used to escape the prison. If Fisher kills him, he will earn JBA trust and lose NSA trust. If he misses his shot on purpose, Jamie will kill Cole, and Sam will lose a little bit of trust with the JBA. This decision does not affect the rest of the storyline, unlike later decisions. He is then sent on a mission to take over a Russian oil tanker in the Sea of Okhotsk, while receiving radio contact from Enrica Villablanca, the JBA's weapons expert. Sam needs to take over the tanker so that JBA ally Massoud Ibn-Yussif can use it to deliver one of Emile's bombs.
As soon as Fisher is finished, he is quickly flown to the Jin Mao Hotel in Shanghai. CIA agent Hisham Hamza orders him to record a meeting between Emile and a Pakistani nuclear scientist, Dr. Aswat. During the meeting, Aswat sells Emile several kilograms of red mercury, a fictional explosive material that can detonate with the force of a thermonuclear bomb. With Third Echelon on high alert, Fisher is told to collect a sample from the safe in the meeting room. While he does this, Carson Moss, the JBA's head of security, radios in and orders him to steal notes from Aswat's hotel room. The NSA then orders the assassination of Dr. Aswat.
With both the red mercury and Dr. Aswat's notes, the JBA constructs a bomb which they wish to test. Emile sends Fisher to Cozumel to blow up a cruise ship. The success of the bomb is determined by the player and is therefore the first of the three major events. Fisher can choose to either let the bomb detonate, maintaining his cover with the JBA, prevent the explosion by jamming the signal, or framing Enrica by using her disarm code, if the player acquires it from her office during the third JBA HQ mission. Jamming the signal makes player lose JBA trust, while framing Enrica maintains both NSA and JBA trust. In both of these cases, non-detonation causes Dufraisne to kill Enrica in a fit of anger.
Emile then goes to a meeting in Kinshasa with Alejandro Takfir and Massoud Ibn-Yussif, allies of the JBA. Fisher bugs the meeting and finds out that the three terrorist leaders each have Red Mercury bombs. They plan to destroy Mexico City, Los Angeles and New York City. During the meeting, Hisham's cover is blown.
Emile orders Fisher to kill Hisham, who has fled to the Congolese presidential palace in Kinshasa. Fisher makes his way through Kinshasa, which is an all-out war zone between government forces and rebels. Fisher takes up a position from the top of a radio tower with a sniper rifle. Fisher may shoot Hisham, but if he spares his life, another section of the level is unlocked where Fisher extracts him from the palace. Fisher saves Hisham from the rebels, who took control of the presidential palace and rigged it with explosives.
When Fisher returns to the headquarters, he is ordered to shoot Lambert, who was captured sneaking around the complex. The player can decide to either shoot Lambert or Jamie Washington (the player can also miss their shot on purpose, but this causes Washington to shoot Fisher in the head, killing him instantly). Shooting Lambert will maintain the JBA's trust, while shooting Washington will send the JBA into high alert and reveal Fisher as a traitor. Enrica, if she is still alive, discovers Fisher's NOC status, but allows him to pass into the labs underneath the HQ, even giving him his equipment if he does not have it already. When Sam arrives at the labs, he manages to kill Emile (and Washington if he did not kill him earlier) and disarms the bomb. A SWAT team then storms the compound, crashing in through the ceiling.
The ending depends upon completion of the following objectives: saving the cruise ship, Hisham, and Lambert.
The game begins shortly after the events of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory as Sam and CIA agent Hisham Hamza are being flown to Iceland to investigate suspicious activities at a geothermal plant. However, the mission is aborted, with Irving Lambert activating a two-man Splinter Cell team to destroy the plant. Sam is met by Lambert aboard the Osprey to deliver bad news. Sarah Fisher, Sam's only child, has been killed by a drunk driver. Overcome with grief, he is unable to concentrate on his work and is pulled out of active service.
Lambert offers him the rank of a NOC (nonofficial cover operative), hoping that it will help him refocus. NOCs are operatives with backgrounds from both the CIA and NSA, trained to infiltrate organizations for HUMINT purposes. The government denies any involvement in their activities. The NSA stages multiple bank robberies and killings to set up Fisher to infiltrate a domestic terror organization known as John Brown's Army (JBA). He is sent to Ellsworth Prison in Kansas where he is placed in the same cell block as Jamie Washington, a JBA member. With indirect assistance from a Splinter Cell team, Fisher helps Washington escape, and is welcomed into the JBA.
At their compound, in New Orleans, Sam finds an e-mail written by JBA member Cole Yeager describing his intentions to take over JBA. If he chooses to send this information to the NSA, they will extract Yeager for interrogation; the information can also be sent to JBA, in which case Yeager is killed by the terrorists.
Sam is then sent to hijack a train in Grand Central Station, carrying a large sum of money, gold, and jewelry. Because Lambert pretends to be an arms dealer, Sam has access to his NSA equipment.
