The spies-vs.-mercenaries (or adversarial) multiplayer mode inTom Clancy's Splinter Cell®: Pandora Tomorrow™ was flat out sensational. It did what no one thought possible by bringing a third-person stealth franchise online. It also broke new ground by combining two completely separate types of gameplay, as one team played from a first-person shooter perspective while the other played from the traditional Splinter Cell third-person viewpoint. One team was tasked with infiltration and the other with defense. It was cat-and-mouse gaming at its finest, and is still one of the more popular games on Xbox Live™.
Two on one—that's just not fair.
It was with great expectation then that I viewed the new multiplayer offering for Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell®: Chaos Theory™. But let me clarify that we're discussing the adversarial spies-vs.-mercs mode, not the newly introduced cooperative mode, which is a separate multiplayer offering in its own right.
A Fuller Explanation For those of you who passed up Pandora Tomorrow, here's a quick explanation of how the adversarial game mode works. One team plays as spies and the other team plays as mercenaries. Each team is comprised of two members, so every game (excluding fan-made alternative game types) should feature four players, with two on a side.
The spies are virtually non-lethal: their guns are a "sticky shocker" type that momentarily stuns opponents, and their smoke grenades and gas-releasing spy cameras can knock out but not kill an opponent. The rest of their gadgets are designed to helping them stealth through the levels undetected. They have access to chaff grenades, flash bangs, a heartbeat sensor (point it in a direction to pick up the heartbeat of a nearby mercenary), spy bullets (tag a merc with one of these and you can spot him on radar as he walks around the map), a camouflage stealth suit, and a few other goodies to boot. The only way to truly eliminate a merc is to grab him from behind and snap his neck. In short, the spy's job is to achieve his goals by stealth as he attempt to neutralize, sabotage, or extract his objectives.
What? He slipped.
The mercenaries have a more straightforward job. They need to guard the objectives on each map and make sure the spies don't get anywhere near them. And mercs are armed to the teeth to make sure they get the job done. They can choose from an assault rifle, a sub-machine gun, or a shotgun, along with a plethora of other equipment (e.g., mines, Taser, Camera Network, grenades, etc.) in order to ensure the completion of their objective.
What's New? Aside from the game types and gadgets, there are still plenty of notable additions and changes that Chaos Theory brings to the table. For example:
Enviro-Destruction:Pandora Tomorrowsported a few windows you could shoot through to get at a spy, butChaos Theory takes things to a whole new level. You bust through walls as a mercenary, explode gratings (which inadvertently open up new paths for the spies), shoot through fish tanks, and even change the environment as a spy by completing objectives. One level may lead you to break through a concrete wall with a tractor, while sabotaging an objective on another map will fill a whole room with smoke and virtually eliminate it as a shortcut for mercenaries.
Merc Payback: Nothing is more humiliating than getting grabbed from behind by a spy, and having to listen to him talk trash in your ear. Luckily, it's payback time for mercs. Now, when you knock a spy down, you can run over, lean down on top of him, and suffocate him with your weapon. It's a brutal move, to be sure, but it more than makes up for all the trash-talking neck-snapping in Pandora Tomorrow.
Payback time.
Old Favorites: While listing all the maps inChaos Theory won't mean much to anyone, naming the maps carried over from Pandora Tomorrow certainly will. Returning in fine style (with revamped objectives and visuals) are the Warehouse, Museum, Federal Bank, River Mall, Deftech Belew, and Museum.
Better Teamwork: Part of what makes the adversarial mode so enticing is that teamwork wins games. Two great players individually will get soundly wiped by two moderate players that work well as a team. Chaos Theory helps promote that mindset with a couple of key additions. The Camera Network allows a mercenary to cycle through all the working cameras in a level. While this is fine and dandy on its own, with proper teamwork, it can be deadly. In addition, spies can now perform many of the same cooperative maneuvers introduced in the new co-op campaign. Working in tandem to get to hard-to-reach places fosters a whole different element of teamwork.
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory did not sit idly by, content with the adversarial mode in Pandora Tomorrow. It has been expanded tenfold with new gadgets, new maps, new weapons, new moves, and whole new game modes. Veterans of spies vs. mercs should rejoice, while newcomers now have the perfect excuse to give it a try.
