A solid stealth game for the time, but it's rough to play these days.

The atmosphere and lighting hold up better than everything else. This game still looks great for its age thanks to superb lighting.

The light and darkness mechanics are excellent to this day and I wish more stealth games copied them, but sometimes it can be a little finicky as you're often not hidden unless you're in total darkness. Enemy AI is extremely jumpy and often just moving a tiny fraction too fast, or not being in a perfect shadow, will result in an immediate alert. There is no moment of leeway between being seen by an enemy and the alarm being triggered, and enemies can go from unaware to whipping around and blasting your ass instantly.

The alarm system works really weirdly in this game, which is an absolute headache if you don't know about it before you start playing. You have to hide bodies perfectly or reaching checkpoints will trigger the alarm, even if realistically nobody would see the bodies. And three alarms will fail the mission.

The shooting in this game made me want to tear my hair out. It's horribly inaccurate on purpose. You can line up a perfect shot at a light and still miss and alert all the enemies nearby. I get that the game wants to discourage shooting your way through the levels, but it ends up completely blowing stealth and it's not the player's fault. Every time this happened I had zero shame reloading saves until trying to simply eliminate a light source didn't get me screwed by bullets exiting my gun sideways.

It seems that Ubisoft wasn't entirely confident in the stealth gameplay as the game includes some forced action and shootout sequences, which are definitely the worst part because the shooting mechanics are intentionally designed to make shooting difficult. The game shoots itself in the foot there.

This game was a promising start to the series, but its flaws are very noticeable, especially so many years later. Frankly without quick saves this game would suck because of the twitchy AI and unpredictable bullet trajectory. If you're really interested in the history of stealth games and you want to play through all of them, this game is worth a look. But if you're not a huge fan of the Splinter Cell series or playing through every stealth game out there, I suggest skipping to Chaos Theory.

This is a very promising but flawed start for the franchise. To start off, I absolutely love the concept of a slow paced and grounded stealth game. There's a bit of a learning curve when you first start because you really do have to play much slower and more meticulously than you would in Metal Gear Solid for instance. The story is serviceable albeit not terribly memorable or deep. It works well enough to tie the levels together, which are the real reason to play this game. Level design and theming varies pretty widely. The theming for the CIA and presidential palace missions are fantastic. My biggest criticism of level design is that its a bit too linear. This style of gameplay is definitely better served by more open level design as evidenced by the far superior Choas Theory. This linearity can unfortunately make the gameplay feel like its based more on trial and error than creativity and skills. There are quite a few sections where there's really only one very specific way to proceed and the player has to get themselves killed several times to be able to understand what the game wants them to do. This game is also very unforgiving about breaking stealth - if you get spotted and there's more than one enemy in the room you're probably going to die pretty quickly. The AI detection is also pretty janky at times, which can lead to what feel like unfair game overs.The difficulty does however make the game very rewarding and enjoyable once you get the hang of it. Sam Fisher, despite being capable, always feels vulnerable. This adds a nice amount of tension to the game, which perfectly compliments the slower paced stealth gameplay its going for.

Overall this is a very promising start to a franchise and a very unique stealth experience that is weighed down by jank and linearity in level design that can make the experience at times frustrating and monotonous

Splinter Cell é surpreendentemente um absurdo de jogo do começo ao fim, e que tranquilamente consegue competir e superar tecnicamente muitos jogos dos dias atuais.

