Leagues better than the original Splinter Cell in every way. Stealth is reliable and consistent, AI is smart but not superhuman and other than some brief no-killing restrictions in maybe two out of the ten levels, there's no more of those obnoxious mission failure parameters like don't set off more than three alarms.
Unlike the first game where it was a bit too linear for any expression, there's multiple ways to tackle your objectives in Chaos Theory. Even the simple act of unlocking a secure door has multiple solutions. You can either hack the keypad, find the code by interrogating a guard, or find the code on an open desktop if you prefer to ghost the level instead.
Even areas where the game wants you to engage in combat, there's always a way to sneak by guards undetected rather than being boxed in and forced into a shootout like the original game.
On top of this, it helps a lot that 8/10 of the levels are brilliantly designed and all of them look beautiful for a game that came out in 2005. The dark and stormy Lighthouse and classic break-in styled Bank levels were standouts.
The only bad thing I can say is that the Seoul and Bathhouse levels were pretty crappy. The bathhouse level especially as it introduces enemies with heat vision goggles so they can perfectly see you in the dark which makes stealth against them in that tense bomb defusal sequence basically pointless. It amazes me I was even able to get a mission rating of 90% on the Bathhouse level on Hard difficulty. But I’m able to look past them because the rest of the game is so good
Overall, Chaos Theory is a massive improvement over the original Splinter Cell and is a must-play for any fan of the stealth genre.
Unlike the first game where it was a bit too linear for any expression, there's multiple ways to tackle your objectives in Chaos Theory. Even the simple act of unlocking a secure door has multiple solutions. You can either hack the keypad, find the code by interrogating a guard, or find the code on an open desktop if you prefer to ghost the level instead.
Even areas where the game wants you to engage in combat, there's always a way to sneak by guards undetected rather than being boxed in and forced into a shootout like the original game.
On top of this, it helps a lot that 8/10 of the levels are brilliantly designed and all of them look beautiful for a game that came out in 2005. The dark and stormy Lighthouse and classic break-in styled Bank levels were standouts.
The only bad thing I can say is that the Seoul and Bathhouse levels were pretty crappy. The bathhouse level especially as it introduces enemies with heat vision goggles so they can perfectly see you in the dark which makes stealth against them in that tense bomb defusal sequence basically pointless. It amazes me I was even able to get a mission rating of 90% on the Bathhouse level on Hard difficulty. But I’m able to look past them because the rest of the game is so good
Overall, Chaos Theory is a massive improvement over the original Splinter Cell and is a must-play for any fan of the stealth genre.