Sam Fisher returns in his third outing, but does he live up to his name?
The graphics have really been vamped up for this outing, the environments are crisp and highly detailed, and charcters are well expressioned as well as having fantastic motions. Particular areas to be impressed by those levels with rainfall, which include fantastic reflections and raindrop impressions and also areas where there are fires which always lead to fantastic lighting. This game pushes the XBOX to its limits and could go for a craply detailed 360 game. Playing it through a HD 360 certainly has noticeble effects.
The sounds are pretty much standard. The movement sounds all sound realistic as do environmental effects. Theres not much in the way of music but there is a catchy guitar melody thats sort of Mission Impossible style. Guns also sound good, however players may notice that when on the recieving end, its very loud, and often startles you as do the explosions.. Voice acting is fine bar the somewhat cheesy dialogue you get between sam and the back up squad.
If you have played the previous games then its going to be very familiar to you, every things the same...crouching, jumping, shooting, hand-to-hand, rapelling, hiding in the shadows...etc. There are new features of course. Players now have the option to use lethal of none lethal attacks by using the Left trigger or right trigger respectively. Sam now has a knife with which you carry out the lethal attacks. The knife also lets you cut into weak material to access people of places. New moves include being able to break locks for quick access to locked areas, howver guards will notice it and hanging of ledge and then pulling foes off the edge. You can also hang from pipes and do both L and NL attacks on peope below you. The SC20K now also has a Shotgun attachment and sniper attachment for using in short/long distance situations. The pistol also includes an OCP, a device which when fired at lights and cameras disables them for a small time, helping to save ammo.
The gameplay also makes this game a lot harder than previous installements. Guards are cleverer, noticing things like broken locks and lights, computers/radios/TVs that shouldn't be on, and also noticing charcters missing. Cameras are also indestructable now (i think they are) so you have to either cause a black out or disable them. Players from previous games may also notice that it only takes a couple of bullets to kill you now, which really means you've got to concentrate on the stealth element. This is also promoted through the mission success rating you get at the end of each level. Things like killing people and alarms and detections decrease the rating you get. Levels are varying lengths with some taking anywhere between 30 minutes and 4 hours. Of course the actual mission times will be only 2 hours at the max due to all the the reloading after deaths. I can't remember how many levels there are, i thinks its 11 in solo and 8 in co-op mode. Co-op mode is where you and a friend can team up to thwart some terrorist ass. I haven't played it that much but its a good laugh. The infamous Spies V merc returns in excellent fashion leading to awsome face offs.
Problems: well the solo mission do drag on...as they are all pretty similar in objective. Apart from that its pretty clean slate...it continues on in good fashion. Come on number 4 double agent.