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Off the mark but still a good game...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: February 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've been a big fan of the Splinter Cell series since the first game appeared on the PC years ago. I've played and finished "Double Agent" for the PC three times now and conclude that it really is a good game. Although it still can't compare to Chaos Theory which is considered the best of the series. Double Agent was developed and designed for consoles like the Xbox and just ported over to the PC and it was an awkward switch complete with bugs and design flaws and therein lies its inherent problem. So beware, the retail version may or may not play on your PC...it's just hit or miss. I've installed the v1.02 patch and the game runs smooth on my Dell PC with only a couple of bugs and quirks. Once it's up and running the graphics and visuals are a real treat. That said, I also appreciate the new ideas this game brings to the series.

+ For the first time, Sam Fisher can swim underwater and skydive. In some great sequences, he is fully controllable slashing through ice to grab guards and able to flip and twirl through the air before pulling his chute. Odd we haven't seen this before since he is an ex-Navy Seal.
+ Three of the ten missions are real standouts. In the Sea of Okhotsk there are blowing snowstorms, while climbing the skyscraper in Shanghai there are fireworks and helicopters that illuminate the sky behind you and on the streets of Kinshasa there is bellowing smoke and raging battles between rebel and government troops. These missions rate among the best of the entire series...period.
+ Since Sam is undercover, he operates in the open more and this changes the way you play compared to past games. It also makes the story and his character much darker.

Now for the things that hurt this game and what others seem to have been complaining about.
- The overall story is pretty weak. A domestic terrorist group wants to blow up New York city...plain and simple. Their motivation is never explained and the characters are never fleshed-out no matter how much information Sam digs up. There is no reason why Sam just can't use the Fifth Freedom to take them out after the fourth mission. We also never learn how Sam was arrested, whether his daughter's death really was an accident and the background of agent John Hodge.
- The undercover missions for the JBA could have been better. The JBA HQ map is used four times and it's just not cool. Creating mayhem on the streets of NYC, robbing banks and assassinating VIP's would have made the game more exciting and made the JBA dangerous and evil enough to make Sam going undercover really necessary.
- The developers really don't know the character of Sam Fisher and don't use the voice acting of Michael Ironside to full effect. There is not enough dialogue between Sam and the rest of the characters. The dialogue added humor and fleshed-out the characters in past games.
- Gone is the old stealth meter and action interface. The new action interface is clumsy and the meters have been stripped down to a single info bar and a colored red-yellow-green dot. This is fine for a console game but not the PC version.
- The cut-scenes in between missions don't show news reports so you can't relate what's happening in the missions to the big picture. That's important to an espionage game like this and takes away from the movie-like experience.
- The actual on-screen character is too big, takes up too much of the screen and cuts down on the view. Which is a shame because there really is alot to look at in the surrounding enviroments which are done beautifully.

So, should you buy this game for the PC? Yes...but only if you're a fan of the series and have the compatible video card to run it. Otherwise it's not worth the money or effort. It's probably time to retire Sam Fisher. After all he is over 42 years old. But this latest game is not the way to do it. The character and series deserve a little better.

Yeah as others say: Buggy

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: March 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Like most folks are stating: this game is full of bugs. The story seems ok, could use a lot more interaction and explanation of what is going on. Its never really clear what happened to Fisher's daughter and why the NSA is targeting the JBA. There are some significant gaps in the story. I missed the news stories from other SC titles that tied up the loose ends.

I have an Intel X6800 cpu and EVGA 8800 GTX so I have the hardware for this game and it runs relatively well and looks great. Unfortunately the 8800 GTX has issues with the game and you need to run the game with a -LL switch option. So my intro to the game was a crash to desktop upon starting it until I read about the work around. This was just launching the game, goes down hill after that.

Seems the game doesn't really save, the only saves that work are loaded using the 'Load Last Save Option'. You can't load any other saves. As many fans know, its real important in this game to have lots of save options to try out different solutions.

Seems the game doesn't like USB keyboards, see gamespy review. This effects some key game play elements such as safe cracking.

The designers introduced some, imo, terrible elements to the game that are not fun. An example would be a sequence where you need to put mines together. Its not fun, its frustrating and it has nothing to do with what splinter cell fans like. These new elements just slow the game down.

The UI is also a notch below other splinter cell games and definitely hampered by the console influence of the game. From the option screens to the save and load screens its a bit of a fight.

As someone else mentioned, the AI has taken a bit of a nose dive. It can be broad daylight and you are jumping in front of the npc's and they won't see you at times. Sometimes you'll be in complete darkness and they'll nail you. The light meter is useless in this game.

The tutorial is aweful. You are put into a virtual training room that is all white. Kind of artistic but it doesn't do what its supposed to do, provide training for the game. This is one thing the other SC games have done very well.

I looked forward to this game and was very disappointed with its quality. If you have an XBox 360 I suggest trying that version as I hear its hassle free. I want to make it clear that the story and general game play are still very much like other splinter cell titles, its just that the quality of the pc version is terrible. Maybe we'll see a patch or patches to resolve these issues though UbiSoft has already stated there would not be future patches.

Total garbage. Ubisoft should be ashamed to have their name on this thing.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

To sum it up in one word unplayable. Even after the patch running a brand new 8800 gts, quad core and 2 gbs of mushkin 800. Wish there was a negative rating.

