Thursday, September 27, 2007

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent



Double Agent opens with a mission that ends abruptly when Sam Fisher (again voiced by Michael Ironside) gets word that his daughter has been killed. This turn of events unhinges Sam somewhat -- he starts taking all the extremely dangerous mission. It's during this downward spiral that Sam takes on his toughest assignment -- to infiltrate and gain the trust of a terrorist group.

Starting by breaking out of a high security prison. Without his night vision goggles! (It feels like Sam is naked for this early part of the game.) The story unfolds in a somewhat predictable manner but it was still gripping enough for me to see the game through to the end, fighting the controls for at least half the game.

As many gamers are finding out, the Wii is forcing a lot of us to re-learn controls. Using the nunchuk, you move Sam around the environments. The nunchuk is also used to jump. By quickly snapping the controller up, Sam will jump and if he's in a location where he can split-jump he'll do it. Snapping it to the side will make Sam hug nearby objects or walls. Aiming is, predictably, handled with the wiimote. It's an accurate way to shoot (though you'll do precious little shooting) but it also adds some frustration to just getting around -- if your hand isn't steady it's easy to start the camera going in continual circles. ( I must say that using the Wiimote to pick locks just feel right.)

Cycling through goggle modes and weapons also takes a lot of getting used to. About half-way through Double Agent I started to feel comfortable with the controls -- it took a lot of practice and some twiddling with the control sensitivity to make everything feel almost right.

And not helping anything are the in-game tutorials for the controls, which are generic at the best of times. It's easier to read the manual. The Splinter Cell has never been "pick-up and play" friendly, and this goes double for Double Agent on Wii.



Posted by wii-play at 2:46 AM
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