pandora tomorrow

OK, you know you've been playing too much Splinter Cell when the lights suddenly go off and you nod your forehead in a bid to put on your night vision goggles. But is such a thing even possible? Can someone possibly ever have 'too much' of Splinter Cell? I think not. In all my gaming life, I don't think I've actually ever come across a game with such depth [barring of course Half Life and System Shock 2, but then those ones appealed coz they weren't all about humans, as is the Splinter Cell series]. This game is all about thinking. Much unlike the Max Paynes and Dooms and Quakes, in Splinter Cell the object is to not shoot at all. Stealth is the name of the game. And the first time I used a guard as a human shield, the moment he felt my gun on his temple views changed so that I was looking at his face and I swear you could see terror in his eyes. Of course the fear wrinkles were all over his forehead, and the AI is just so realistic. You know, you drop a grenade and they dont just stand around asking each other whether or not you want to play catch with them :) - played IGI or the original Hitman Codename 47, anyone? - they run for cover! The patrolling guards out in the gardens react to footprints, and if a guard on rounds doesnt make it back, someone comes to investigate [although this happened to me only once so I dont think it's actually been programmed into the game, musta been the fates working against me, as usual :)]. When two people are working in a room and then the lights in an adjacent room suddenly go off [one learns pretty fast playing Splinter Cell that darkness is your friend, light - not good], they actually come to check who did that. They dont just stand around scratching the backs of their heads - again I need to refer to the Hitmans, Silent Assassin and Contracts. And that part for rappling down high walls, totally killed me. And who could forget the thing where you fork two walls with your feet, and then hang down and strangle a passing guard. Simply breathtaking!

Granted I come from a third world country fast on the track to being relegated to pre-historic, I have never played any of the Metal Gear Solids coz Playstation 2's and XBox's are pretty hard to come by thisides. I hear people say they [the Metal Gear Solids] are pretty solid, no pun intended. But I still insist, before a game comes out that actually beats Splinter Cell at stealth and graphics and AI and playability, Ubisoft will have to have signed off on it and helped in development somehow [I remember the last time a game came out that was better than Half Life it was Half Life 2. Nine years in between and no one surpassed the original Half Life] Once every generation [of hardware platforms] a game comes out that just unquestionably reigns supreme. Well, for me in the 2000's this game is Splinter Cell. And I still havent played Chaos Theory or the fourth one [see third world country above :) ]. Maybe Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood will be nice, maybe TR Legend wont disappoint, maybe Battle for Middle Earth [Lord of the Rings] will go the way of the movies and rule, I hear Path of Neo is all that, and maybe even the True Crime's [Streets of LA and New York City] will leave up to expectations. But my mind is made up, until they release Resident Evil 4 for the PC or something radical like that, no game is taking Splinter Cell's place in my heart.

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