Splinter Cell: Double Agent Retrospective | A mediocre game and a terrible PC port 

Timestamps below if you need them. As you'll no doubt notice, some of the footage was captured at resolutions as low as 800 by 600, so it can look a little rough in places. The reasons why are explained in the video, but I thought I'd mention it in case you thought it was just a butchered RU-vid upload. Intro: 0:00 Making of: 3:10 Story Overview: 7:48 Conflicting Priorities: 15:04 Level Design: 24:54 Choice: 33:31 Gameplay Changes: 37:59 Performance: 48:47 Multiplayer: 54:27 Conclusion: 55:06

I remember when I first got it on my PC back then I was always confused to why the game had so little shadows

A little information: the version you refer to as "version 2" and "port" is actually the original. I was a huge Splinter Cell fan and even ran a website at the time and followed the development from the beginning and It was the and the only version they originally promoted, the next-gen version came into the picture later. The next-gen version even has pre-rendered cutscenes from the old-gen version in the first level. The prison opening cutscene is one of them, using the old gen prison outfits, it was clearly made for that and was reused for the new-gen one. Also at the end of the first mission of the next-gen version, you climb a rope to the helicopter, but in the cutscene you see Sam running towards it on the ground in a different outfit. Other cutscenes were simply replaced by low budget renders in the next-gen version, compared to the full cinematic cutscenes of the older gen version. In no way it can be called a port, it's an entirely different game with a much more detailed plot and more traditional gameplay. They decided to go with the next-gen ending because it was probably the more popular one. I think the old-gen version is a much more interesting game, even if it's limited by tech, especially the non-Xbox versions.

In the Port version, Fisher actually does lose trust with the JBA if you knock anyone out, get seen and a ton more of you manage to kill any JBA members during the base missions. (Though killing any named ones is an instant game over.) Also killing Police and such will reduce trust. Fisher can't Game over from trust though in the Port, if you mess up enough to get the meter all the way to one side, Williams/Emille demands a status report so you have to backtrack to the nearest computer under a time limit to interact with it and then the meter resets a little while if the meter maxes out in the end-of-mission results screen, it just resets a little anyway. Also Fisher goes rogue in the Past-Gen version, he kills a Splinter cell agent for killing Enrica in the final mission then it's made clear the NSA is hunting him as he cuts out his implant.

48:20 You can see them with thermal through the ice.

The missions which had Sam sneaking around the JBA base were fantastic. It was a wonderful concept and it's a shame no one has elaborated upon it.

The old-gen version was far superior. I also remember reading something about Ubisoft having trouble with new-gen & developing the game for it - double agent was released pretty soon after the PS3 & 360, and they were still getting used to the new systems. It’s why double agent wasn’t up to scratch, particularly the PS3 version.

I was around 9 when i first played double agent so it will always have a place in my heart still one of my favorite games of all time.

"duller then a Zelda game" Shots fired

i feel like its a bit of a fallacy to say Sarah's death is bad specifically because she doesn't get much screen time. You dont have to care about Sarah in that moment, if you care about Sam in that moment, than it should be just as effective.

Pretty sure they never even say what happens to the Shanghai pilot. Did he just have a heart attack unrelated to anything to do with the plot?

Amazed by your output. Finished Witcher saga and went back to SC so quickly!

Great video, can’t wait for your Conviction review, it was my personal first game in the series.

I originally played the Version 2 when it came out and loved it to bits, thought it was awesome. Finally played Version 1 a few year back and was utterly disappointed. I just think Version 2 is the better Splinter Cell game, it feel more authentic

the ai issues could be related to the framerate. The old hitman games had the same issue, where above 30fps they would become extremly overalert. I thought the games were super hard until someone told me this, I limited the framerate, and suddenly I could walk past guards I assumed I could never come near to

I remember being really disappointed by double agent when it came out. After seeing every splinter cell game ubisoft made after that, it made me wish we could go back to getting games at least as good as DA... Why have they destroyed and diluted all the great stealth games?

What are you on about DA was a fantastic game, DA brought something new to the series and i really enjoyed how you can approach missions in different ways and actually have an impact on the ending. also i remember the JBA/NSA being one meter with a pointer in the middle moving left and right depending on your actions, and not 2 meters like your gameplay footage

Double agent is actually my favourite splinter cell game. The game felt rich, with a thick tone, and I really loved the whole concept of being undercover. I absolutely agree with all the criticisms of the game though, especially the lack of shadows and poor light meter functionality. But one of the biggest issues I actually had was the lack of an EEV - that thing was so incredibly useful in Chaos Theory. In the end, I see Chaos Theory as Empire, and double agent as ROTS. Though the former is academically and technically a masterpiece, the latter just has a kind of tone that some people fall in love with.

