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Genre: Third-person action

Format: DVD

Developer: Ubi Soft Montreal

Publisher: Ubi Soft

Mac Publisher: Aspyr Media, Inc.

Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.2.8, 867MHz G4/G5, 256MB RAM, 1.7GB hard disk space, 32MB 3D graphics acceleration, DVD drive required to install and play

Review Computer: 1GHz G4 with 768MB RAM, 128MB ATI Radeon 9000, Mac OS X v10.3.6

Network Feature: No

3D Support: Required

Price: $39.99

ESRB Rating: Teen (blood and gore, violence)

Availability: Now

Version Reviewed: 1.0

Official Website: [url=http://www.splintercell.com]http://www.splintercell.com[/url]

So, you want to be a spy. All the movies make it look so easy, but James Bond never had to slide down a zip line into a burning building or hide in the darkness waiting for the bad guys to turn their backs before sneaking past. Then again, Sam Fisher is all about stealth—using the darkness just as well as James Bond uses his sex appeal—and, in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, he is very good at the former.

On March 10, 2004, Agent Alison Madison, a CIA operative monitoring the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, went missing. When Agent Blaustein was sent to find her, he went missing as well. Sam Fisher was recruited to join the newly created Third Echelon to find out what happened to them. At the beginning of Splinter Cell, you know very little about what's happening in Georgia or what exactly you need to do other than complete your immediate objectives. As you complete each mission and learn more about what happened to the missing CIA agents, you uncover a threat that spans the entire globe.

Splinter Cell is a game of patience and of hiding in the shadows so you're not spotted by security cameras or wandering guards and civilians. You rely on shadows, seeing silhouettes, and listening to footsteps to determine whether it's safe to creep from one shadowy corner to another. At times, I waited for five minutes for just the right moment to make my move, so Splinter Cell is definitely a slow tempo game. It's also not a game where you run around killing everything that moves. Knocking people out and stashing them in a dark corner is okay and, while you have a gun, I used more bullets shooting at cameras and lights than I did at anything else. While it is possible to kill the guards instead of sneaking past them, you have only a limited supply of ammunition, and, in some levels, you aren't supposed to kill anyone. So, the sooner you develop your sneaking abilities, the better off you'll be.

Each level introduces you to more of Sam Fisher's bag of tricks, including cameras which peek under doors, stick to flat surfaces, and release carbon dioxide after attracting people with a high pitched noise. Then, there are the lock picks, laser microphones, grenades, and a variety of guns that either knock the bad guys out or kill them. Sam Fisher also has a wide variety of moves, including the traditional walking, running, climbing, and hanging on walls. The game also adds a couple I rarely (if ever) see, such as when Sam presses his back against the wall to become less visible, slides on zip lines, rappels off walls, and uses humans as shields or forces them to open up doors you can't get through. In Splinter Cell, using these gadgets and moves well is your key to either getting through the mission in one piece or failing your objects and starting over.

One of the biggest gripes I have with Splinter Cell is that every level involves sneaking to a location, getting information or meeting a person, and then repeating until all of the mission objectives are completed. While the objectives are different in each level, there isn't a lot of variety to the gameplay. Furthermore, there aren't many ways to complete each mission objective because there's just one way of sneaking from location to location, so I did a lot of saving and reloading as I tried to figure out how Splinter Cell wanted me to play the game. It's not as if there are no options, but I don't consider being able to choose between climbing down a pipe and rappelling down a wall to get to the same ledge much of a choice. There's a lot of trial and error involved, because there isn't a way to get to the destination, there's the way. Fortunately, the load times are very short, and with a quick press of a key I can save and load, so getting back into the action takes a matter of seconds.

This trial and error is lessened by the very handy "sneak-o-meter," which tells you how visible you are. The closer you are to being in complete darkness, the harder it is for enemies to see you. If you move too fast, then the enemies can still hear you, so it's always important to watch where and how fast you're walking no matter how much in the dark you are. I still don't understand how enemies can't see the night vision goggles Sam Fisher constantly wears, because, at times, I was certain to be caught only to have the enemy waltz on by just because I wasn't moving and was in a shadow.

The graphics are excellent while maintaining smooth gaming performance. I was surprised by how much attention to detail there was, so that whether a room was an office, medical lab, or police station, it looked as if it was actually used for those purposes. From small details such as the laces on Sam Fisher's vest to snow covered mountains in the distance, Splinter Cell does its best to create a game that looks good and plays well. I had the graphical settings on high and the shadow settings set on medium, and I suffered no problems or slowdowns. Even on low settings, Splinter Cell still looks very good, so you won't have to suffer if you want to have better performance.

As important as the graphics are in spotting the enemy, it's not the only tool in your arsenal; sound is also very important. From the whirr of cameras to the footsteps of guards just down the hall, being able to hear someone approach gives you the time to hide before he can see you. It also works the other way, so if you hear your own footsteps, then slow down and you'll walk quieter so the bad guys can't hear you coming. Your footsteps make less noise if you're walking on a wooden floor than on gravel, so it's a good tactic to walk in a different place if your footsteps are too loud. Splinter Cell is in stereo sound, so, as you rotate, the sound does also. If you don't have stereo speakers, I'd play Splinter Cell with headphones to get the full effect.

In the end, is Splinter Cell fun to play? If you're looking for a game which uses stealth over action and has an interesting and evolving story, excellent graphics, and a gameplay which rewards patience, then this is the game for you. You won't be disappointed, since Splinter Cell is very well made and Sam Fisher himself is fun to play. On the other hand, if you're looking for a game where you have unlimited ammunition and you are nearly invulnerable as you rampage through each level, then you should look for a different game.