Eu acho que o primeiro ponto que salta aos olhos logo de cara nesse jogo são seus gráficos. As texturas de altíssima qualidade e - esse que me fez babar o jogo inteiro - aliada a luz dinâmica dos cenários, tornam esse jogo lindo aos olhos até os dias de hoje. A iluminação é pra mim o principal ponto disso, e é simplesmente hipnotizante! Seja as luminárias pendentes que se movimentam de forma realista ao levarem um tiro, seja pelos raios de luz dinâmicos através de persianas e/ou galhos de árvore, tudo relacionado a iluminação é tão realista até para os dias de hoje que a todo momento que eu parava pra reparar nisso, eu só conseguia me perguntar “como a ubisoft conseguiu chegar nesse nível de qualidade técnica logo no início dos anos 2000?”. Nos momentos em que os inimigos trazem luminárias em suas cabeças, esse elemento também se ressalta de forma impressionante. A movimentação do espectro da luz e dos raios da mesma são simplesmente muito bem feitos e fidedignos com a realidade.
A direção de arte, num geral, é espetacular com suas cenas cinematográficas, principalmente que esta traz takes e elementos de obras do cinema relacionadas ao gênero de espionagem e ação da época como Duro de Matar, Missão: Impossível e até Bourne (esse último lançado poucos meses antes desse jogo). Não só isso, mas em muitas fases, graças a escolhas de composição e posicionamento de luz a direção de arte salta de ser simplesmente impressionante pra um patamar quase que pornográfico de tão hipnotizante.
em sua gameplay ele carrega muito dessa veia. No nível normal ela apresenta um desafio na medida certa (pra mim) para um jogo focado no stealth, nem muito fácil mas longe de ser um passeio no parque. Eu encaro que certos elementos da gameplay (como certos equipamentos) estão ali só pra preencher linguiça e que não precisavam existir, pois são completamente inúteis na maior parte do tempo. Mas eu entendo que eles quiseram utilizar de traços de immersive sims da época (a franquia Thief sendo a mais evidente aqui) pra se diferenciar e dar mais complexidade a esse aspecto em relação a franquia em que eles assumidamente queriam bater de frente, MGS.
Como deu pra ver, o jogo se pauta muito no realismo, e a movimentação dos personagens é outro ponto que carrega muito esse toque em sua veia.. Claro que isso tem um pouco mais de limitação de sua época (principalmente em relação aos pontos gráficos aqui citados), mas nada que reduza a qualidade desse quesito. A Ubisoft conseguiu fazer de forma brilhante com que a movimentação do Sam Fisher seja extremamente dinâmica aqui. Seja em momentos em que o protagonista esteja carregando peso (como um corpo), seja pela chuva sob o mesmo e o cenário de algumas missões, seja pela física das roupas e cortinas do cenário ou por simplesmente existirem cacos de vidro no chão, tanto o Sam Fisher quanto o cenário reagem super bem ao que está acontecendo na gameplay e de forma altamente realista.
Outro ponto relacionado a gameplay vem da parte sonora. Os passos aqui são elementos fundamentais para a experiência de se esconder de um inimigo, ao ponto de ter toda uma parte do tutorial relacionado a isso. Não só isso, mas a parte musical também é muito boa. Pra mim a trilha desse jogo consegue dar a nota necessária de filme de espionagem com um tom militar, levando a imersão a um nível muito alto. Ao longo do jogo, esta se repete um pouco acima do que se espera mas ainda assim é muito boa pra compor tanto os cenários quanto a gameplay.

Pra ser sincero, esse jogo tem pouquíssimos defeitos. Eu acho sim que a gameplay se perde um pouco quando o jogo tenta se enveredar mais pra ação e quase abandonando o stealth em certos momentos pós missão 2. Outro ponto que eu particularmente não gosto, é que alguns inimigos são altamente influenciados por RNG (ou seja, têm comportamentos aleatórios). Isso acontece mais quando se chama atenção deles… E ok, traz um grau de os personagens estarem vivos e não serem simplesmente NPCs, mas eu não curto muito, principalmente porque existem muitos inimigos nas fases, o que torna os seus erros um pouco maçantes.
Talvez o que mais me incomode seja a baixíssima precisão da mira. O retículo além de ser extremamente sensível é totalmente impreciso, exigindo (muitas vezes) no mínimo 2 tiros pra acertar um alvo (já que é comum o primeiro tiro simplesmente desviar do alvo, mesmo com a mira estabilizada).
No final, esses pontos não são nada que estraguem a experiência geral.

Particularmente eu detesto quando os jogos tentam ser hiper realistas, pois isto tira a dinamicidade do controle que é algo que eu prefiro sempre ter ao meu alcance. Mas Splinter Cell utiliza isso de forma brilhante, se encaixando como uma luva em sua gameplay cadenciada e que preza pela calma e lentidão do jogador. O jogo constrói com pouco e com extrema qualidade uma atmosfera de suspense e tensão que, ao meu ver, é obrigatória no meio stealth.
No final, Splinter Cell é um jogo muito à frente do seu tempo. A qualidade técnica aqui traga é invejável pra muitos jogos AAA atuais e consegue dar um tapa na cara dos mesmos. É sem sombra de dúvidas um dos melhores de seu gênero, porém, está longe de ser um jogo pra se recomendar pra alguém que queira conhecer e entrar para o gênero stealth, contudo para alguém já inserido no meio e que por algum motivo nunca teve oportunidade de jogar (eu a um mês atrás ksksks), vai ter aqui um prato cheio de excelentes desafios, mesmo depois de mais de 20 anos de seu lançamento.

Playing this game was so frustrating and I actually rushed trough the whole thing because this game didn’t age well. Lots of bugs, the voice acting is corny and annoying. And for some reason every time you shot something you gotta shoot it multiple times because for some reason Sam Fisher can’t aim for shit. The forced loud moments are horrendous to play trough and some levels are harder than they should. But I gotta say that the graphics looks very aesthetic and looks amazing for a game this old. The characters however is another story. The gameplay itself is also very enjoyable when the game actually feels fair and not too difficult.

as many people have mentioned, pc version requires a fuckton of tinkering to get working, even if you purchase it on steam, which is quite unfortunate.
for the first playthrough i left this game quite disappointed with how linear and rough it gets, rooms more often then not only have one way to solve them, the game will force you into combat despite having a combat system purposefully build badly to force you to avoid it, so i ended up not liking it much.
then i played it again recently, not trying to play perfectly and just going half life on this bad boy, only to find out how JANK this is, try it, you can easily get out of bounds using the double jump and almost skip some rough areas, quickly crouching is as fast as running and does not make any noise, this game is jank enough that you can break it quite easily and have fun with bending the rules to your liking, fuck it, just shoot everyone, but make sure to hide the bodies in the dark, and thats only for a few selected missions, why even go through the trouble of hitting good scores ? you unlock NOTHING to do it, so just break this game up

This game is a flawed masterpiece, but when i say flawed, i mean really really flawed, janky controls, weird game design (bouncing between being completely cryptic and being completely idiotic), bugs, specially with guard detection, etc. The only thing preventing this game from being unplayable sometimes is the fact that the pc version has quicksaves.