It's definitely important to differentiate between the sixth gen version and the seventh gen version of Double Agent.

I remember looking up a guide to fix the PC version on some obscure youtube video, and he practically wrote the code for the config file or something. I think the shadows and lights are also busted for PC version.

I disagree that Double Agent is mediocre. I do agree that it was disappointing. Chaos Theory was so good but when we got a lesser Splinter Cell it just felt as I said disappointing. It was still quite good I think. But right now I would absolutely love a Splinter Cell game like this. Not the crap we got now. We don’t have any true Tom Clancy games anymore. Ubisoft has deviated so far from what a Tom Clancy game is and was.

I remember playing double agent on the playstation 2 and talking to my friend who played it on the Xbox. When we were talking about the game, we were both very very confused by the fact that the introductions to our games were wildly different.

Alright, I think I've got it. On my new version of the exposure light, blue means you're invisible, and yellow means you're completely exposed. Red is still dedicated to engaged, but anything between blue and yellow is completely dynamic to display the spectrum of exposure. Sound is displayed by the light flickering off briefly in time with the sound. The louder the sound, the dimmer it gets, but it always returns to visibility very quickly because all the sounds you make are so short and choppy. The programming of the actual features surrounding this and the mechanical accuracy of the audio mix probably still need a layer of polish, but this at least communicates what the hell is going on with them in a way that keeps the minimal look and could theoretically be simple enough to mod in

Dude, I'm pretty sure you won't even see this and even if you will you wouldn't care but I have to get this across. What do you think of making a retrospective review series on Dragon Age? There are no long form reviews on these games and it's such a missed opportunity. I would love to see you make videos on those games, there's a lot to talk about them

Believe it or not this is my second favorite splinter cell game after CT. I have probably replayed it the most out of all the games in the series

I'm just commenting this as my blood sacrifice for the algorithm also love this series and your long vid style in general, they're very enjoyable :)

The directional microphone has a limited range which is the reason why he buggs the meeting. This also means that lambert has live sound in the process. This is the one splinter cell game that actually made me beyond nervous. Clenching my damn teeth with every cinematic to make sure I stay hidden within the terrorist group. I enjoyed both versions of this SC and loved the other games. I think we should really ask why blacklist is located later in the timeline which means sam is at his oldest point in life but yet looks younger and performs way quicker rather then it's predecessors in the 90s timeline and early 2000s.

Great video, but Sam didn't commit any crimes to get put into jail. He get's put in by Lambert and the NSA to break Jamie out to get accepted into the JBA. Just wanted to clear it up ;)

This game came out right when I was really getting into stealth games and I really loved it, I don't want to go back cause I will probably hate it now :')

This one holds a special place in my heart since it's the first Splinter Cell game I've played. I have fond memories of trying to get my brother to play the coop and never making it past the first level lmao

Three words that immediately come to mind when i think of this game are uninspired, sluggish and Buuuggy. Which personally i blame on the Shanghai team ethos (never got to play the V2) who seem to be more interested in creating cheesy, hollow, action set pieces/scenes than any kind of nuanced narrative or polished gameplay experience. One of the key elements that brought life to the series (atleast in the previous one) was the hilarious interrogations, Gone. What a mess of actual potential. Thanks for making these.

Personally find it extremely underrated and can name my reasons, but probably one of the worst PC ports no doubt

I personally think that the DA is the only game where you really are doing espionage, especially in the JBA base.

I definitely remember this game being better on 360. I was wowed by all the visual effects that just seem to be missing in this PC version. It's a shame that the PC port was so botched.

Speaking of sequels to well-known franchises becoming "darker" in the 00s, they literally called the sixth Tomb Raider game "Angel of Darkness" lol.

Love your Splinter Cell videos. Hope you're keeping well during these trying times, Chris.

Thanks for the video, it was very enjoyable! I think that both the narrative and gameplay greatly suffered on this game, when compared to the sequels, which had something more interesting in either front. I have never played blacklist, and I played Convictions until the mission were you had to protect a computer, but it seems to me that at that point in time (When Ubi actually tried to use this franchise), they were trying to make it work on too many levels: action, stealth and multiplayer. I think that it would have been far better if they just reboot this franchise and make it full stealth. MGS V (despite its many shortcomings) showed that gameplay-wise, you can have a very engaging stealth game that's also an economic success. While MGS and SC are very different franchises, for SC to come back, it needs to provide something unique that no other franchise has done so far, and I think that modern 3rd person stealth, with not too much action, would be something many of us would take a look at.

