User blog:Sammyfun1/What Went Wrong Volume 1: Splinter Cell

It’s a simple question we all find ourselves asking about franchises across all mediums: where did they go wrong?

In our modern industry, gaming truly has risen from the foam to sit beside other forms of entertainment as a more socially accepted medium, but with that change of class comes ramifications that deeply affect die-hard fans.

This series of articles will cover the direction of, and attempt to pinpoint, franchises that caused fans to roll their eyes, hang their heads in shame, and silently shed tears for their fallen virtual heroes. Today, the spotlight shines upon the ballad of Sam Fisher, and how he was forced to appeal to a broader audience.

One year after the insurmountable success of Halo, Ubisoft releases the first title in its new IP on the Xbox, Splinter Cell, bearing a subtitle eerily similar to Metal Gear‘s: “STEALTH ACTION REDEFINED.” Cue Sam Fisher, the very first “splinter cell”, a member of a top-secret government program consisting of elite agents used for espionage, assassination, and anything else that needs to be done in a stealthy manner.

The game was released to universal praise and acclaim, particularly giving kudos to the game’s approach to stealth gameplay. Splinter Cell set a standard for what a modern stealth-oriented video game should be, and garnered a large following.

Less than two years later, Ubisoft pushed out Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, setting a new high for the series. Sam Fisher was fleshed out further as a character, new life was breathed into the plot to generate a deeper story, gameplay was significantly improved and upgraded, and competitive multiplayer was introduced to the series.

It was a simple concept: Spies Versus Mercenaries. The Spies had to complete objectives (typically stealing/destroying information) and avoid confrontation with their array of techniques and gadgets, playing the game in a similar way to the story mode. Their Mercenary adversaries, on the other hand, were greeted to a first person shooter-esque experience, throwing everything they knew about Splinter Cell in the trash in order to eliminate the spy threat. Typical weapons, gadgets, and all-around intimidating equipment were at their disposal to protect the secrets of their employers and prevent any sort of infiltration.

A simple concept that caught on quickly, Pandora Tomorrow went on to achieve greater success than that of its predecessor, and set yet another new standard in the series.

Again, press and players alike praised the game for its gameplay advancements, unique style, and quality of fresh content. An exact year later, the third title in the series trotted onto store shelves for a post-holiday surprise. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is a masterstroke of the last generation, setting an extraordinarily high standard for the series that has never again been matched. The single player yet again expanded upon what made the series great: diverse locales, engaging gameplay, enjoyable characters, all-around fun scenarios, top-notch visuals, and an excellent score from a combination of Jesper Kyd and Amon Tobin.

On top of the excellent campaign came an improved version of the series’ staple versus mode, Spies Versus Mercenaries (henceforth referred to as SvM). For a second time around, we saw our Spies and Mercenaries duke it out with a wider range of tech at their hands and better maps in which to become paranoid, resulting in an overall well-rounded gameplay experience.

As if the package wasn’t already enticing enough, the series welcomed the addition of another new mode: cooperative play. Not just slapping a second player into the existing campaign, but a full-on complement to the single-player portion. Two newly-trained splinter cells pursued agendas other than Sam Fisher’s; after all, Splinter Cells are top-secret, with each agent thinking he is the only one in service, with the exception of our cooperative agents. Providing a storyline with the same depth and style as the single-player component (and even with a tie-in to the campaign) and unique, interactive gameplay, the cooperative mode equaled (and easily surpassed) that of its single-player counterpart and set a standard of what cooperative play should be, still wholly unrivaled nearly seven years later.

I say with as much objectivity as I can muster that Chaos Theory is the best game in the Splinter Cell franchise, and what comes up simply must come down.

With the next generation arriving soon, Ubisoft needed to approach it with a familiar franchise, modernizing it in the process. At the same time, keeping its players occupied on the current established platforms was a major key to any newfound success. Cue Splinter Cell: Double Agent, the point in the franchise where I and countless other fans agree that Splinter Cell turned 180 degrees. The prime, canon, and central focus of the official fourth iteration of the franchise was the Xbox 360 release. Narrative was a key facet of the next generation Splinter Cell. Sam Fisher, upon the loss of his daughter, chose to risk his life by becoming a double agent within a terrorist organization known as John Brown’s Army.

Something that the previous titles held deep within their gameplay was missing in Double Agent, something that only experience and feel can describe.

New to the series were Headquarters (or HQ) missions, where Sam broke his traditional character to wander around the terrorist group’s central compound in order to accomplish objectives for both the JBA, and his own benefactors and employers, the NSA.

