For those of you who never played Splinter Cell on the Xbox, you’re in for a treat, as I’m going to do my best to review it from the ground up. That’s right, I’m not taking any liberties here, I’m going to act as if you or I never played it on the Xbox, so you won’t miss out on any info about this lovely game. Now, I’ll stop talking and jump straight into the review.

Picture this: it’s 2004, and the United States Government has decided it needs a new type of secret agency. They need an agency that relies on stealth, sabotage and subversion to get the job done, but doesn’t require a ton of resources. This new agency is formed from former CIA and NSA staff, each with their own special skills. Some are leaders, some are technical wizards and some are just plain killers. You, as Sam Fisher, are one of these solo operatives, but you’ve got just the right mix of stealth, skill and killing ability to be trusted with the "fifth freedom," that is, you can kill whenever you deem necessary. And kill you will, as you slip through multiple levels in an attempt to uncover just why two other agents have recently gone missing in the former Russian republic of Georgia. Armed with your wits, a silenced pistol, and some hi-tech gadgetry, you (as Sam) are dropped into the city of Tbilisi to hunt down the lost agents.

Splinter Cell, much like Konami's Metal Gear Solid 2 before it, is almost completely based on stealth. You’re tasked with sneaking around offices, homes and all sorts of interesting locales trying to collect information on the missing agents and uncover what might just be a global conspiracy. Splinter Cell doesn’t mess around when it comes to stealth; set off an alarm, and it’s game over as you'll have to start the round right from the top. The developers were dead serious when it came to the stealth element in this game. Here’s a great example: you’re hiding in the shadows waiting for the guard to start walking his beat, when you step on some crumpled newspapers. That simple little "crunch" is enough to send him spinning around looking for the intruder. However, it’s not enough to send him running your way, he’ll just peek around. So, if you stay real still, and in the shadows, he’ll grow tired of looking around and go back to his patrol route. Guard AI like this is common in Splinter Cell. While the guards can always be found in the same position, they react differently to each situation. Another example, two guards are shaking down a pedestrian as you’re sneaking down a fire escape. You find an empty vodka bottle and throw it in a nice arc over their heads and away from the pedestrian. It breaks with a satisfying crash, and they run towards it to investigate. All the while, you’re sneaking through the shadows and once they come back to their guard post, you deliver their comeuppance with a solid elbow to their necks.

Since Splinter Cell is so heavily stealth based, you’re somewhat limited in your combat moves, which ensures that you don’t make a racket by running into a room with guns blazing. Early levels start you out with just a silenced pistol and your body as your weapons. Thanks to a well-designed control scheme that fits perfectly to the Dual Shock controller, you’ll easily be able to shoot (though you shouldn’t!) the bad guys, or get them in a headlock (great for interrogations) or deliver a smashing elbow to the face or neck (good for a quick and quiet knockout.)

Speaking of the controls, Ubi Soft did a really good job making the game playable on the PS2’s controller. No button goes unused on the Dual Shock, with some serving multiple purposes. One thing that’s really great about the control system is the use of menus when you have multiple actions to perform. When Sam comes to a door, for example, a menu will appear prompting you to either open the door, or slip your fiber optic camera underneath it. Rather then forcing you to deal with a clumsy inventory system, the game anticipates your needs based on the situation at hand and ensures the appropriate menu options are available. To choose an option, you hold down the X and scroll to your choice. If you want the first choice, you just tap X once. Sam has a huge inventory of high tech gadgets, from wire cameras to thermal goggles, and the menu system makes utilizing the inventory a breeze.

It’s really difficult for me to detail all the gameplay options, since there’s so much to it, suffice it to say that you’ll be doing a lot of sneaking, climbing, rappelling and observing if you expect to get anywhere in Splinter Cell. Just to detail the movement options alone would take far too long; suffice it to say that Sam has a huge variety of options when it comes to climbing, sneaking and rappelling. There’s really no greater feeling of accomplishment than getting Sam to do the split jump, wherein he does a split between two walls at such a height that the guards will walk under him without knowing he’s around.

All the missions fold into one another, serving to tell a story that is well paced and immersive. The levels themselves are something lifted right out of a great spy novel, from requiring you to raid an oil platform at sea to forcing you to run through a burning building to find a defector who holds several clues to the whereabouts of the missing agents.

As a final gameplay note, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the difficulty that is inherent in Splinter Cell. Quite frankly, if you’re a "run ‘n gun" gamer, you’ll probably hate this game, it requires a lot of patience and offers no forgiveness to those who think they can shoot their way through it.

