Splinter Cell: Double Agent -- Broken Cat and Mouse.

I finally got around to playing some of the multiplayer aspect of Splinter Cell: Double Agent. It's the same old situation for this series. Great potential and promise not met. In theory the multiplayer aspects of Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory were great concepts, yet somehow the finished product didn't work out that well for me. Pandora Tomorrow's multiplayer of Spies Vs. Mercs had too great a learning curve. By the time you were comfortable with the mechanics you were already frustrated with it. So forget about learning the nuances of the game. It didn't help that the level design was too ambitious and detailed or that the controls were spotty at best as far as grabbing a mercenary as a spy was concerned. The Spies Vs. Mercs game was carried over into Chaos Theory and so were all its problems. Chaos Theory did introduce the cooperative game. The co-op mode allowed you to play through four levels just as if they were in the offline game only with another living player. They were absolutely brilliant and the best thing to hit online gaming in ages. They've been left out of the X360 version of Double Agent entirely. And that's a crime in my opinion. What's left is essentially a stripped down version of the Spies Vs. Mercs game that was in the previous titles. They've altered it so that the spies can only take one gadget of a possible four with them at a time. They've removed all of the mercenary devices like the laser trip wires and wall mines which allows the spies to not have to worry about that aspect. It essentially removes most of the concern about stealth. It's more of a run and gun type of game designed to bring in the casual player. The same old concerns are still there. There is spotty detection when trying to grab a mercenary from behind. The maps are still too ambitious and overly confusing and the map system isn't very effective. It just adds to the confusion. They added a new kind of co-op game that just is the Spies Vs. Mercs game with three players as spies versus computer controlled bots as mercenaries. There is even a competitive mode to the co-op game. The biggest problem in the new co-op mode is the AI of the bots. They're way too smart to the point of being psychic. They just seem to instantly know where you are no matter how stealthy you've been. Overall the game is fun but as always there is the feeling that it could have been, and should have been so much more than it is.