Splinter Cell Double Agent is a lot of "Sam Fisher Operates Before Dark." It let me put my shades on instead of NVGs. It knew what it was doing was wrong, but it kept doing it xD

I'd definitely recommend checking the old-gen version out. Now, there's about a decade between me playing the old-gen version and trying the next-gen a couple years ago, so I may be looking at it with nostalgia goggles, but I was just shocked by what I was looking at (and experiencing) while playing on PC. *First up is the graphics.* While the next-gen version makes use of fancy shader effects and whatnot, the visual direction just seems empty, sparse and uninspired by comparison. The old one was released while the console generations still had some overlap, as you mentioned - meaning that the devs knew exactly what the old tech was capable of and could make their levels look fantastic, the new one just looks amateur-grade by comparison. Despite having more horsepower to work with on new tech, the old one still looks better in terms of visual design and consistency, even if it can't be displayed in 1080p. *The gameplay* is a lot closer to Chaos Theory and incorporates the old light and sound meters that were present, while the new one opts to unclutter the HUD and boil it down to Red, Yellow and Green displayed by a device on Sam's back. This isn't a very significant change, because that's what the stealth system boils down to under the hood anyway. However, the sound meter that was lost means that players can't take advantage of ambient noise to conceal their movements and actions anymore, taking away some of the nuance that used to be present in CT. The old-gen version feels like a proper sequel in this regard. *One thing* that's going to be based on personal preference is the allegiance meter(s). In next-gen, there are two meters - one for NSA and one for JBA and they can change value depending on the player's actions separately. In old-gen there is only one meter with NSA being on the left and the JBA on the right extreme. This means that every story-based choice the player makes will tilt the meter towards one or the other - you can't keep everyone happy and will sometimes have to perform an action you don't agree with in order to not blow your cover. On the flip side, it also means that sometimes the consequence for the taken action doesn't make a lot of sense, if I recall correctly. I like this better, even if it makes into a straightforward, videogamey morality meter. The choices are weaved into regular gameplay and they're not binary button prompts (in both versions IIRC) - the game actually gives you separate objectives depending on who you want to please, or it gives you two different mutually exclusive objectives to accomplish on a single target and it's up to you to do whichever you like through regular gameplay. My memory is a bit foggy on that one. *The level design* is a lot more linear in old-gen, but the crucial question to ask is what the openness of next-gen actually provides. I found that most of the levels in next-gen (that I could stomach playing) aren't utilized to provide the player with different options, they're just "more open" - like, literally. The old-gen version provides multiple ways of interacting with your environment in its linear design, while the next-gen provides only one interaction, but offers multiple routes to the said interaction. This makes it feel a lot more shallow, IMO. *The story* - now I can't remember much of the story, but I can remember one crucial moment that stuck with me and illustrates the difference - Lambert's announcement of Sarah's death. In the PC version, it feels very haphazardly thrown together and doesn't have nearly the same impact. I'd have to check it out on video to actually remember how it happened, that's how bad it was. _[Yeah I just watched them both and it feels like a non-sequitur on PC, like the mission doesn't have anything to with what happens afterwards and Lambert's narration is just ad-libbed on top of FMV footage.]_ In the old-gen it happens over radio. Lambert calls off the mission, he tells Sam to get out of there. Sam says the mission was going fine, there is no reason to call it off. The music changes to a tune I can hear playing inside my head right now as I'm describing this. Sam demands answers, he doesn't want to leave a job half-finished. He prods Lambert for answers. It takes a bit of doing but Lambert finally concedes - he tells Sam that his daughter is dead. The player is left to ponder the implication for a bit before reaching the extraction helicopter. The rest plays out largely the same, but Lambert's monologue and Sam's "arrest" now has a different foundation for its context. It doesn't sound like much, but experiencing it is a whole different ballgame than here. It's knocked out of the park IMO, and this one is just... meh af. _[I wrote this before rewatching as stated above and it's actually spot-on, that's how well they made it stick]_ So yeah. Check it out and don't underestimate it just because it came out on older hardware. The co-op is pretty cool too.

I was 13 when this game was released and it was the first game I got with my PS3. I played the PS2 version extensively but was so jealous of the amazing graphics and cool set pieces (like the parachute bit) of the next gen version. It doesn't hold up and I've grown to love Chaos Theory more than any of the others but this game still holds a special place in my heart.

