Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (video game)

The primary focus and hallmark of Splinter Cell's gameplay is stealth, with strong emphasis on light and darkness. The player is encouraged to move through the shadows for concealment whenever possible. The game displays a "light meter" that reflects how visible the player character is to enemies, and night vision and thermal vision goggles to help the player navigate in darkness or smoke/fog, respectively. The light meter functions even when night vision goggles is activated, and it is possible to destroy lights, thus reducing the chances of exposure significantly.

Splinter Cell strongly encourages the use of stealth over brute force. Although Sam Fisher is usually equipped with firearms, he carries limited ammunition and is not frequently provided with access to additional ammo. The player begins most missions with a limited supply of less-than-lethal weapons in addition to Fisher's firearms, a suppressed FN Five-Seven sidearm that is provided for every mission, as well as a suppressed FN F2000 assault rifle during some missions, which includes a telescopic sight and a launcher for some of the less-lethal devices such as ring airfoil projectiles, "sticky shockers", and CS gas grenades. The weapon can even fire a camera that sticks onto surfaces, allowing Fisher to covertly perform surveillance from a safe area.

Flexibility of movement is a focuspoint of Splinter Cell. Fisher can sneak up on enemies from behind to grab them; allowing interrogation, quiet incapacitation, or use as a human shield. Fisher is acrobatic and physically adept, and has a variety of maneuvers including the ability to mantle onto and climb along ledges, hang from pipes, and perform a "split jump" in narrow spaces to mantle up a steep wall.

In April 2004, the president of Georgia is assassinated, allowing Georgian billionaire Kombayn Nikoladze to seize power with a bloodless coup d'état. In August 2004, former U.S. Navy SEAL officer and Gulf War veteran Sam Fisher is recruited by the National Security Agency to work within its newly formed division, "Third Echelon". Working with his old friend Irving Lambert, Fisher is introduced to technical expert Anna "Grim" Grimsdóttír, and field runner Vernon Wilkes Jr.

In October 2004, Fisher is dispatched to Tbilisi, Georgia to investigate the disappearance of two CIA officers. Fisher attempts to meet an informant, Thomas Gurgenidze, only to find him dying in a burning building. Gurgenidze warns that one agent's transmission mentioned proof that could cause a war. Finding the agents' corpses in a police morgue, Fisher learns that a former Spetsnaz member, Vyacheslav Grinko, removed their subdermal tracking implants. Further investigation of Grinko's license plate number using CCTV leads Third Echelon to tracks him to the Georgian defense ministry headquarters.

Fisher arrives at the Ministry, and records a meeting between Grinko and Canadian hacker Phillip Masse, through which he learns that Nikoladze is committing atrocities in Azerbaijan. Fisher hacks Nikoladze's computer, and learns Nikoladze has been waging an ethnic cleansing campaign across Azerbaijan, by deploying Georgian commandos. In retaliation, NATO forces enter Azerbaijan, prompting Nikoladze to go underground.

Third Echelon learns that Georgian soldiers stationed on a Caspian oil rig have been exchanging data with the Georgian presidential palace. Fisher infiltrates the rig during the middle of a NATO airstrike to apprehend a local technician, Piotr Lejava, and retrieve his laptop containing the rig's computer data. After interrogating the technician, Fisher learns that the data contains a file on "The Ark"; he recovers the laptop and encryption key and exfiltrates before an airstrike hits the rig.

Examining Lejava's laptop, Grim reveals that the leak was so substantial that only a CIA mole could have perpetrated it. Lambert then reveals that North America has just been hit by a massive cyber warfare attack, directed primarily against military targets. In a broadcast, Nikoladze claims responsibility for the attack and officially declares war on the United States and its allies. Fisher infiltrates the CIA headquarters and accesses the CIA computer mainframe, allowing Grim to trace the data leak to the computer of Mitchell Dougherty. Captured for interrogation, Dougherty claims ignorance of the leak, but the NSA learns that his obsessive–compulsive disorder caused him to back up data on an unsecured laptop, which was exploited by a Virginian-based network owned by Kalinatek, Inc.