Buggy software and tedious gameplay

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: March 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game has so many bugs which to this date, are not fixed. I have the latest patch which is supposed to have fixed the big ones - such as the safe opening issues - but it hasn't.

A part from the bugs, the missions are just tedious, not really much fun, like previous series.

Control is awkward, evidence of a bad port from console.

My advice is to stay away from this one.

What a joke

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: May 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is the buggiest game I have played in years. I have 5 high end systems. NONE OF them can play this stupid game. I use only name brand products in my systems. Creative labs sound card etc. I can run all of the latest games on their highest detail settings. Not this one. I cannot even run this game on the lowest setting. I want my money back. It crashes without warning. Pixelates my screen, locks my sound card up, and it is junk. Absolute junk. Wait till they are trying to give them away do not spend money on this game.

Doesn't even start

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Game looked fun. It doesn't even start after installing the patches! DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME! This is so not cool. I buy the game, wait for it to be shipped, and then it doesn't even work. Ubistupid should be ashamed!

Not Their Best

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 31, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am a real fan of the Splinter Cell games but this one is not their best effort. The game just doesn't play as smoothly as the other installments and there are still a lot of bugs in the game causing many crashes.

Do not even think about buying this game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Loaded this 10gig monster on my pc (P4 3.4 2 gig + Nividia 6800) which ran Bioshock (a game 2 years older than this) OK.

First cut scene slow and jerky- resetting graphics doesn't save right, next time you go in they are reset to highest settings. Known bug, check the net.

Character response time is SLOW. Tried training missions, can't see anything as they are artistic all white rooms with really bad wireframe wall definitions.

I'm literally thinking of throwing this game in the trash. I am a huge fan of Splinter Cell for the XBOX, did not get an XBOX 360, got a new computer instead.

Ubisoft has done an injustice to everyone who bought this game. As I said, Bioshock loaded and ran fine on my PC and graphics card.

Do not buy this game unless you like reading various internet help forums.

Ignore the one star ratings!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 13
Date: November 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I love how some of the other reviewers gave this game one star because their computers aren't equiped to play the game. As if it's the game's fault that they're too stupid to read the system requirements before they buy it.

Yes, be fore warned that the system specs are huge. There are only a handful of GPU's that are supported in this game, so make sure that you have the right video card before you buy it. Also, you'll need at least 1GB of RAM (I recommend more)and a 3ghz CPU. The install footprint is huge, taking up a little over 10GB. I should also mention that this is a DVD-ROM game, so you'll need a DVD-ROM drive to install it.

The game itself is amazing as always. The Splinter Cell series has always been the high mark of stealth based gameplay, and this new episode is no exception. The visuals have improved greatly since the last Splinter Cell game, which explains the high system requirements. The gameplay itself is basically unchanged, with only a few new gadgets to mess around with. The biggest difference in this game as compaired with the previous three is that you now have to balance your loyalty to the NSA with winning the trust of the terrorist organization that you've infiltrated. That makes for some very tough decisions durring the course of the game and does a lot to immerse you into the life of Sam Fisher as he struggles with morallity verses the mission.

Splinter Cell: Double Agent doesn't deserve the one star ratings from the few idiots who don't know to check system specs before they buy. Don't be like those guys. If you enjoyed the other games in this series, and you have the hardware to run it, then you'll love every minute of this game.

The worst game in the series

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: December 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Splinter Cell: Double Agent is an awful game, from start to end.

Technical problems aside (and there were many!) the overall enjoyment of this game was disappointingly low. The mission objectives were often vague and confusing. The "mini-games" were a bad gimmick and lacked any entertaining value. The designers basically stripped Sam Fisher of the most unique tool in the SC games, the night vision/heat vision goggles, allowing us to use them only on a few missions. The AI has become increasing more stupid and blind, and the shadows don't have any uniformity throughout the game -- sometimes Sam is completely hidden in partial sunlight, sometimes completely visible.

I have a high end system that I only use for gaming -- no web browsing, no email, nothing except games. There are no background programs running except for essential Windows tasks. That said, the game crashed several times, I had problems with odd graphical glitches and sound was choppy. Turning down the graphical quality did nothing to fix the problems, and with Ubisoft's lack of a patch (and Q&A testing, apparently) I spent more time restarting the game than I did playing it. One example: leaving the game paused for five or ten minutes causes graphical glitches in the game that eventually caused it to crash. Loading a saved game is much more difficult than it needs to be, and I was often unable to load a game I saved, instead having to restart the level.

The story/plot/characters were anything but special, and in many cases just got in the way. Every other mission took place in the same hideout/building (way to reuse maps, Ubi!) and REALLY slowed the pace of the game down. These are the missions you'll begin to dread and wish they were skipable (note to self: google for cheat codes next time!). Many of the maps are very linear, which is surprising in this day and age of video games like GTA and Okami -- different genres officially, yet very similar in styles.

This is the Splinter Cell to skip, although I suspect fans of the series have already bought it and will buy the next in the series on the day of release. I, however, will be keeping my money in my wallet for the next SC, and waiting for the gaming site reviews and Amazon reviews, which have so far painted a very good picture of this game's quality. Double Agent, however, is an incredible disappointment. Buyer beware.

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