Double Agent
Splinter Cell Double Agent was an interesting beast. It first released in October of 2006, almost a full year after the launch of the Xbox 360. It was one of the many games that developers tried to stretch across the generation gap, with a lot of games at that time releasing on both the next-generation and current-generation platforms. Where Double Agent differed, though, is that the two console versions were essentially completely different games. The interesting thing is that Ubisoft Montreal, the developers of the excellent Chaos Theory and the original, were working on the Xbox version, while Ubi Shanghai (which at the time I lovingly referred to as “The B-Team”) was handed the Xbox 360 job. Ubi Shanghai was responsible for the decent, but not really innovative, Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow. The two released simultaneously, with the Xbox version being more true to what Chaos Theory had started, and the 360 version being somewhat… limited.
Not entirely Ubi Shanghai’s fault, as most of the Xbox 360 titles at the time were very pretty but lacking in much else. It was a matter of the developers still trying to grasp the 360’s architecture, which might have been simpler than the PS3’s but still wasn’t a cakewalk itself. Regardless, Double Agent Xbox received great reviews, and the 360 version, while not bad, didn’t exactly set the charts on fire.
The version I played is the Xbox 360 version developed by Ubisoft Shanghai. As an early adopter of the 360 console, I moved on from the Xbox and never got a chance to play the superior game, and until I get a dedicated upscaler, hooking my old Xbox up to my modern tv is an exercise in futility.
Analysis
This was the game that seemingly changed Splinter Cell forever. It removed Sam Fisher (and by extension, the player) from the comfort zone they’d established for themselves. The previous entries in the series had clear-cut, black and white rules that you had to abide by. The bad guys weren’t always “bad guys.” In some missions, they were merely security guards doing their jobs. But the game always let you know where you stood. You either had the “Fifth Freedom,” a.k.a. a license to kill, or you didn’t. Failure to abide was a mission aborted.
In Double Agent, Sam is deep undercover in a home-grown terrorist organization. In order to make himself believable as a bad guy, Sam sometimes has to do bad things. But the game doesn’t tell you which path to choose, and sometimes the lesser of the two evils still leaves you with a knot in your gut. Other times, there may be a choice between a simple, morally questionable solution, and another that may maintain your integrity, but be a much harder and more complicated task to complete. The game keeps track of your decisions and actions, and depicts it as a trust rating between the NSA and the terrorist organization. Maintaining trust in one may require losing trust in the other, and keeping them both is the tightrope Fisher has to walk. If it sounds stressful, that’s because it is. This game made my palms sweat.
This game was always difficult for me to get into. The aesthetic was a drastic change for the Splinter Cell series, and the inclusion of a context-sensitive A button made for a number of oopsies when I’d press it with the intention of doing something else. In hindsight, one of the benefits of putting the game down for a while and then coming back to it was that time away acted as a palette cleanser of sorts. I was having a really hard time with the control scheme after playing the original three games, but coming back to it I adjusted almost immediately. So the change-up isn’t likely to cause problems unless you’re playing them back to back, like I had attempted.
The mission structure of Double Agent is a bit of a mixed bag, as the home base of the John Brown’s Army acts as its own level, with new “base” missions sandwiched between Sam’s on-location, classic Splinter Cell missions. The problem with this is that it can get a bit dull being tasked with exploring and sneaking around the same area several times. It definitely raises the tension levels as Sam has to balance his cover with his NSA obligations. The problem I had with the JBA base missions, though, was that they just weren’t any fun. The way it was handled, by giving the player a timer in which Sam has to complete his JBA task, sneak off to do his double agent duties, then get back to his place, was just not a great mechanic. I can’t help but feel like if they had just made them scripted objectives, removed the timer, and let me play Splinter Cell that it would’ve made all the difference. Digging through files and hiding under desks isn’t really what Sam Fisher is all about.
As far as the game itself goes, Ubisoft Shanghai made a bizarre decision and removed some of the functions that made Chaos Theory so fuggin’ good. One of the bigger head scratchers was the exclusion of the noise meter. This was a godsend for the previous games, as you could see how much noise Sam was making in relation to the ambient noise in the environment. It went a long way into deciding if you could afford to move just a little bit faster and cover some ground at the expense of making a bit more noise. The removal of this meter stamps a giant Question Mark on anything that you do, and sometimes the game breaks its own rules, with Sam’s footsteps (or a landing) being heard by a guard in a seemingly noisy environment. You mean to tell me that a guard heard footsteps from a guy 50 yards away during a blizzard? Another exclusion was the light to dark meter that indicated just how visible Sam is to the bad guys. It was replaced with a light indicator on his left shoulder that changes from green when hidden in sufficient darkness, to yellow when visible, and red when spotted. The problem with this is that there’s no way to know when you’re going to suddenly be visible. The shadows aren’t always copacetic with what Sam’s light indicates. Sometimes Sam may seem exposed but his green light is on. Likewise, I could swear I was in a dark place a time or two and the yellow light just refused to change. My complaint with it is that it’s so static and digital. You’re either hidden, or you aren’t, and without the light to dark gradient meter from before telling you that you’re slowly wandering into the light, there’s just no way to know how close you are to being exposed until the light changes from green to yellow. By then, sometimes, it could be too late. The fact that both the sound and light meters exist in the Xbox version of Double Agent just makes it all the more aggravating.
Does it hold up?
Sure. It came along pretty early in the 360/PS3’s life so it’s not going to knock your socks off, but there is some good texture work, the voice acting is fine, and the controls are as tight as a Splinter Cell game could get. As seen below, Sam got a pretty spiffy graphical upgrade, but still kinda jumped like a mannequin. Thankfully there weren’t too many sections that required it. The ability to save at any time was a life saver too.
Is it worth going back to?
Ehhh… see, here’s the deal. The game isn’t great. In fact, it’s not much fun at all. Ubi Shanghai did a fairly poor job of capturing the Splinter Cell feel. What makes it worse is there is a different, better version out there. The kicker is that unless you have an OG Xbox, a physical version of the disc, and either an old picture tube television or HD upscaler, you probably won’t be playing it (the PC version was the one made for 360/PS3.) Our only hope is that Ubisoft allows Microsoft to make the OG Xbox versions backward compatible and that Double Agent is included. If that ever happens, I’ll be on it as soon as possible.
Conclusion
Splinter Cell Double Agent for Xbox 360 and PS3 is a tough game to recommend. It’s not technically a bad game. It just doesn’t fulfill what a player wants in Splinter Cell. The original Xbox version was a more pure experience, and if given the choice between the two, I’d have to recommend the Xbox version, even if it’s inherently the “uglier” one. If you absolutely must play it, there is a little bit of enjoyment to be had, just be prepared to work within some of the awkward design decisions.
Catch up on the previous entries in the Splinter Cell Re-visited series:
Part 1: Introduction to Splinter Cell
Part 2: Splinter Cell
Part 3: Pandora Tomorrow
Part 4: Chaos Theory
