The sixth-gen version is every bit as good, if not better than next-gen, and is one of the best stealth games on the PS2
The game takes place in 2008; Sam's daughter is killed and having nothing left to lose he takes on his most dangerous mission: to inflitrate a terrorist group called JBA. Depending on whether the player fulfils certain conditions, there are three endings although the main gist of the ending remains the same. The ending also happens to be superb. The game also fixes some plot holes from the seventh-generation version.
The game plays somewhat like previous entries in the series, especially Chaos Theory. Sam has to rely on stealth to complete missions, and the game makes sure of this by severely limiting your ammo. The stealth meter shows how much visible you are and how much noise you are making. Getting detected results in an alert which reduces the mission rating. There are several ways of causing an alert: being spotted by enemies, being seen by security cameras and passing through lasers. While these traps only result in alerts in earlier missions, later missions also have lethal traps such as turrets, wall mines and laser tripwires. These can be disabled by (slowly) getting close enough to remove them or using a device called OCP which is attached to Sam's pistol, to temporarily jam lasers and cameras. In some missions you also have some EMP rounds to permanently jam electronic devices. The series' instantly recognizable trifocal goggles are available in every mission as well (in the seventh generation version, they are not available in daylight missions). There are some minigames as well: hacking electronic devices, picking locks and defusing bombs. There are other devices like the EEV (for accessing computers remotely) and OPSAT (for checking objectives and the map). There are many paths to go through and many ways to complete the mission, especially in the later missions.
The game introduces a new 'trust meter' which goes on the side of either the JBA or the NSA depending on what choices you make during the missions. If the trust meter goes too far on one side, you have to complete a special objective in a short time to restore the trust of the other side or the mission fails. Choice-making is a cool feature and has an impact on the outcome of the game and the story of the whole series.
The game looks excellent as well; while the PS2 version's graphics are as expected inferior to the Xbox's, these are by a very small margin. It still looks great on the PS2 and there is a lot of detail in just about everything. Cutscenes look awesome. The voice acting, especially Sam's voice acting by Michael Ironside, is brilliant and the soundtrack by Michael McCann is one of my favourites. I particularly liked the 'New York High Stress' and 'JBA HQ High Stress' tracks.
The game features online multiplayer with a new Spy vs Spy mode, split-screen local co-op for two players, and the PS2 version has two extra missions which borrow level design from Splinter Cell Essentials for the PSP. The extra missions make the PS2 version arguably the best available.
With many developers either moving on entirely to the next-gen or making half-baked versions for sixth-gen consoles and focusing more on next-gen, Ubisoft Shanghai deserves special applause for putting as much effort into the sixth-gen version as the PS3 and X360 versions, and in some ways the sixth-gen version is even better than the seventh-gen version. Fans of the series should definitely play both versions.