Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory HD Review

Written by Cole Burton Thursday, 13 October 2011 05:00

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is believed to be the greatest title in its series by many gamers.  Thanks to the recent HD trilogy on PS3, we can re-experience this great title and its two predecessors all over again.  But, is the beauty worth the price?  Let’s see how good Sam’s looking in glorious high definition.

First of all, it is important to mention the darkness of the game.  You will be lurking in shadows and sneaking around at night most of the time.  And when you’re not, you will be doing your best to disable the lights that are in your way and stay as far away from light as possible.  Chaos Theory is a stealth game, and you have to approach it as such.  Yet, even with all of this pitch black, you will see amazing visuals.  Sam looks great, the environment looks very well polished, and when comparing to the SD console version, you will be blown away.

This is a relief coming off of the recent Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil: Code Veronica X HD releases.  These games were simply upscaled from their GameCube releases.  I have no doubt that the same cannot be said for Chaos Theory in HD.  It is far more than a console upscaling, and it shows.

Moving on to the negative side of this new version of Chaos Theory: the multiplayer and co-op components are both gone.  This was a make it or break it deal for many gamers, but not myself.  I loved the multiplayer of Chaos Theory, but the magic of Splinter Cell lies with the single player for me.  Also, if you really want to play some Splinter Cell multiplayer, you can hop on Double Agent or Conviction.  Of course, I hate to call Conviction a Splinter Cell game.

One other thing worth mentioning is the controls can’t be inverted.  For the majority of players who don’t mess with these settings, no problem.  For the rest of you who play your games upside down, this is bad news.  You should definitely wait for a patch or skip this purchase all together.

While $40 may seem high for a collection of games that can be purchased for mere dollars nowadays, Chaos Theory alone makes the purchase reasonable.  Throw in the two previous entries and your gold.  Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory HD holds up just as well in 2011 as the original did in 2006.