Great review as always. This the second Splinter Cell game I never picked up on console due to lack of interest in the 'new' formula, though I enjoyed Conviction as a more mindless stealth/action romp. I can't wait to see your review of that one !

i once had a bug on version one where at the final mission, the swat would come in through the glass and kill fisher, failing the mission. also at the end you can grab emile and(i cant tell what causes this, it was a coinflip for me) either have close quarters combat with him by him getting out of your hold, or he stays and you can interrogate him.

Another great vid! I really wanna like Double Agent because I think the premise is really unique for a stealth game, but not only is DA's unique elements underutilized, but the core SC gameplay is weaker.

I remember playing this on xbox 360 and I cant remember seeing very many bugs at all. im my mind double agent had more to offer than chaos theory in some ways. which is why I feel it as being an under rated game. yeah the missions could feel linear if you simply traversed the main paths. but the cruise ship offered much of the mission where you could use the railings around the parameter of the ship as your own secret pathway but many just complained that it was a linear path from the front to the back and I remember thinking. its a ship. where else do you wanna go, davey jones locker? they already did an oil tanker earlier so what do you want? sneaking around the taliban was a fun experience where you could hide under trucks and it still felt like a splinter cell experience. double agent was the last splinter cell that existed because all of the others there after were a gears of war cover based shooter with some verticality. the story continuity lost its charm because all the others established that sam fisher was retired recon navy seal born in 1968. making him a 42 year old man at the release date of conviction. watching him climbing and hucking over things faster than many expert parkour athletes. at that age he was faster than he ever was before? it was a cop out of a development team trying to stay relevant in a gaming culture that they perceived wanted more. but like a child that wanted nothing more than their parents to get back together, mom wanted nothing more than to bring home her gym coach for a fast and dirty time. leaving all the fans to think. what just happened?

I played this in my childhood as my first Splinter Cell game and really liked it (certainly more than Convinction). The only bug I encountered back then was the SWAT team not coming at the end of the "bad" ending so I never even knew until now that there was a bonus mission I missed. I tought it was just going to be a cutscene after that like with the good ending so I didn't bother trying to fix it.

Man, you had a baller time with the PC version. It is buggy indeed and clearly vastly under the technical masterpiece that Chaos Theory is, but you had vastly more issues than I ever had in my 15 or so playthroughs of Double Agent. Never had the sound issues or progression getting stuck at points you mentioned.

52:00 I remember the game being quite buggy but once I got it running it worked - the scene that usually bugged was the one in the beginning where you're supposed to execute the pilot. Though after that it was smooth sailing for me. Even the bonus level worked fine. Really weird how buggy it was.

I enjoy watching (And listening to your videos when I’m working) Have you thought about reviewing Blacklist and Conviction?

To be specific with _Pandora,_ the game isn't being sold anymore due to an issue with the shadow mapping system. The first two games were straight ports from the Xbox, complete with the Nvidia-specific "shadow buffer" tech. While SC1 did have a fallback mode for ATI cards, PT didn't. It only took a fan-made fix to mitigate the issue at least.

I also never got the good ending, because I didn’t know you could stop the boat blowing up either, and I always end up low on NSA support by the second mission

man, your videos are awesome, the way you make them. I guess it really takes time to edit and finish the video. Great job. Splinter cell is my favorite game of all time. It combines action and stealth, is just awesome. Double agent, the awesome version was for ps2 gamecube and xbox.

My very first Splinter Cell game. I remember how I liked the visuals, but I couldn't understand how to play it. It was quiet hard to play after MGS1 and 2. Same thing happened to me with my second game in the series: Blacklist for Wii U. After trying first SC as my third game I understand how to play this series and thought to give Double Agent a second go. Got to second mission and pretty much lost any interest with some glitches in first mission made some bad impressions, but mostly I've enjoyed playing original and Blacklist a lot more and even after beating them I still didn't bother to give it third run. Maybe I will play it someday, but not with all these glitches.

As someone that played and speedrun the SC games, Splinter Cell & Chaos theory are still my all time best. I enjoyed PT & DA but the best thing in all 4 is the soundtrack. Even DA had some good sound track like the Shanghai level.

Double agent is one of the first games i've played on ps 2 which got me into gaming. It was so weird playing the pc port and seeing videos of the ps2 port. Back then i was a very young kid and didn't understand ANYTHING lol. Really weird move that ubisoft did. I don't know why.

