Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
File:Splinter Cell-Logo.jpq
Genre(s)	Stealth
Developer(s)	Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher(s)	Ubisoft
First release	Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell November 2002
Latest release	Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Essentials March 2006

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell is a series of video games endorsed by American author Tom Clancy. The success of the series spawned a novel series in 2004 written under the pseudonym David Michaels. The protagonist, Sam Fisher, is a highly trained agent of a black-ops division of the NSA, dubbed Third Echelon.

Splinter Cell, as a brand, is owned by Tom Clancy's company, Rubicon, and is licensed to Ubisoft to make the games. The characters of the game, as well as "Third Echelon" itself, were created by Ubisoft writer JT Petty.

Overview

Storyline

Sam Fisher, the protagonist, in a camouflage suit, during a mission in Pandora Tomorrow.

The storyline is similar in some of the games. Terrorists are planning an attack using weapons of mass destruction, usually by use of information warfare, and Sam Fisher, an operative for Third Echelon, a secret branch of the NSA, must prevent this. This applies to the first three games (Splinter Cell, Pandora Tomorrow, Chaos Theory) The missions range from gathering intelligence to capturing and/or eliminating terrorist operatives.

In the first game, "Splinter Cell" referred to the enemy organization being a splinter cell of a larger adversary. In the second game, Pandora Tomorrow, developed by a separate Ubisoft studio, "Splinter Cell" was used to refer to Sam Fisher's organization, Third Echelon, being a splinter cell of the NSA. It is unknown if this change was intentional or a mistake by the second developer.

Double Agent (the fourth game) introduces a new morality factor. As the subtitle implies, Fisher becomes a double agent, assuming the identity of a wanted criminal and is recruited by a terrorist ring. The new mechanic is that Fisher may now encounter conflicting objectives between his superiors and the terrorists. For example, the terrorists may assign a mission to assassinate, while the NSA simultaneously instructs the player to prevent the assassination (Cozumel, Cole Yeager). This creates a delicate balancing act between gaining the trust of the terrorists and fulfilling the mission assignments. In addition, Fisher must not do anything to reveal to the terrorists that he is a double agent.

A fifth game, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction, is currently in development. In this game Sam is looking for the killer of his daughter, who had been killed in a hit-and-run at the beginning of Splinter Cell: Double Agent. He has abandoned the NSA and is now striking out alone. He thought his daughter's death was an accident but when he finds out it wasn't, he goes on a solo mission to find out who's behind the murder.

Gameplay

Splinter Cell takes a lot of inspiration from other stealth-action series, Metal Gear and Thief: The Dark Project. As such, stealth is a critical aspect of gameplay; shooting and killing any civilians or enemy units may result in mission failure or increased difficulty (as guards may arm themselves or become more alert to better prepare for an attack). An alarm usually occurs if a non-player character spots a casualty, an unconscious person, or Sam Fisher himself. In the first two games, the mission is aborted after a set number of alarms have been triggered; sometimes only one will end a mission prematurely, depending on the mission. The third game features a new system, in which enemies move up to a new level of awareness for every alarm triggered. For example, after the fourth alarm is set off, enemies will fortify positions around the map and wait for the player.

Strategy

The smoothest way forward in the game is to remain invisible, select non-obvious routes, and utilize diversions to pass guards. The game is a combination of problem solving and quick action. Attacks must be swift, silent, and decisive to ensure success.

Multiplayer

Pandora Tomorrow introduced a two-on-two multiplayer mode, pitting two very differently equipped teams against each other. Chaos Theory further evolved that mode and introduced a cooperative mode. This mode plays out very much like the single player mode, yet features a myriad of moves that may only be performed by both players acting as a team. The cooperative storyline in Chaos Theory and the sixth generation version of Double Agent parallels that of Sam's in single-player mode, acting on information he obtained or providing support in the field. As trident goggles are unique to Fisher, cooperative spies wear goggles with two lenses that are either red or blue.

Goggles

Originally, Tom Clancy rejected the idea of Sam Fisher having trifocal goggles, stating that goggles with both thermal vision and night vision are impossible to make. The creators argued that having two separate sets of goggles would make for awkward gameplay and convinced Clancy to allow it. This also gave the Splinter Cell series a recognizable signature, a desirable feature. Current technology now allows goggles with both thermal and night visions (as used in the Vegas' games) to be available for the military.

Games

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The locations of Sam Fisher's missions during his time with Third Echelon

Ubisoft rotated development of the console and PC games between Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Shanghai.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Series

Title	Episode	release	Systems (PC)	Systems (consoles)	Systems (handheld)	Studio
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell	1	2002	Windows, Mac OS X	Xbox, NGC, PS2	GBA, Mobile phones*, N-Gage	Ubisoft Montreal
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow	2	2004	Windows	Xbox, NGC, PS2	GBA, Mobile phones*	Ubisoft Shanghai
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory	3	2005	Windows	Xbox, NGC, PS2	NDS, Mobile phones*, N-Gage	Ubisoft Montreal
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent	4	2006	Windows**	Xbox***, NGC***, PS2***, Wii***, 360**, PS3**	Mobile phones*	Ubisoft Shanghai** / Ubisoft Montreal***
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Essentials	5	2006	N/A	N/A	PSP	Ubisoft Montreal
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction	6	2010	Windows	360	NDS	Ubisoft Montreal

* All mobile phone versions were deloped by Gameloft.

Novels

The Splinter Cell novels are written under the pseudonym David Michaels by different authors.

• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (novel)
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Operation Barracuda
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Checkmate
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Fallout
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction (novel)
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Endgame

Film

The existence of a movie in pre-production has been confirmed both by news sources and by the inclusion of a teaser trailer in the Platinum Hits Edition, "Collector's Edition" and European Edition of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Originally, Peter Berg, director of Friday Night Lights, was slated to direct/produce and Splinter Cell video game scriptwriter J.T. Petty was slated to write, along with John J. McLaughlin.

J.T. Petty and Peter Berg left the project in summer 2005 and the project shifted from Paramount Pictures to DreamWorks Not long after, however, Viacom, the parent of Paramount Pictures, purchased DreamWorks. Since then, there has been no updated information on the film, and production is considered to be stalled.

Characters

• Sam Fisher
• List of Splinter Cell characters

External links

• Splinter Cell, Official site
• Official site of game scriptwriter JT Petty
• Official site for the author of the first two SC novels, Raymond Benson
• Splinter Cell series at MobyGames

See also

• United States Special Collections Service