Now to the good part, the atmosphere of this game is insane, and so are the options of how you can solve the game's challenges, several very interesting espionage weaponry and tools, but it doesn't help when the game design is commonly flawed, like when they force you into an action scene in a damn stealth game. But now that i'm writing that, i don't remember feeling the same way while playing metal gear, i guess it's because in this game, the weapons are designed to be used in stealth, so they are garbage in action moments, what creates a frustration that didn't come while playing other similar games.

Well, i guess the fact that i even finished the game means it was a worthwhile game, even if very frustrating sometimes.

I had such fond memories of playing the original Xbox version when the game came out but never finished it, i game it another time on PC and again i was not able to complete, this time i think it was because of the of the platform i played on. I used the steam version with mods to increase resolution and add some quality of life but no mattered what i did i was not able to correctly set up a controller, playing on keyboard was so weird and whenever i made a change to my key bindings my mods messed up. I think this game does require a new remake, if rumors are true and we get a remake i will give another try.

Splinter Cell is the first outing for Sam Fisher, a laughably gruff spy and his manly mission to scare the Russians and Chinese. Unfortunately this first entry has not aged too well - it's playable albeit underbaked, overwritten, and frustrating to get through.

The story is a dry NSA fan fic about Sam being a bad ass and saving the world with an 'ends justify the means' approach. This time it's the Georgians working with the Russians... but also the Chinese and the CIA? I don't know but then Sam doesn't follow the plot either, he just always knows what the next thing to do is. Sam also doesn't get much characterisation beyond 'cold badass' and has some rough scenes like being unable to comfort a dying man and interrupting his daughter's call to toss the phone and dive out of a plane. The VA (Michael Ironside) talking about Sam's emotional depth is genuinely laughable (the healing moans are also not appreciated Michael).

Gameplay meanwhile is VERY linear and I don't think the series found its feet here. Levels are built around stealth and platforming sections each with their own issues. The designer just wants you to play levels in one very specific way but sadly the mechanics are not well tuned. The 'grab an enemy' prompts don't always show (leading to instant deaths), light levels are hilariously unclear on the PS2 version, and aim is terrible! Even when a lightbulb is inches from you it can take 3+ shots to hit.

Platforming meanwhile is mechanically fine but it really highlights the terrible level design. Nothing is way pointed, highlighted, or even hinted as being interactive and many times stuff that is normally scenery suddenly becomes interactive. They introduce and remove situational mechanics at random without explaining them like the rappelling sections and lots of reoccurring mechanics are only explained in missable data files like how the auto-turrets work - a boon if you know, but frustrating if you're not aware. It will also switch from stealth to action scenes without telling you, so it's unclear when you alerted guards or if it's suddenly a set piece.

Overall this game is a rough start to the franchise, I've not touched the other games yet but apparently they do get better. There is of course the idea of a decent game in here it's just buried beneath a boring story, unlikable characters, inconsistent mechanics, and slow gameplay. I'd say this one is only worth it for the fans and new players can probably skip it without missing anything substantial.

The first of what I consider my all time favorite stealth series. Growing up, I actually played Chaos Theory before this one, so I got pretty spoiled by the time I played this. That being said, I think this holds up pretty well actually. Looking at the time it was released, this really did bring something new and breathed life into the stealth genre, even if it comes off as dated today. I think one of my main obsessions with stealth games as a whole is the ability to perfect a certain area through trial and error, which can be irritating for some, but I've always found rewarding when you get it right. With this game however, they're a little demanding when it comes to perfection. Almost every mission restricts you from getting a certain amount of alarms and killing a certain number of people, which is definitely a bummer. The gameplay itself is insanely addicting as you feel like this overly acrobatic and sly stealth operative that it's kinda silly when you get stuck on a part just because of one guy who keeps seeing you and you just wanna kill him. You can knock out guards with a variety of ways, including a fist to the head from behind, or gas grenades, sticky shockers, and air foil rounds with your SC-20K, (though you don't get that until later in the game) but even then, the game forces you to hide the bodies since the game will instant alarm if they're not well hidden, even if there's nobody else around. The level design is fine, but the missions you go are not as well defined as in later games, usually consisting of a lot of office buildings. I guess they were going for a more realistic approach since Sam Fisher is looked at as an actual soldier working for the federal government, but yeah the missions can sometimes come off as straightforward and not too terribly hard to figure out. That being said, it's still fun to infiltrate areas through sneaky means and completely get through an area without being detected at all. They need to hurry up and release the remaster of this game because I'm anxious to see how they do. Even though it's been improved upon since then, this game holds up for the most part and set the standard for the rest of the series.