Splinter Cells

[Austin]

I just picked up Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory pretty cheap for the Xbox, after remembering all of the rave reviews it received. (I was part of a small focus group for this game, actually, but that was the most I'd ever played a Splinter Cell game.)

It looks like a lot of fun. My question is, though, should I play the other games first? Does the story hinge that much on the earlier ones? I already have the first game and Pandora Tomorrow is pretty cheap nowadays.

Thanks!

[Ed Oscuro]

Jeez, what I wouldn't give to have been on a focus group for any of those!

My opinion: yes, play the other two first.

The first has some great psuedo-cinematography, especially in the last mission. Stuff like that open window...damn, that was creepy. Great fake locations all throughout the country of Georgia. Sam's famous quips make their first appearance.

SC: Pandora Tomorrow was awesome, though people tend to rag on it a bit. It adds a great multiplayer mode (spies versus mercenaries), as well (if possible get this one for PC, I'd wager). My thought? It's got more neat locations and adds lots of foliage/outdoors missions. Yes, there are some disappointing areas, but on the whole the mapmaking improved notably for this one. Actually, thinking back, I realize that I should play this one through because I'm having trouble beliving all the missions I'm remembering belonged to this game. It wasn't short.

SC: Chaos Theory. I've got this one for PC, and haven't played all the way through it (though I've gotten quite far...according to the soundtrack unlock feature, I missed perhaps one final area). Unless I'm wrong, it seems rather short. On the positive side, the multiplayer is great once again; aside from the spies versus mercenaries mode, a few maps were added via download quite recently that force you to use co-op moves (i.e. the "boost" that Penny Arcade parodied a few years ago). Me and my partner weren't quite skilled enough to get past the beginning of the new map (an oil rig, I think), but we got very far into the Bank (until my partner decided to shoot somebody that we had been specifically told not to).

Great fun, all of them. The story makes more sense if you play them in order - unlike some of Tom Clancy's one-off novels, the storyline is ongoing and the events of the first game make their mark - well, are mentioned, at least - in the other games. They don't really "reasonate," but they're a part of the background.

[ubersaurus]

I went to Chaos Theory first, and found it to be fantastic. Afterwords I started playing the first one, and although they do talk about things that are brought up in the later title, CT didn't really hinge on you knowing the history of em.I'd argue the bigger problem is that in comparison to CT, the first game's controls feel really weird, and not as intuitive.