I have only ever played the PlayStation 2 version (the port / Version 2 / old-gen) of Splinter Cell: Double Agent and even years later when I got an Xbox One and purchased the game through backwards compatibility, I wasn't aware that there were two versions of the Double Agent game. When I purchased the game and the Iceland mission popped up, I later realised that this was the "original" version (version 1). I immediately didn't like it and couldn't even complete the first mission. I am hard of hearing and so subtitles were always a vital component for me. Having no subtitles is why I couldn't get pass the first mission of Version 1. Version 1 didn't have any subtitles for the cutscenes or radio exchanges for me to be able to follow the story or the mission objectives, nor were they any options to turn them on, (numerous games by that time were aware of making subtitles an option and this game was disappointing in that regard) whereas Version 2 stuck with that format from previous games in making subtitles mandatory which helped my experience immensely (I fully support the options to turn them on or off based on the player's preferences). I later found a way to purchase Version 2 for Xbox (the Xbox version, NOT the Xbox 360 version). The only downside was that the bonus missions ('Mission 1 - Ship' - Fisher's daughter is captured and held in one of the storage rooms and 'Mission 2 - Bunker') were lacking and turned out to only be PS2-exclusives. So for me, Version 2 is the best, and the only version I have completed, namely because I can follow the story due to the dialogue subtitles and I loved trying to keep the balance of trust between the NSA and JBA. As I saw on other RU-vid videos discussing Double Agent, I can also follow the story on Version 2 as to why he becomes a convict on the run leading to Splinter Cell: Conviction. When Fisher kills an NSA agent for killing Erica and cuts out his implant. But as you stated, this is apparently the version that leads to Fisher becoming a convict due to his role in the JBA. Though I am confused as I was made aware that Version 2 was the "original" game that was promoted. I am aware that you talked about the bugs in the PC version but for me, the old-gen version was pretty smooth and I recently completed the whole Splinter Cell series up to Double Agent. I will move onto Conviction and Blacklist with a clean slate (though I have played both games and currently completing other games before I move onto those). As I also read from many other people on here and elsewhere, the version I played is definitely far more superior than the other version. You've cleared up a lot of the confusion though, such as why there are two versions in the first place and the employee changes between the two versions (55:34). This is a great breakdown of the game and I've watched your Blacklist breakdown as well. As I'm aware from your Blacklist video, I wholeheartedly agree that Chaos Theory was the best Splinter Cell game and I was giddy when I got to play with Sam Fisher's cameo appearance in Ghost Recon: Wildlands. With Michael Ironside reprising his voice role.

I love the Xbox/PS2/GameCube version so much more, it feels like Chaos Theory 2.

When I played Double agent when I upgraded to Windows 11 from Windows 10 it just crashed in the middle of the level and when I Kinshasa, it’s sound stopped working

I remember really enjoying the Double Agent multiplayer on Xbox Live. Especially playing as a mercenary.

11:50 you are describing the plot from Goldeneye

How awesome would it be if Ubi released a remastered and functional PC collection of all SC games?

I've been going through all your splinter cell content and I have to say, these are consistently excellent, informative and even cathartic examinations of a beloved series. Thank you for doing such an excellent job putting these together

How timely. Recently I've been playing Double Agent again, and struggled with fixing it, because I love the both versions of this game. PS2/Xbox version was my first entry to Splinter Cell series, back then I had been a MGS-kid though and knew that how good this franchise is. (and the game was not dubbed so that also was a reason for me to start learning English language anyway) And yes, the game on pc is so glitchy and crashy though, you can make it not perfect but a bit more stable maybe. Firstly, steam version of this game isn't patched to the latest for some reasons, you can patch it to 1.02a on your own. and then apply "splinter cell double agent widescreen fix" which enables you to run the game in the resolution as you want, such as 1920x1080 or something like that. these would prevent the game from crashing, but you can do some tweaks more within .ini files. here are some notes. --- open the directory "Splinter Cell Double Agent/SCDA-Offline/System", "SplinterCell4.ini", and need to do some editing. PC version has wrong light-rendering, you find the lines and change the values to: [GENERAL] DisableHDRTonemapping=False LowResTex=False SimpleShader=False SimpleEffect=False [Graphics] bEnableHDR=True bTrilinearFiltering=True bSpecularLighting=True bVerticalSync=True bHighQualityVisualFX=True [Init] PermeatingLightCutOff=False [D3DDrv.D3DRenderDevice] UseHWShadowMapping=True ShadowResolutionDegree=0 ShadowTurnOffDegree=0 something like that. I googled up and fixed this some months ago so can't remember which exactly lines cause a lighting fix though these mostly worked for me. /and as in 52:18, Sounds are missing except Sam's movements, I encountered this one even in another levels and did some tweaks as: [Engine.GameEngine] CacheSizeMegs=256 UseSound=True [Editor.EditorEngine] UseSound=True CacheSizeMegs=256 Changed the lines and values much higher did reduce the numbers of encountering this problem, but most effective solution was just restarting the game. /You can see some tips in www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Tom_Clancy%27s_Splinter_Cell:_Double_Agent too, and as in 55:34, Duplicate door bug, you set "Environment Detail" to "Low" in display options menu will fix this but, I found this may cause another visual lacking glitch in Shanghai level. --- At any rate, this game is so glitchy as hell, I really like this Sam Fisher's adventure. including PS2/Xbox versions. I hope this'll work you too and enjoying the game without irritating glitches and crashing. For God's sake I want more proper fix from developer and Japanese-dub, either. =^_^=

