  'Lambert ... I just found out who's been voted off the next episode of American Idol' |
What do you get when you mix an emotionally unstable killing machine with all kinds of high-tech gadgets and a complete lack of a conscience?
You get the new Sam Fisher in Splinter Cell Essentials, the first game in the series to hit the Playstation Portable handheld system.
That’s right folks – in Essentials (and SC: Double Agent, out on consoles this Fall), developers Ubisoft decided to opt for a much more emotional lead character. And we don’t mean emotional in the ‘do-these-night-vision-goggles-make-my-face-look-fat?’ way, we mean emotional in the ‘my-daughter-was-just-killed-in-a-car-accident-and-now-I’m-psychologically-unstable’ kind of way.
To get Splinter Cell fans up to speed, Essentials' timeline runs from before the first Splinter Cell title, right up to and including the events in the upcoming Double Agent. Let's be clear here: this is not a port of an existing Splinter Cell game, nor is it a remake or expansion of any kind. This is a brand new game where you get a chance to learn a lot more about Sam Fisher’s backstory. The first level, for instance, is a flashback scenario taking you into a past war Sam found himself in, years before the first Splinter Cell.
Ubisoft used a Playstation 2 engine on Essentials, so you can be sure that everything looks and moves great. If you’re worried at all about how the game will work without a second analog stick, fret not. The answer to what could have been a big problem was resolved by using the single analog stick to move both Sam and the camera. If you use it as is, you’ll walk around as you normally do, but simply hold down the 'O' button and Sam is forced to stay where he is and you have full 360° use of the camera. It took us literally about two minutes to get the hang of this, and the more we played, the easier it became to use.
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Ubisoft also did a neat little thing with the analog stick. As any PSP owner knows, the analog stick doesn’t have much give; you push it in any direction and before you know it, it’s at the end of its leash. In Essentials, the speed at which Sam moves is dependant on how far you push the analog stick. The cool thing is, if you begin walking slowly, you don’t have to hold the analog stick as is – that is, you can push it all way up once you’ve started walking without fear of breaking into a run that could easily blow your cover. The game is smart enough to know when you want to use stealth. On the other hand, if you need to get out of a situation quickly and noise is the least of your concerns, all you have to do is push the analog stick all the way up from the get-go and you’ll be dashing away from enemies of all shapes and sizes in no time.
The game truly does look fantastic on the PSP screen. Lighting effects havn’t been sacrificed much at all and characters and environments are very nicely detailed. Another bonus with Essentials is the addition of an extra sound meter. In the event that you’re on a bus/in a movie theatre/at church and you don’t have headphones but don’t want to interrupt other people around you with any noise, you can actually play the game successfully with the volume turned completely off. To do this, Ubisoft added both a left and right sound meter. So you’ll be able to tell not only if someone is coming, but from what direction just by watching the respective left and right sound meters. Of course it’s no replacement for actual sound, but if you simply don’t have that luxury, it’s a great alternative.
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Sam Fisher is about to unleash the dreaded High Kick on this poor sap
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Another thing that the developers didn’t ignore was the problem of load times, something that many PSP games are unfortunately infamous for. We’re glad to report that load times we encountered were at the absolute most about 10 seconds. The little load bar on the bottom of the screen was mercifully quick to fill up.
While we only had a short amount of time to play Essentials, and had little chance to see first-hand all the different plot twists, the folks at Ubisoft assured us that there are in fact plenty of twists and branching storylines in Essentials. The choices you make will affect the ending and be sure that you'll be given plenty of choices to do different things throughout the game. In addition, there will be some points in the game where you'll have to accomplish opposite tasks - that is, the NSA and terrorists will both be asking you to do opposite tasks at the same time. Have fun with that.
On the subject of choice, one of the other big changes in Essentials (and Double Agent) is that it will be more action-oriented. No longer will you be walking through level after level, worrying about setting off three alarms or less, hiding bodies in dark corners and using an absolute minimum of bullets. If you want to go in and pop every enemy you see with your pistol, for many levels you'll be free to do just that (though we found it's still probably a good idea to use a silencer whenever you can). Ubisoft said they simply wanted to tone down the more frustrating elements of the Splinter Cell series. Again though, remember that if you want to finish the entire game as stealthily as possible, you're more than welcome to.
Essentials started out with 12 levels but was trimmed down to nine ... or should we say nine initial levels. Instead of adding in unlockable trailers (yawn) or concept art (double yawn), you can actually open up the other three levels as you progress through the game. So that's 12 missions in all - not bad for a handheld game.
There is a multiplayer mode in Essentials, but don't get too excited just yet, fans of Mercs vs. Spies. The multiplayer, which works through the PSPs WiFi capabilities, is only one mode - deathmatch. The developers said that it would have pushed the release date back even further if they added the Mercs vs. Spies mode because of all the development involved in incorporating the first person view (something not easily accomplished on the PSP - just look at 'Coded Arms').
If we had to make a prediction, we'd say that this will be one of the most successful PSP games to date. It's made by one of the most reliable developers in the world, it's a solid length, it has excellent graphics and of course, it's the continuation of one of the most popular franchises of the last generation. Most importantly, it will very likely sate the appetite of all Splinter Cell fans who can't stand the wait until Double Agent is released.
Until then, you'll have the Essentials.