After the JBA constructs a bomb using red mercury, Emile sends Fisher to Cozumel, Mexico to test it by blowing up a cruise ship. If the player chooses to sabotage the bomb detonation, Sam and Enrica are severely beaten. Unlike the other version, this decision does not affect the ending of the game.
Sam is then sent on a mission to take over a Russian oil tanker in the Sea of Okhotsk. Two computers on the tanker have an e-mail to Emile from an anonymous sender who intends to blow Lambert's cover as an arms dealer.
Emile then goes to a meeting in Kinshasa with Alejandro Takfir and Massoud Ibn-Yussif, allies of the JBA, to buy more red mercury. He orders Fisher to kill Hisham. If the player lets him go, he will receive an adrenaline syringe, which does not make an appearance for the rest of the game. Fisher uncovers information that sets up a mission for a Splinter Cell team to sabotage a chemical bunker owned by Takfir. An e-mail on Massoud's computer reveals that there is a mole inside the NSA.
When Fisher returns to the headquarters, he discovers that Lambert has been taken hostage, and the terrorists are about to send off the Red Mercury. Sam has to choose whether to place information on the JBA server backing up Lambert's cover, or plant information that proves he is with the NSA. At the end of the mission, Moss is shown in a cinematic killing Lambert and Sam disposing his body in a dumpster (or Lambert being beaten but recovering). Director Williams seems strangely indifferent to the death of Lambert, if the player chooses that route. He can also choose to disable two of the red mercury bombs.
Unlike the other version, regardless of whether Lambert is saved or not, the final mission starts with the JBA discovering that Sam is a spy while on an operation in New York. Williams authorizes the Fifth Freedom and orders Sam to kill all the top-ranking members of the JBA while having another Splinter Cell team disarm various Red Mercury bombs in the tanker headed for Los Angeles. Enrica, unable to kill Fisher, helps him by setting off the sprinklers in one room. After Sam kills Emile, and disables the last bomb, Enrica comes looking for him, but is shot by a Splinter Cell agent. Out of anger, Sam hides underneath the snow, then jumps out and slits the agent's throat as he walks by. Sam then removes the subdermal for his own cochlear implant using his knife. He accuses Williams of murdering Enrica and vows revenge; Williams says that they will find him first.
If Sam disarms the bombs in Nashville and Los Angeles, the end newscast will say that a potential terrorist attack has been stopped. If only one of the bombs is disarmed, the newscast will report on a bomb, whichever one was not disarmed, exploding and killing many. If neither of the bombs are disarmed, the newscast will say that two bombs have gone off in Nashville and Los Angeles, killing many people. If Nashville is destroyed, it is also noted that the President has been killed during his visit. He is succeeded by his Vice President.
Splinter Cell: Conviction confirmed that the Generation Seven version is the canon version.
As part of the JBA, Sam must complete objectives set by them to gain their trust as well as complete objectives from the NSA. The decisions he has to make will become increasingly difficult as he progresses through the game. Earlier decisions, such as deciding whether or not to free all of the prisoners during the prison breakout, will just affect his score, but as the game progresses, Sam is faced with serious choices that could kill thousands if made wrong, but may blow his cover if he does not do it.
Despite this, Sam must make the JBA trust him. If he is seen in restricted areas before, it will dramatically affect his trust with the JBA. Similarly, if he is caught using an NSA gadget or picking a lock in JBA HQ, his cover will be blown on sight.
He is also watched by the JBA in most of his missions, if he is seen completing NSA objectives or is thought to be doing something out of the ordinary, his trust will go down. Killing people apart from those ordered to be taken out will affect his NSA trust in the same way.
Upon joining the game, the player selects one of two sides: the Spies of Third Echelon or the Mercenaries of Upsilon Force. The choice of side affects the player's mission objectives, equipment, and overall play style.
The Echelon Spies are extremely fast and agile, much more so than the Mercenaries. The Spies have a variety of almost superhuman acrobatic maneuvers that allow them to navigate the map and infiltrate areas that their opponents cannot reach on foot.
The mission objective of the spies is to retrieve two encrypted files from four terminals scattered around the map. The spies use their wrist computer to hack the terminal. The closer the spy is to the terminal, the faster it can be hacked. All progress made whilst hacking any terminal is cumulative for that particular spy until he is killed, when the information will be lost. To win the game, the spy team must retrieve 2 files and return them to their starting point. The spy team can also win by killing all of the Upsilon Force members, but this method is risky and not advised, unless highly skilled in doing so. The whole mission takes place in less than 20 minutes, otherwise Upsilon wins the match.
The Mercenaries of Upsilon Force are heavily armed with a variety of ways to neutralize intruders. They have a melee attack that knocks their opponents to the ground and temporarily stuns them. They have the ability to sprint for a limited period of time, reducing their turning and aiming accuracy. Mercenaries can also sprint into a spy, knocking them down and stunning them temporarily. They can rappel down certain surfaces, allowing them to move to lower floors quickly.