I genuinely enjoyed the game and the replay value, it made you think and mix the game up a little, would be nice to see a new game soon! (Hopefully not a conviction remake!) .. Blacklist was ok it was just too short!

Hi i dont understand is this game available on pc cuz i can't find it and where can i download the full game the pc version???

Any chance you’d review the Xbox version (aka version 2) of Double Agent? It was developed by Ubi Montreal (who made the original and Chaos Theory) and is much more of a sequel to CT than this one. They even streamlined the hacking system!

Very excited to watch this. Fairly few people have done a breakdown on this game, the different versions, the PC port, etc.

I remember when I first played double agent on my dad Xbox original 😢 the good days bro 🤧

One of the missions where you sneak around the JBA compound (the one before the cruiseship iirc) can end abruptly if you go in Enrica's bedroom, she will walk in as you're about to exit her bedroom through the main door and instead of raising the alert, Sam will play it cool and they will hook up which totally surprised me a lot on my playthrough because it's frankly strange to see Sam do some romance shit. Makes the sabotage of the bombing and framing her afterwards even more ice-cold from Sam. There's this weird animation where if you interrogate her in the last mission, you hold her at knifepoint as you're looking into each other's eyes and you will always kill her afterwards even if right click for non lethal although Sam told her to stay put while he deals with Emile (???)

I know people dislike this version but it's my favorite.. something about it always has me coming back.

Nitpick, but you can see through the ice with thermal vision, and even knock on it to get guards to come back to a weak spot of ice if they wander off

This game is full of bugs and it's almost a torture playing it on PC. However thanks for this great review! Which stealth game do you recommend right now?

i love the physical size of the character models in the old ubi games. it felt more realistic to me. When convitcion came out the I felt the scaling of the characters got shorter... even with the ghost recon games.

Been loving your Splinter Cell series, Chris. Cannot WAIT to see your opinions on Conviction.

Damn those first three games were so good

just thought id say that yes playing the game on xbox through backwards compatibility does fix the frame rate issues

how did u get the pc verson to work, (steam) it plays fine but i am having huge issuse with the hacking mini game where the numbers will not show up so i cant comepleat the totoral.

Comment for the RU-vid Engagement gods. I am not really a huge fan of stealth games in general but I loved your critique regardless. I love videos like these that make me feel like I'm being read a story. It's relaxing. I'm ashamed to admit I haven't watched your Witcher 3 video yet, but I might dedicate time to that tomorrow. I think your video came out the same day I finished watching Joseph Anderson's Witcher video, and I needed a break, lol Cheers! And best of luck in your endeavors! I'm looking forward to the next one.

Great review. Though I do disagree with the opinion that Pandora Tomorrow had boring levels.

Does anyone know how to play it on 1920 x 1080 ?

44:56 You plainly missed your shots here. The rifle is just as accurate, but the red dot center is slightly off the side of the head every time.

Good content. Couple of things: I disagree about Pandora Tomorrow. I loved that game’s levels. Going into the jungle in the base camp was so cool. The train was also very unique. I actually liked Double Agent. I agree that it wasn’t as good as the first 3. But I still consider it a Splinter Cell game. It still has stealth as it’s main approach. I liked Sam’s rugged look and the fact that there were now levels in broad daylight was a nice change up. Unfortunately Double Agent diverged from the path Splinter Cell was on and eventually lead to Conviction, which I refuse to play and don’t consider either Conviction nor Blacklist as true Splinter Cell games. Those are basically action games with elements of stealth. The automatic kills in Conviction and Blacklist completely ruins the core recipe that makes a true Splinter Cell game.

