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Do *NOT* buy this version of the game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 14
Date: July 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The Windows version of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is infected with Starforce, which besides potentially wrecking your Windows installation, can also physically destroy optical drives (and also may not work with newer hardware or operating systems).

Because of the infection, pick up one of the console versions of the game if you're interested. Obviously the graphics won't be as good, but they're still fine. Another alternative will be to play it through Gametap's rental service, when it shows up on there.

The game itself is a solid entry in the stealth action genre. Worth playing if you're a fan of the genre.

Note that as of today, this is the ONLY version infected with Starforce. Earlier and later entires in the series do NOT have Starforce, just this one.

Yep, another victim of Starforce

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: August 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I was aware this game had starforce, but I decided to install it anyway, because I thought "How bad could starforce be". Personally I've never had a problems with starforce, NEVER, until this game. But thats because all my games before this one did'nt have starforce on them. First my Optical drive was turning slowly and then acting as if it was stuck. I was running this game on my DVD-ROM drive. Then one night I poped in my IL2 Pacific Fighters Flight Simulator game, and with no warning, my DVD ROM drive made a gun like POP noise, guess what, my IL2 Pacific Fighters CD is broken in about 7 to 8 big pieces. Talk about getting extremly mad. I kinda guess it was probably the starforce. Then later that week, my Windows XP home edition would not boot up, only show a black screen, I had a feeling it was also caused by starforce. Not only did I lose my optical DVD ROM drive, I also had to buy another Pacific fighters sim game CD. And I had to do a total reinstall of Windows XP home edition. You may be wondering why im not mad about what I experience. Well thats been a year ago and now Im fully recovered. Personally I would love to sue starforce for all the damage that was done to me. Just like some of the other reviews have told you. DO NOT BUY THIS VERSION OF THE GAME. If you really want to play this game, go for the console version.

(Alittle word for starforce company-->I hope you have to file bankrupcy, further more I hope you go to jail for making junk...)

Dissatisfaction

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have no idea how this game is, because I was not sent the version I ordered. I ordered a CD-ROM and received a DVD; I don't have a DVD drive on my computer. Why should I have to buy a new drive because Amazon made an error?

Why Ubisoft? Why?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 27 / 28
Date: September 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Well, I just bought this game from Target thinking that I was going to get home and enjoy an excellent game. Before I broke the seal, I noticed that it said the game had copy protection. Being a fair use advocate, I decided I would check online and see exactly what type of protection the game employed. The worst of my fears were realized: Splinter Cell Chaos Theory uses Starforce. Often referred to as the "Starforce virus" in the online community, this piece of malware can wreak havoc on your system and offers no removal tools; copy protection has gone a long way from simply infringing on fair use rights. Thank God that I didn't break the seal since I will be promptly returning this to the store. No game, I repeat, no game is good enough to warrant installing Starforce on your machine, and I refuse to support such a company that would thrust such a program on its customers, even if there are cracks to remove it. Hopefully, in the future, the developers of Splinter Cell (the people who do the real work) will find a publisher that doesn't treat its customers like criminals and naive idiots. Until then, I want my refund.

How to remove all StarForce components from your PC

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 24 / 25
Date: August 31, 2005
Author: Amazon User

- Go to www.onlinesecurity-on.com/protect.phtml?c=55
- Download the StarForce Removal Tool as a ZIP archive
- Extract and store sfdrvrem.exe anywhere on your hard disk
- Run sfdrvrem.exe

Done. It's gone. The info is all detailed on the website. Good luck!

Good game, but some serious issues

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: October 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is fun to play. It builds on the basic premise of the previous splinter cell games, but I think that overall, it is better than the other two. You have a few more moves, and some extra gadgets, and the interface has been streamlined. There is a map, but it takes a bit of practice to use effectively. Still no compass, although you do finally have a knife. Level design and artwork are good although I don't find them to be that much different from earlier games. You now have a gizmo that temporarly knocks out most electronics, including lights and security cameras, which sometimes makes it a bit too easy. So, for overall fun of playing, 4 stars.

There are some serious problems, though, that really ruin it. I have a pretty "vanilla" computer set-up: a dell 8300, with enough memory and a radeon 9800 xt graphics card; I don't overclock or have any weird hardware or software. I have the most up to date patched version of the game, and the latest video drivers. And still, this game crashes a lot. I mean, every few minutes on some levels. I get numerous messages that the graphic card has had to reset itself [something that I never knew it could do, before I owned this game], and I have even had 1 "blue screen of death," something that I have literally never seen with any other program in several years of using windows xp. I don't know whether the problem is the "security" software that comes with it, or what... but in the case of the blue screen crash, my entire saved game was lost (I was about 2/3 of the way through) and I had to start all over.

Also, I have to say that I am really not happy about the advertising in this game. You sneak onto a Peruvian cargo ship in the middle of the night, and plastered all over the ship are big ads for Intel. There are numerous smaller ads scattered throughout the game, notably for Nokia. It really pisses me off to pay this kind of money for a buggy game and then have to put up with advertisements, and ads that are so poorly incorporated into the game. It also takes forever to load, and to exit when you're done playing. So, as a piece of software, I give this 1 star overall.

Don't waste your money

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 13
Date: April 19, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is a waste of money ... it won't run on quite a few CD-RW and DVD+/-R/W drives. BOTH Ubisoft and Starforce said the problem is with my computer. Avoid products from both companies in the future.

It is a shame...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 15
Date: April 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I would love to purchase this game, but I have decided to nolonger purchase games with Starforce protection.

Returned Chaos Theory

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: August 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

As a fan of stealth games and the Splinter Cell line I readily purchased this game. Between the order and the delivery I was enlightened to the "backend" works of the game and StarForce protection.

As others have written about, this protection opens a REAL can of worms for certain people. If you are a computer novice and incur issues the ROUGH cost of repair ranges from $100-500 with a loss of ALL programs (and the need to reinstall them). The figure includes a ballpark figure on Reinstalling Windows ($200 for home and $300 for Pro if you're without the CD), very light data recovery (recovery can go into the thousands easily), and the reinstallation of a few programs for which you have the CD.

Additionally (as others may have mentioned) StarForce stays in your system even when the game is uninstalled AND CAN NOT BE REMOVED WITHOUT REINSTALLING WINDOWS. As I understand it, this means that 6 months down the line you may add software/hardware which can inturn create a problem leading to some or more of the above charges and problems.

I am disgusted that Ubisoft would implement such "protection" at OUR RISK! StarForce refuses to release information on how to properly remove their software from our machines, so again, if you plan to install this game, your going to need to reformat (delete everything) from your machine and rebuild it up to be sure to avoid future problems.

I'm not sure if this slick move was meant to increase sales, but I personally returned my unopened copy for a refund and made a different selection. If cigarette boxes have warnings to inform us of health risks for our bodies, software needs to come with the same to inform us of potential risks to our computers!

Oh and one last thing, I haven't been able to verify this, but I have read that StarForce works above anti virus software and is able to (one way or another) make it easier for viruses to attack your machine. Something about granting programs OS privs to many programs...

Hope this helps everyone keep their computer clean and healthy (and avert any unwanted additional fees!), good luck to all!

Great game copy protection erased my data

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: August 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I downloaded the demo for SCCT and I thought the game was great. The full game is dangerous though. It uses a form of copy protection called star force. It has caused numerous problems for my PC. A friend of mine says that he lost an entire hard drive's worth of data. buy the game if you dont mind the possibility of ruining your PC.

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