The mission objective of the Mercenaries is to defend the four terminals from attack by the Spies. The Mercenaries win when they kill all of the Spies or when the timer runs out before the Spies can successfully return two files. Mercenaries receive an audio and visual alert whenever a terminal is being hacked and also can see which Spy is currently hacking and how much of the file has been retrieved.
The Xbox and PS2 versions have a Spy vs. Spy mode, with players able to play as Echelon Spies or the Upsilon Spies, and also has a co-op mode intertwined with the single player portion of the game.
There are 6 Game Modes in these Spy vs. Spy matches: Team Hack, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Key Run, Sam Vs. All, and Countdown. Team Hack has players trying to retrieve data by hacking into enemies' computers and securing their own computers, similar to "Capture The Flag." Deathmatch and Team Deathmatches pit players against each other. Key Run is similar to Team Hack, except retrieving a Key to hack into the other team's computer is the main item to capture. Sam Vs. All is reminiscent to Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence's Sneaking Mission game mode, in which one player who is Sam Fisher must play as a lone wolf and hack into computers defended by an Upsilon spy team. However, the key difference is that Fisher lacks the equipment from the single-player mode, and is nearly identical to normal spies. Countdown is similar to Deathmatch, except players must outlast each other by getting more kills to extend their time limit.
Like Chaos Theory, cooperative missions are available that tie in directly to the storyline. They have the spies provide covert support for Fisher, either helping him with his objectives or acting on intelligence he has gathered. The first mission takes place in Iceland shortly after Sam is pulled out. The spies are sent in to complete Fisher's mission by blowing up the plant. Next, the spies go to Ellsworth Prison to start a riot, providing a distraction to allow Fisher and Jamie Washington to escape. Thanks to intelligence provided by Fisher, the spies are able to sabotage the chemical bunker in Kinshasa owned by Tafkir and Massoud, as well as getting valuable intel. The last mission happens in conjunction with Fisher taking down the JBA. The Splinter Cell duo, under the command of Assistant Director Williams, sabotages multiple Red Mercury bombs on a cargo ship heading for Los Angeles.
| Reception | |
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| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| Game Informer | 9/10 |
| GameSpy | 4.5/5 |
| Official Xbox Magazine | 9.0/10 |
The United Kingdom, American, and Australian versions of the Official Xbox Magazine gave the Xbox 360 edition of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent a 9 out of 10. The UK magazine said that it was "rupturing quality and oozing tension", calling it "stealth gaming of the highest calibre, full of imagination and augmented by an excellent two-way Trust system that leaves you pondering every choice you make and then having to deal with the consequences." The UK OXM also gave the PlayStation 2 version an 8 out of 10.
IGN gave the Xbox and Xbox 360 version of Double Agent an "Outstanding" 9.0 out of 10, the PlayStation 2 version an 8.7, the Windows version a 9.0, the Wii version a 5.5 for poor graphics and motion sensing, and the PlayStation 3 version a 7.9 for degraded particle effects. TeamXbox.com rated it 9.1 out of 10, USA Today 9 out of 10, GameTrailers.com 8.9 out of 10, and 1Up.com a "Dynamite" 8 out of 10.
Nintendo Power gave the GCN version 7.2 out of 10 and the Wii version 6.0 out of 10.
GameSpot reviewed each version separately, giving the Xbox and Xbox 360 version a "Great" 8.5, the Windows version a "Great" 8.0 noting "Some issues with stability and graphical performance", the PlayStation 2 version a "Great" 8.2, the PlayStation 3 version a "Great" 8.0, the Wii version a "Fair" 6.2, and the Gamecube version a "Fair" 6.7. The major differences between them are in the online multiplayer, graphics and the controls.
GameSpy gave the Windows version 2.5 out of 5 stars, citing many bugs, inconsistent graphics, and high system requirements.[8]
Despite all the improvements, the "Splinter Cell Versus community" was not very enthusiastic about Double Agent Versus mode, preferring the previous opus Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Hyper's Dylan Burns commends the game for its great looks, "moral ramifications [and] branching objectives". However, he criticises it for the "same old trial and error gameplay, it's over too quickly".[9]
Michael McCann (under the alias Behavior) was lead composer for the game's soundtrack. For the Generation Seven version, McCann composed all music, except the Main Theme, which was composed by veterans Cris Velasco and Sascha Dikiciyan of Sonic Mayhem[15]. McCann released the majority of the body of music composed for the game via his website for free[16]. For the Generation Six version, McCann handled all music except the cinematics, which were composed by Velasco and Dikiciyan.
| Awards | ||
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| Preceded by Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory |
IGN Xbox Game of the Year 2006 |
Succeeded by Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction |
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