Splinter Cell Trilogy HD
Ol' green eyes is back.
Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
Sam Fisher's second outing may have had a slightly more varied itinerary, but the HD port suffers from the same saving pauses and fuzzy cut-scenes as the first (although this time you at least get to marvel over the fact that our hero's apparently wearing guyliner in between missions). What's more, these annoyances are now joined by mid-level loading as you move through the game's increasingly expansive environments.
Released just a year after the first Splinter Cell, Pandora Tomorrow is a fairly incremental improvement on the earlier game - at the time, in fact, it felt a lot like an expansion pack. There's a little more freedom in terms of approach, and a touch more elegance to the animation and character models, but the really great part of this package originally lay with the Spies vs. Mercs asymmetrical multiplayer, which brought third-person sneaking into conflict with first-person shooting in some spectacular and complex playgrounds. That, along with all of the trilogy's multiplayer components in fact, is entirely absent in the HD reworking.
That's a crying shame, frankly, and, in the case of Pandora Tomorrow, it leaves you with a solid enough chunk of espionage action - albeit one that still has a dodgy frame rate when things get busy - while the best element of the original game has been left on the cutting room floor.
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
A little divisive at the time, Chaos Theory is now seen as the masterpiece of the early Splinter Cells, and it's easy to understand why. Models and texturing have taken a quantum leap, the animation really makes you feel like a silent super-spy on the prowl, the missions are some of the series' best, and the score by Amon Tobin is an unusual choice that somehow fits perfectly with the action.
This is a slightly more forgiving game of hide and seek - the alarm system is less punishing, while your new combat knife can get you out of most situations - but it also offers a lot more freedom. Players can choose load-out kits before each chapter and toy with the more playful enemy AI a little more. There are also a handful of optional objectives to complete as you make your way through the game.
Chaos Theory's got the most elegant script, too, witty and sharp, and Michael Ironside's really having fun with Fisher's grumpy superhero persona. Again, however, the HD port's absence of co-op missions and competitive multiplayer is a total drag, as is the fact that the frame rate in this 'remastering' can often seem worse than it was in the original game. How did that happen?
Conclusion
They're still great games, then, but they're not great ports. Riddled with slow-down, broken up with save-pauses and hampered by an inability to invert the y-axis (this last element might be getting a patch in the near future, incidentally), there's little evidence of the love that Sony lavished on its Sly Trilogy, for example.
In certain areas, like texturing, there's perhaps only so much that Ubisoft could have done. Old games don't instantly look like new games just because the edges are sharper. At times, in fact, viewing a classic in 720p can be a bit like looking at your granny's face through a telescope and then going over her crow's feet with a biro. As for the naff loading times, the wonky frame rate and the absence of multiplayer components, however, this feels like a real missed opportunity.
So if you're new to the series and want to see what all the fuss is about, Splinter Cell Trilogy HD is still a decent stealth package. It should be much better, though - and that's why it's hard to recommend it as strongly as the games themselves deserve.