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Splinter Cell Demo Review December 19, 2002 Jakub Wojnarowicz |
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Summary: So the Splinter Cell demo is out, and we have a review of it already? Read the review, and find out just how Jakub was able to get so quickly through it. He also gleaned every last bit of information he could from it, and you can get a Splinter Cell newbie's perspective on the game... sorta. Read on and have all this explained!
 Overview | Page:: ( 1 / 3 ) |
Xbox love
Despite being quite fond of my Xbox, I haven’t found the opportunity to pick up Splinter Cell yet. Maybe it’s my inherent PC bias, but I’ve decided to wait for the PC version. So when Ubi released the Splinter Cell demo last night, I jumped on the opportunity and downloaded the modest (by today’s standards) 100MB file. For those who missed Marcus’ news post, it’s the same demo that made went around in the Xbox magazines as a cover disc.
What that means is that all you get is one tiny, dinky little level to play with. Consisting of little more than a small police precinct in Tbilisi, the capital of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, it offers only the most limited opportunity to experience the game. Those expecting to get a few hours or perhaps even days of entertainment are going to be sorely disappointed.
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So what does it offer?
Good question. With the steeper requirements for the game than one would expect from an Xbox title, you can at least test out your system against it. For the record, it ran perfectly fine on a P4 Willamette 2GHz with 512MB of DDR and a GF4 4200 OTES. In fact the system handled full details, 1280 resolution and Quincunx FSAA without a hiccup.
Considering the requirements and recommendations, this is a very impressive title. Models are reasonably detailed and animated very smoothly. It’s possible to break the illusion by doing a few strange things, like rapidly changing directions left and right when hanging off a ledge. Overall though, the animations are extremely impressive.
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A definite crowd pleaser even for experienced gamers will be the curtains in the game. They react extremely realistically to the player and other characters, warping, bending and shuffling as they’re hit. Almost as impressive are the vision modes. Night vision is basically a brightened, black and white version of normal vision. Be careful, if you go into a well-lit area and your character will go blind. Infrared vision is the real bonus – the world is heated realistically. Lamps and computers give off heat, and an uncovered face will be brighter than a clothed body. If you took an enemy down, his body will cool and you can even see that with the infravision goggles. Is that sweet or what?
SIDEBAR: The biggest change in the requirements from an Xbox is the amount of RAM. Gives you an idea of how much of a memory hog Windows really is, if they can run the game on 64MB in the Xbox.
| The End | Page:: ( 2 / 3 ) |
Interface
The interface is really something else. It combines the basic WASD controls from an FPS game with a free camera and analog speed control. Analog speed control? That’s a really clever way of letting the player determine the movement speed of his character. Rather than just have a run and slow toggle button, the game lets players use the mouse scroll feature to determine movement speed. Fisher, the agent you play in the game, can go at any speed from a cautious walk to a light run. Even at his fastest setting, he never abandons stealthy movement. Like our perennial first-person-sneaker favorite, Thief, there’s a light bar. It shows how well or how poorly Fisher is hidden.
In addition to his gun, Fisher comes with a health kit, lock picks and an optical cable. It’s easy enough to select them with the quick inventory button, and using them is even easier – just click the fire button. The items are context-sensitive, so Fisher won’t use his optical cable in the middle of a hallway, preventing some embarrassing mistakes!
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Gameplay
The most disappointing part of the demo is actually the gameplay. The five-ten minutes of play don’t even allow us to get immersed before it’s over [insert feminist sexual joke here]. What really kills us is the fact that you don’t end up trying even a tenth of the things you can allegedly do in the full game.
The whole point of a demo is to tease – give an accurate, fun representation of the final product without giving it all away. The Splinter Cell demo just doesn’t give enough tease. It’s like a girl lifting her skirts to show her ankles. Sure that might work in the 19th century or in an Amish community, but we’re hardcore gamers here. Ubi did itself a real disservice by releasing this too-short, feature-crippled demo of an excellent game. Worth a download? Sure, if you want to see how it runs on your system or like bumping into curtains. Not exactly the most compelling reasons to try a game, are they?
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SIDEBAR: Is Jakub being a little harsh with Ubi? I mean, really, you’re getting some free entertainment here! Of course, when even a phat pipe to the internet spends more time downloading the game than you do playing it, that could be a problem, couldn’t it?
| Gallery | Page:: ( 3 / 3 ) |