Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (video game)

Did You Know?

• A side-scrolling adaptation was developed by Gameloft for Game Boy Advance, mobile phones, and N-Gage.
• A remake of the game is under development at Ubisoft Toronto using the Snowdrop engine.

Plot

In August 2004, former U.S. Navy SEAL Sam Fisher joins the NSA's new division Third Echelon, headed by his friend Irving Lambert. Two months later, aided by technical expert Anna Grimsdóttír and field runner Vernon Wilkes Jr., he is sent to Georgia to investigate the disappearance of two CIA officers. One had been installed in the government of president Kombayn Nikoladze, who seized power in a bloodless coup after his predecessor's assassination; the other was sent to find her. Fisher discovers both were murdered on Nikoladze's orders by former Spetsnaz member Vyacheslav Grinko, after learning Georgia is secretly waging an ethnic cleansing campaign across Azerbaijan. After this is exposed, NATO launches action in Azerbaijan, prompting Nikoladze to go underground. Third Echelon discovers a data exchange between a Caspian oil rig and the Georgian presidential palace. Fisher intercepts information about an item called The Ark and evidence of a mole in the CIA. North America is hit by a cyber warfare attack directed at military targets; Nikoladze claims responsibility and declares war. Fisher infiltrates CIA headquarters and captures an employee who backed up data to an unsecured laptop, which was later exploited by Kalinatek, Inc, a Georgian-controlled tech company. Fisher recovers an encryption key from a technician, but during extraction, Wilkes is mortally wounded and dies.

Development

Ubisoft began development of Splinter Cell in 2001 after acquiring the Tom Clancy license in 2000. The story was being written as early as 1999, and the game originally started as a sci-fi James Bond type game called The Drift, intended to be a Metal Gear Solid 2 killer. Producer Mathieu Ferland said Metal Gear Solid was a huge inspiration, and designer and writer Clint Hocking noted Splinter Cell owes its existence to the Metal Gear series, while also citing influence from System Shock, Thief, and Deus Ex. The screenplay was written with input from Michael Ironside, who was paid for voiceover work and suggested edits to the story. The team aimed for a Teen ESRB rating and tried to minimize violence. The soundtrack was composed by Michael Richard Plowman. The PC version is closely based on the original Xbox version, both by Ubisoft Montreal. The GameCube and PlayStation 2 versions, developed by Ubisoft Shanghai, have many small changes making them generally easier, such as moved doors and guards less likely to notice gunshots. Each version has exclusive features: Xbox and Windows have three new downloadable missions involving a Russian nuclear sub; PlayStation 2 includes an exclusive level in a nuclear power plant, new cinematics, and behind-the-scenes content; GameCube includes a link cable for a real-time overhead map, a sticky-bomb weapon, and progressive scan support; Windows supports EAX 3.0 ADVANCED HD 3D positional audio.

Reception

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell received positive reviews upon release. GameSpot's Greg Kasavin said it has the best lighting effects seen in any game to date, and GameSpot named it the second-best Xbox game of November 2002. IGN praised the graphics and lighting and how it evolved Metal Gear Solid's third-person stealth gameplay. Both praised the audio, noting Michael Ironside's voice suited the role perfectly. Scott Alan Marriott of AllGame gave the Xbox version four-and-a-half stars out of five, calling it one of the few games to elicit suspense without resorting to shock techniques. Criticism included Kasavin noting the game is sometimes reduced to frustrating trial and error, and he criticized the cutscenes as not up to par with the rest of the graphics. Non-video game publications also gave favorable reviews: Entertainment Weekly gave the Xbox version an A, calling it wickedly ingenious; The Village Voice gave the PlayStation 2 version eight out of ten; The Cincinnati Enquirer gave the Game Boy Advance version four stars. The game was a commercial success. Pre-orders reached 1.1 million units, and it sold 480,000 copies worldwide by end of 2002 after three weeks. By March 31, 2003, sales rose to 3.6 million, reaching 5 million by September 2003, and 6 million by March 2004. By July 2006, the Xbox version had sold 2.4 million copies and earned $62 million in the US, ranking as the 10th highest-selling game launched for PlayStation 2, Xbox, or GameCube between January 2000 and July 2006 in that country.