These HQ missions, while an interesting addition, disrupted the traditional flow of gameplay and posed an unnecessary challenge in an attempt to diversify Sam’s new role. Typically within these missions resided another new feature, a morality system of sorts known as “trust.” Based on your decisions and/or objectives for or against the JBA and NSA throughout the game, trust with each organization would rise or fall accordingly. On top of the HQ missions, this was another superfluous, gameplay-disrupting design choice that detracted the few notions of greatness that Double Agent had.

For example, if players leaned towards one organization and allowed the opposite’s trust to fall, failing to complete one miniscule objective during a primary mission will result in game over as your trust completely dissipates. It served no other purpose than to break a winning formula four years in the making.

While it posed an intriguing narrative, the gameplay failed to follow through on what the series had up until that point been continually building upon.

At least it had the same winning cooperative and versus play of Chaos Theory, right? Unfortunately, that’s a negative, Ghost Rider. SvM was completely stripped down and destroyed, removing all gadgets from both sides and replacing them with default, simplistic alternatives that offered no depth or change to gameplay. A single game mode appeared, in which Spies had to hack terminals to receive a percentage of data, and the Mercenaries had to stop them.

The feel for the Spies was completely off, a polar opposite of the campaign, and attempted to mix fast-paced gameplay with a slower paced franchise. The Mercenaries were no better, with an atrocious, unchangeable control scheme that felt very equivalent to aiming a rifle whilst both intoxicated and hyper. Couple that with blatant bugs and exploits that to this day are still not patched, and you have a disappointment of a multiplayer that shamed the entire series.

At least we still have that signature cooperative play, though, RIGHT?! Negatory, captain. The cooperative mode was reduced to nothing more than the multiplayer premise, but with players replaced by bots on the Mercenaries’ team. As if it couldn’t get foolish enough, there was no cooperative aspect other than being united under the same Spy moniker; you were actually competing with your fellow agents!

I still get shivers when thinking of the disappointment that was Double Agent on the Xbox 360. And don’t even get me started on the horrendous PlayStation 3 and PC ports.

Surprisingly enough, the iterations on the last-gen consoles proved to silently succeed in every department that the 360 counterpart failed. The original Xbox version is unanimously agreed upon to be the best version, but at a great cost. With Double Agent, Ubisoft decided to try something new: if the game is spread across multiple platforms, why not offer a different experience to each iteration?

While a good idea on paper, in reality it came back to bite voraciously. Xbox’s iteration, as previously stated, holds the greatest entertainment value. Developed by the Chaos Theory team, it literally felt as it should have on the Xbox 360: an upgrade from Chaos Theory that blended the new mechanics successfully while still moving the series forward. The campaign was fundamentally different, with player choices affecting a central trust system that wavers from side to side, instead of the 360′s “appease everyone” system. What content it did include from its next-gen older brother played out in different ways, which were typically well-executed.

A central gameplay difference is that the HQ missions did not involve objectives for both sides and had no sneaking; it begins when Sam is discovered, and revolves around completing NSA-oriented objectives. The primary difference, though, was the feel; the previous three titles played and felt the same way, which was an important factor in the enjoyment of the game. Everything that was loved about Chaos Theory was improved upon, giving a campaign that made the 360 version appear to be a cheap knockoff, and even offering a full cooperative mode similar to Chaos Theory.

Double Agent on the original Xbox had no true or central flaws, but more of a “What were they thinking?!” (or, more on topic, “Where did they go wrong?”)

Double Agent was followed by Conviction in Spring of 2010, again failing traditional Splinter Cell fans, but still standing up as a game of its own while attempting to revisit its roots with a brief cooperative mode in lieu of Chaos Theory.

Spinoffs have been released across other platforms, such as Splinter Cell: Essentials on PSP (an extremely average iteration), and Splinter Cell 3D on the 3DS, an atrocious rendition of Chaos Theory in bite-size form that lacks both cooperative play and online. The deterioration even continued with the Splinter Cell Trilogy HD on the PlayStation 3 last summer, featuring the first three titles in the series shoddily ported from the PC, giving an indiscernible “HD upgrade” to the titles whilst stripping away all cooperative and multiplayer functionality; i.e., what made the series that much more enjoyable. The next title (possibly named “Retribution”) is in full swing, with an expected reveal at E3 2012.

Strength has a direct correlation to the weakest link. Splinter Cell went wrong with Double Agent, by both allocating focus to the wrong platforms and spreading itself too thin on a risky business decision. Success can only breed from failure, and the only thing left to do is move forward after studying what was done wrong.