Sam Fisher: He's no Jack Bauer

Sam Fisher of the Splinter Cell video game series, certainly isn't up to par with 24's Jack Bauer, but he certainly deserves his props as a bad ass action hero. With that, I give you my review of Fisher's latest in the Splinter Cell Series: Splinter Cell: Double Agent. ...

Splinter Cell: Double Agent

After playing this game off and on for the past two months, I beat Splinter Cell: Double Agent (SC:DA) last night. SC:DA is the fourth game in the series and 1st entry into the Xbox 360 marketplace. For those who aren't familiar with the game, it's a stealth game like Metal Gear Solid where the name of the game isn't to run around like a maniac shooting everything in site, but rather to methodically sneak around enemy locations -- like a sneaky maniac --on your way to completing various objectives. As Sam Fisher, you can either simply avoid detection altogether by sneaking behind the enemy or you can simply sneak up behind the enemy, grab them by the neck and whisper sweet nothings into their eyes before snapping their neck or stabbing them in the back....hey, you're allowed to do that and not feel bad about it if they are terrorist thugs, right?

Overall, I would give the game a 9 out of 10 because of its superb next generation graphics and its incredible artificial intelligence (AI) of the enemies. The game doesn't get a 10 like other Splinter Cell games I've played in the past because half of the missions in the game consist of you at the enemy headquarters with none of the great gadgets and weapons that you've come to know and love from the Splinter Cell series. Your goal in these missions is to play the role of the Double Agent by completing tasks for the NSA, while pretending that you are an ally of the terrorists. While these missions are interesting because of the multiple objectives and strict time limit that you must adhere too, the lack of gadgets -- in my eyes -- really hurt the game.

Another thing that definitely hurt the game is really the lack of an interesting or tough ending. I am a big stickler for opening sequences in games as well as ending sequences. Since I was a child -- some might say I still am -- I've always enjoyed ripping open the package of a video game, smelling the smell of a game and then popping in the disc or cartridge and watching the beginning cut scenes of the movies.

Then after I finish a game -- hopefully it's a tough ending -- I religiously watch the last cut scenes as well as the credits while I bask in the glory of my hard fought victory. It's something that I've always enjoyed doing; even thought I usually can't understand half the names in the credits because most of the time they are Japanese. I

In SC:DA case though, the ending just wasn't hard at all to complete and I didn't have that "basking in the glory" feeling simply because all you have to do at the end of the game is shoot a few terrorists and then disarm a bomb -- the same type of bomb that you disarmed three or fours times in the game already....That hurt the overall game experience for me, but I definitely would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys the stealth genre or has played other Splinter Cell games before.

Until next time...the man who doesn't want to grow old, grows older...