Hmm, I disagree about Double Agent on the original XBOX being bad. It's surprisingly good actually, it's basically Chaos Theory 1.5 and since Chaos Theory is the height of Splinter Cell, it's pretty much just as much fun, though the story is somewhat less engaging. It makes sense too, since the XBOX/PS2 version was made by Ubisoft Montreal, who did Chaos Theory. Whereas the PC/XBOX360/PS3 version was made by Ubisoft Shanghai, the guys that did Pandora Tomorrow. I feel like you didn't really do your research on this video, a lot of what you're saying is either incorrect, are assumptions or not at all how it works.

I just finished beating Version 2 on the original Xbox. In retrospect, I like it better than Version 1 that I used to play on the Xbox 360 from December 2007 (sometime after I beaten Chaos Theory for the first time) to Mid-2008.

Im playing through it right now after playing the original trilogy, all i can say its a downgrade in term of gameplay And oh boy that pc port:crashes galore,bugs like items disappearing from the inventory,enemies bursting steam when dying/incapacited,getting stuck in the environment Graphical glitches and missing graphical features compared to the xbox 360 and ps3 version,huge loading time even installed on a modern ssd did not help...but the worst offender is the save system,saves might get corrupted for no reasons requiring you to restart whole missions. Im playing it because the ps3 version is a slideshow(i own a ps3 but no 360)and im already halfway through but damn im suffering feel like im playing a game in alpha

Is it unusual to look at the box-art and not see Robbie Williams' mugshot? Now I feel old because I remember who Robbie Williams is.

Honestly, imo the ending of Version 2 is done better than the original. You are ordered to turn on the team as you're found out. So you go around taking them all out. Enrica will help you out. At the end, another Splinter Cell is there and kills her. Sam goes rogue and rips his own implants out and escapes. Feels like it sets up Conviction a bit better than the original endings

Ubisoft Montreal were not working on Conviction at the time of DA. Version 2 has the same exact credit team in the same exact roles as Chaos Theory.

I actually like the PS2 version quite a bit. Always found it to be fun, thought it was just the nostalgia but when I cracked my ole PS2 out a bit ago it not only took me back but I genuinely enjoyed it. I cant stand the PS3 version on the other hand.

Why does no one ever address the fact that most of this game's missions only last for like 15 minutes? It's mind boggling. Anyway, great video. This is probably the most thorough anaylsis of DA I've ever seen.

Shooting enemies in Double Agent is simply way too easy compared to the original SC games where you had to be really up close and personal to land a successful headshot, otherwise you would miss and all hell break loose. in Double Agent you can simply shoot at the torso from a considerable distance and take down enemies like shooting fish in a barrel.

I mostly agree with you on Version 1. At points it looks fantastic and if you manage to stealth a level to completion it is even more statisfying than Chaos Theory. But it is very buggy, even on the 360 and overall it feels rushed. I don't agree with your assessment on Version 2 though. First of all, showing footage from the GameCube version does this game no justice, it was designed for the original Xbox and that should definetly be the version to show, not only for its huge graphical edge over the other versions, but it is the only version of Version 2 with the levels in their intended size. What I missed was the observation that Version 2 (the perk of using the Chaos Theory game engine) plays much more smoothly and precisely with a much better HUD and better AI. It makes more sense from a story perspective (Sam climbing a rope to the helicopter in Iceland although it is shown clearly landed in the following cutscene makes no sense, aswell as Sams complaining to Lambert is completely nonsensical as the mission wasn't prematurely aborted in Version 1 as was the case in Version 2) The level design in Version 2 is much more open in comparision (Levels like Kinshasa and both ships feel more like maps akin to Chaos Theory) and the game overall is much darker and longer. Double Agent Version 2 is a hidden gem in my opinion and feels like the proper Chaos Theory sequel. I see the first four Splinter Cells on the Xbox as two main games with two companion pieces each. Splinter Cell and Pandora Tomorrow go hand in hand, as do Chaos Theory and Double Agent.

Version 2 is very clearly the canon one.

Small but wanted to mention, there's actually three entry points into the Bank in Chaos Theory. A side exit, the roof and the front door.

Haven't seen the video but I really hope he also talks about the PS2/XBOX version of the game, because it was miles better than the "next gen" ones.