Georgian-hired mafiosos attempt to liquidate all the incriminating evidence of Nikoladze from the Kalinatek offices by destroying the building and murdering the staff. Intercepting a 911 call from a technician named Ivan, Fisher is deployed to the building and retrieves Ivan's encryption key while the FBI rescues Ivan. Fisher extracts with the help of Wilkes, who is mortally wounded in the process and later dies. Using the encryption key, the NSA discovers Nikoladze has been using a network of unconventional relays to communicate with Georgian military cells. The NSA traces the full relay network to the Chinese embassy in Yangon, Myanmar. Worried Chinese support could cause war with the U.S., Fisher sneaks into the embassy where he eavesdrops on a conversation between Nikoladze and Chinese general Kong Feirong. It then transpires that they are effectively in cahoots.

Fisher learns that captured U.S. Army soldiers and high-ranking Chinese diplomats are being held hostage in a local slaughterhouse, so he delays interrogating Feirong to rescue them before they can be executed on a live web broadcast. Fisher meets with a Chinese diplomat among the hostages, and learns that Feirong is part of a rogue collective not backed by the Chinese government. Fisher is detected by Grinko, who attempts to slaughter the Americans and Chinese, but is killed in a firefight. Returning to the embassy, Fisher catches a drunken Feirong before he can commit suicide, and forces him to share the information stored on his computer; the information reveals Nikoladze has fled back to Georgia, where he is trying to activate a device known as "The Ark".

Infiltrating the Georgian presidential palace where Nikoladze and new Georgian president Varlam Cristavi are, Fisher attempts to recover the key to the Ark, which he learns is in fact a nuclear suitcase bomb that has been placed somewhere in the United States. Fisher corners Nikoladze, who bargains to give the Ark key in exchange for safe passage out of Georgia; Fisher then recovers the key, at which point Cristavi's forces arrive and escort Nikoladze to safety. Before he is executed, Fisher escapes when Lambert's team creates a diversion via power blackout. Discovering Nikoladze is offering the Ark's location for protection, Fisher assassinates Nikoladze. When they locate the Ark, the National Guard evacuates an apartment complex in Maryland citing a gas leak as cover, and secretly recovers the weapon.

Despite a war being averted, Nikoladze's corpse sparks international backlash due to the suspicious circumstances around his death. Watching the U.S. president give a speech on the end of the crisis, Fisher then receives a secure phone call from Lambert for another assignment.

The game originally started development as a sci-fi, James Bond type game called The Drift, which Ubisoft intended to be "a Metal Gear Solid 2 killer."[3] The game's producer Mathieu Ferland said "Metal Gear Solid was a huge inspiration for Splinter Cell."[2] The game's designer and writer Clint Hocking also said Splinter Cell "owes its existence to" the Metal Gear series, while noting he was also influenced by System Shock, Thief and Deus Ex.[1]

Because the development team was aiming for a Teen ESRB rating, the team tried to minimize the level of violence.[8] The soundtrack for the game was composed by English composer Michael Richard Plowman.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell received positive reviews upon the game's release. GameSpot's Greg Kasavin said that Splinter Cell has "hands down the best lighting effects seen in any game to date." GameSpot later named Splinter Cell the second-best Xbox game of November 2002, behind MechAssault.[78] IGN likewise praised the game for its graphics and lighting, while also praising how it evolved Metal Gear Solid's third-person stealth-action gameplay.[64] Both praised the game's audio, noting that Michael Ironside as Sam Fisher's voice suited the role perfectly. Scott Alan Marriott of AllGame gave the Xbox version four-and-a-half stars out of five, and called it "one of the few games to elicit a feeling of suspense without resorting to shock techniques found in survival horror titles like Resident Evil."[79]

Criticism of the game was also present. Greg Kasavin said that Splinter Cell is "sometimes reduced to frustrating bouts of trial and error." In addition, Kasavin criticized the game's cutscenes, saying that they are not up to par with the rest of the game's graphics.

Non video-game publications also gave the game favorable reviews. Entertainment Weekly gave the Xbox version an A and called it "wickedly ingenious".[77] The Village Voice gave the PlayStation 2 version eight out of ten and said, "If this game were any more realistic, you'd have to hold in your farts."[80] The Cincinnati Enquirer gave the Game Boy Advance version all four stars and said that "While it lacks 3-D graphics and an impressive use of lighting and shadows found in its predecessors, the stealthy action game still captures the thrill of modern espionage."[76]

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