Splinter Cell practically abuses the PS2 with the amount of graphical power Ubi’s squeezed from the console. While the PS2 has a few years under its belt already, that didn’t prevent the developers from pushing the console’s graphics engine harder than anything I’ve seen thus far. Sure, there’s still the jaggies you see in a PlayStation 2 title, you can’t help that limitation of the graphics engine, but in so many other ways this game is simply a visual feast.

"Fabric" effects were one of the major things Ubi showed off when they were first promoting Splinter Cell, and I have to say, in the PS2 version, they look great. Flags ripple as they blow in the wind, tapestries bend to your body shape as you sneak behind them, and curtains will wrinkle and bounce as your move them. While the cloth items don’t have 100% true to life reactions to contact, they still look better than anything thus far released on Sony’s console. I love hiding behind a curtain, only to have it drape around my body, displaying an obvious Sam Fisher shaped lump that any guard worth his salt will notice.

Lighting is the core element of this game, and, just like the fabric effects, it’s done wonderfully on the PS2. Since Sam needs to sneak around in the dark, the developers made sure that lighting effects were properly done. The lighting actually gets weaker the further you are from it, and harsher the closer you are to the source. In-game, there’s a meter which measures how "lit" you are; the closer to a light source your get, the more visible you become, and it’s just the opposite when you step away from a light. If it’s too bright for your liking, you can always fire a round into the light bulb and watch the room slowly go black, and your "illumination" meter will slowly drop until you’re practically invisible. The game makes sure to take no license with the lighting, as a body in shadows is not going to trip off an alarm or attract a guard, while running about in a brightly lit room will surely spell the end of our super-secret agent.

Lastly, there’s the animation, both in-game and in cutscenes. In both instances, it is remarkably fluid with no stutter and no slowing of the framerate. Sam’s motion is near lifelike (or as lifelike as you’ll ever see on the PS2) as he climbs up ladders, sneaks through corridors and rides a zip line through a window. The cutscenes don’t just tell the story, they actually immerse you in it.

If there's a weakness in the graphics, it's the insane amount of clipping seen in Splinter Cell. Quite often, you'll find bodies split in half by walls, and there's many a time you can make Sam himself disappear into a wall or door. This can be annoying when you want to use a body to prop a door open (doors normally close themselves after a few seconds), but find the door will close even if you, or a body, is in its path. Even with the excessive clipping, the graphics in Splinter Cell raise the bar for future PlayStation 2 releases.

If there’s a weak spot in Splinter Cell, it’s probably the sound, which is far from bad, but isn’t all that interesting either. Since this is a stealth game, there’s no soundtrack, but you can’t hold that against the developers. However, the basic sound effects could use a little work at times. Voice acting is good for Sam (voiced by Michael Ironside, famed tough guy of many motion pictures), but too generic for the other characters. The Russian bad-guys, for example, all pretty much sound the same, and have a limited speech repertoire that’s completely scripted. While I don’t expect them to think on their own, it would be nice if the NPC’s in the game would say some different phrases on occasion. Weapon sounds are about the same as those of other games, but not of the realistic quality of SOCOM: US Navy SEALs.

First and foremost, Splinter Cell is a big game, with plenty of levels and a ton of missions to keep you busy for weeks, not just hours. Since there are additional levels not found in other versions of the game, PS2 fans will get even more enjoyment out of it than their non-PS2 brethren.

Along with the sheer size of the game, there’s the fact that you can play it using multiple styles. Just like Metal Gear Solid 2, you can mix and match your gameplay style, shooting your way through some levels while sneaking through others. This means that even after finishing the game, you can start all over, if you’re so inclined, and choose a different style of play. Maybe the first time you had to shoot a few guys to finish levels, well, next time, you could try to stealth the entire game without firing a shot.

So, even after you finish the game, there’s enough depth to it to ensure you can come back and play through it at least 2-3 more times. And you can always jack up the difficulty for a totally brutal experience!

At this point, I’m sure it’s pretty obvious that I can’t recommend Splinter Cell enough. It’s intelligent, well designed and challenging. The storyline is engaging and the graphics, gameplay and sound immerse you in a world of stealth, action and intrigue. Splinter Cell will keep you occupied for weeks with its lush locales and rich storyline, and the selection of gadgets will have you wishing you really were Sam Fisher.