As a colorblind person, this traffic light system for hiding Fisher in Conviction was terrible for me. I couldn't differentiate green vs yellow (just really saw green), so I could never tell if I was safe or not in dim areas.

I think the biggest issue for me had to do with the fact that this game was HORRIBLY optimised for PC to the point where I had to download a patch so that I could actually continue playing the game after one level crashes on you, meaning the entire game is unplayable (its the ship mission). That however didn't fix the game entirely as I still had audio issues towards the end of the game as well for the last bunch of missions too. It basically meant that I could hear no dialgoue whatsoever which to me means the game is unplayable. I really hate that. I at the very least wanted to finish the game but I probably won't.

Hey Chris, always enjoyed your content. Anything new coming any time soon? Cheers

I bought both versions ar the same time and played both on Xbox 360. I began with the 360. For short , i agree with everything you Saïd. Then i moved to the Xbox version and i was blown away by the first mission. It was incredibly long and challenging , with a great introduction to the story. It was linear but more like the lighthouse mission of chaos theory rather than Pandora tomorow. Then the prison break was way too long, too dark and you don't see much people for a riot. The undercover missions felt out of place and stupid. Fisher even interrogate people with a voice changer so subtle that you recognize him immediately. Money train was linear, easy and not very original. Sea of orhosk wich was the worst Mission in version 1 was here very pleasant, and really felt like a chaos theory mission. The last mission in New York is very good . Too much linear , but the level design is Excellent, the Silent ambiance of snow in the night was great . But the story feels empty in version 2 even if the story make more sense. Lambert as an undercover arms dealer is great toi. But the Bad guy. You barely know anyone. The only good added character was the director of the nsa who is cold toward you and don't trust you . Enrica is very strange in version 2 : she seem to not Care about the death of thousands in the boat and yet, she trust you immediately as a double agent. For both games the really disapointing thing is the concept of double agent. They should have done it more important. Like if you have enough trust from the jba they tell you their plan and if you don't , you can't know where a bomb is for example. They could also have done something like the jba asking you to infiltrate a gouvernement place. So you would be an actual ennemy of the us. Those games felt disapointing with lots of great potential

You can kill Jamie? Whenever I tried, he killed me and I restarted at the checkpoint to kill lambert

You messed up everything, first of all fans always called two versions old gen and next gen, same as ubi promo materials referenced them. I don't get where you get this version one and two numbering, that's new. Also fans always considered old gen version as primary one as it actually was, and next gen version was not a port at all but was alternate version that loosely followed main old gen version plot. Judging by everything in next gen version - everything besides graphics was rushed and barely hold together and was stripped down remake of what was done in old gen version. In no means next gen version was main one. Many people don't know that but Double Agent next was earliest game released based on Unreal Engine 3, but there was a catch it was mix of unreal engine 2.5 based lead engine and brand new unreal 3, basically they ported rendering part from UE 3 to UE 2.5 based lead engine from Chaos Theory, and i think this was the main reason of all problems - they wanted to create super next gen graphics port but porting unreal 3 and sorting out all troubles slowed down development and porting team didn't catch up main team that worked with same tech on old gen right from chaos theory, and i suppose somewhere in a middle of this mess some idiot ubi manager decided - screw it, let's them do everything from scratch and gave them little time and Shanghai rushed like hell whatever they can, and Milan did totally stand alone multi player game which didn't even felt like splinter cell and was too futuristic. But despite old gen version was main one, marketing team decided to focus lights on troubled next gen version since next gen consoles was a hot new thing, and we pc gamers received this secondary version only because we always was hungry for a graphics and the decided to give us version with best graphics on consoles that was cheaper than upgrading old gen version to a pc graphics standards like chaos theory compared to consoles, and in the end we got even more rushed version of already rushed version. Funny thing is that psp version of Splinter Cell actually was a tie in of Old gen double agent and sort of its epilogue before game even came out, and it seems like during this point next gen double agent was non existing or was in very early stages of engine preparation and failed attempts of simply port and upgrade old gen version, until someone decided it would be faster to start from scratch. And yeah this video has huge mistake - actually old gen double agents was done by Montreal and they didn't yet started conviction when DA started development, it was started somewhere at final stages of development. Conviction was direct follow up of Double Agent and it couldn't be started until main double agent story was finalised nearly end of development. Also it seems Conviction was heavily inspired by success of Hitman Blood Money... which was in 2006 and made ubi think they can totally change gameplay and make it a Hitman competitor... but this is another story, my point is that dating of Blood Money release should give a clue when concept of Conviction could have been shaped.