The lack of a decent map and the use of checkpoints ruined my experience.
You play as Sam Fisher, a lone field operative working for the Third Echelon, which is an organization secretly executing missions for US government. The main thing here is to infiltrate an enemy base or stronghold by using stealth and not to run in with guns blazing. On the way you get to use many different toys and gadgets including Sam Fisher’s trademark night vision goggles.
Story of this first Splinter Cell is pretty weird and I didn’t really understand much of it. But as always terrorism is heavily involved.
By today’s standards the graphics are starting to show their age, but still this first Splinter Cell looks good. Use of different lighting effects is definitely the star of the show here. Unfortunately with it comes a problem. In Splinter Cell it is essential to use darkness as your ally, but it is not always obvious when Sam Fisher is hidden and when he is not and this makes the game more difficult than it should be. Some graphical effects also look just stupid. For example when blood splatters after a bullet has hit its target it looks like a group of red pixels just left hanging in thin air for a moment. Also the modeling of fire is bad, but on the other hand smoke effects are well done.
Sound design is of good quality, but not as rich and interesting as they would later be in sequels.
Gameplay is not nearly refined as it would be in the sequels. The worse choice in my opinion was to use checkpoints instead of being able to save your game anywhere at anytime. But now you’ll have to go through same sequence over and over again until you finally get it just right and in worst case scenario that repeating loop-sequence lasts somewhere around 10-20 minutes. Second bad thing is that the map is pretty much non-existing and most of the time just plain useless.
Sam Fisher has many different gadgets to work with, but the inventory system is clunky to use and for some reason it requires that you press the black button exceptionally hard in order to get to use your inventory. In a word this system works, but luckily was developed for the better (A LOT better as a matter of a fact) in later sequels.
Fisher’s personal moves work fine most of the time, but his ability to do a wall jump doesn’t fit in at all: it reminds me more of a fast-paced Prince of Persia or Ninja Gaiden than a slow moving stealth action adventure. Luckily this move was removed in the sequels.
Fisher’s aim with his pistol is bad and sometimes even shooting a lamp can be a challenge and if you aim a guard in the back of his head and pull the trigger, there is no guarantee that he will drop dead in that instant. If you however decide to sneak behind the guard instead of shooting him then be prepared, because if he starts to move it’s pretty difficult to find the right spot behind him in order to make that grabbing move. Usually he just notices you and starts to shoot. At this point you still can knock him out with your fists, but it will take two blows in order to succeed and by that time the guard has already shot you at least twice. Finally when the guard is down you’ll have to carry him to some dark spot so no one can find his body, but when you are carrying the guard you can’t open any doors. You need to drop the body, open the door, pick up the body again and finally walk through the door.
If the gameplay was disappointing for someone who first played the sequels the level design is that same great Splinter Cell quality. Missions progress linearly, but the environments are somewhat varied and interesting.
It is also worth mentioning that there are many different short film clips added as extras and for the most part they are really interesting giving more back story to the game itself.
In short this first Splinter Cell would have been worthy to play, but to me the lack of a decent map and the use of checkpoints ruined the experience.