GameSpot editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
OK
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 07/01/2005
- Released on: 06/28/2005
- Originally published on GameSpot: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (DS) Review
Stealth action hits the Nintendo DS for the first time in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, an ambitious but seriously flawed attempt at completely re-creating the dramatic experience the series is known for in a portable format. Like its console and PC counterpart, Chaos Theory for the DS is a fully featured game, offering up a good-sized single-player campaign, as well as some two-player cooperative missions and a four-player team-based versus mode. Unfortunately, all of these are dragged down by a poor frame rate and cumbersome controls. The scope of this game is certainly impressive. It's just not much fun to play.
Sam Fisher's back, and he's harder to see than ever.
Chaos Theory for the DS looks like a watered-down version of the console game, and it follows the same storyline despite some noticeable differences throughout the missions. It's a fully 3D third-person-perspective game in which you primarily need to sneak your way through heavily guarded, booby-trapped levels on various top secret assignments. The top screen is where most of the action takes place, while the bottom screen functions as a radar that shows the locations of nearby enemies and security cameras. It also lists various options, lets you switch weapons and vision modes, and performs a few other types of activities, such as picking locks.
Even before you begin play, you'll notice the substandard frame rate. Even the main menu screens chug along unresponsively, creating a poor first impression, which doesn't go away when you actually begin playing. Though the DS can't be expected to compete with an Xbox or a GameCube in terms of its ability to render good-looking 3D characters and environments, you'll probably agree that it ought to be able to do much better than this. Chaos Theory for DS looks like an old PlayStation game from seven or eight years ago. Blurry, drab textures and crude-looking environments abound, and despite nice-looking animations held over from the console versions, the characters don't look much better. But it's the sluggish frame rate that fluctuates between 10 to 15 frames per second or so that's the real culprit, causing Chaos Theory for DS to feel like it all takes place underwater. You could eventually get used to the unpleasantly slow and unresponsive look and feel of this game, but even then, the frame rate continues to be a major impediment.
If the patrolling enemy guards don't kill you, the lousy frame rate surely will.
On consoles, controlling Third Echelon operative Sam Fisher requires every single function on the game pad. On the DS, the developers at GameLoft (who evidently based this version of Chaos Theory off of its N-Gage version) figured out ways to allow you to map all those different commands between the DS's directional pad, buttons, and touch screen. The results take a while to get used to, and may well leave you feeling cold. The D pad makes Fisher run in any direction, but camera controls are mapped to the touch screen. The camera moves a little on its own as you run around, but you'll often be forced to fidget with it often, especially in cases where you need to turn around and go the other way. You can sort of use your thumbs to rotate the camera, but in the end, you'll be forced to play using both the D pad and the buttons, as well as the stylus on the touch screen, and you'll switch between the two sets of controls as necessary. When aiming with your weapons, the touch screen is really the only way to go, since it's the sort of smooth analog movement you get using your computer's mouse.
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