What is the best way to experience the Splinter Cell series?

Bio said:

Just because we aren't as fond of some of the games as you doesn't mean that it's "obvious" we haven't played them. It's entirely possible for people to have different opinions about a game than yours.

The first Splinter Cell was good enough for its time,

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There's one thing not being very fond and calling the other titles in the series ''terrible'' and ''forgettable''.

That's just plain wrong no matter how you put it. The first Splinter Cell was ''good enough'' for it's time? Please it was absolutely outstading at the tiem and so are the other games in the series prior to Conviction.

Just because Chaos Theory it's this series peak that doesn't mean that all of the other 3 fantastic games shoud be skiped. The first one is debatable and has some aging to it but there's no reason to skip Pandora Tomorrow or Double Agent on PS2/Xbox.

They hold up well enough.

Is there a comfortable way to play those games (the first trilogy) on PC with a controller? I always found them awkward with KB/M for some reason.

Atolm said:

Is there a comfortable way to play those games (the first trilogy) on PC with a controller? I always found them awkward with KB/M for some reason.

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The original and Pandora Tomorrow sadly don't have any controller support and you'd have to use some third party tool to get it working.

It works mostly fine with Chaos Theory.

Jerykk said:

For me, the challenge of stealth games is largely self-imposed anyway so the effectiveness of non-stealthy alternatives is pretty irrelevant.

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This is very true. I'm playing through Chaos Theory on PC for the first time right now and I made a pact with myself not to just go around headshotting dudes because that would take the fun out of it. Hitman 2016 I play with HUD and everything turned off for the first few times on a new level, Dishonored I ignore Dark Vision, etc..

Game's good, although I'd say there's some dated and frustrating things about it when it comes to enemy detection or certain things not registering. An example would be when I heard the entirety of a conversation that reveals a guy's real name who I'm after, I'm right by them with the optic cam listening under the door, and yet it didn't count. Or me jumping up trying to grab onto the thing the missile rides on, not working (because I wasn't standing in a good enough spot), and assuming that wasn't the right way to go. Enemy sight lines and hearing can be extremely stingy as well, but it might be because I played on Hard (no clue if it actually affects that). Level design is way more linear than I thought it was going to be, which isn't necessarily bad, but I am starting to feel fatigued after the straight line that was level 8 and wanting to get to the end.

Still like it and otherwise it holds up pretty well, but if this is the pinnacle of the series I don't know if I'll play any of the others.

Frox said:

The original and Pandora Tomorrow sadly don't have any controller support and you'd have to use some third party tool to get it working.

It works mostly fine with Chaos Theory.

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:o! I knew the original doesn't have any kind of support and assumed the same would happen with CT. It has been sitting on my Steam account for years. Installing now.

Atolm said:

:o! I knew the original doesn't have any kind of support and assumed the same would happen with CT. It has been sitting on my Steam account for years. Installing now.

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Be warned, it doesn't support Xinput so you'll get weird stuff like right and left triggers not being mappable, B button being accept by default, etc.. I literally have start mapped to jump/climb and whistle and pause are still on my keyboard.

I will say though it's absolutely worth it for analog control in this game, it sucks having to modulate your sneaking speed on M&KB.

I've heard Double Agent on the original Xbawks is the clostest to Chaos Theory for best in the series and the other versions of it are vastly inferior....actually different games even ??

Chaos Theory and Blacklist, and maybe Conviction too.

anthraxus said:

I've heard Double Agent on the original Xbawks is the clostest to Chaos Theory for best in the series and the other versions of it are vastly inferior....actually different games even ??

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Yes, they're 2 diffrent games.

Double Agent on the Xbox/PS2 was made by the Chaos Theory team in Ubi Montreal while the PC/360/PS3 version was made by Ubisoft Shanghai and is the averege one most people played.

Dobule Agent on Xbox is nothing short but fantastic.

I wouldn't recommend playing the old games, they don't hold up very well these days.

Blacklist is excellent though, and highly recommended. Some of the best stealth gameplay on the market.

With the splinter cell skin in the division.

It's been a long time since I played these and I only ever beat 2 of them but what made Chaos Theory so much better than the rest? I can't remember.

Frox said:

There's one thing not being very fond and calling the other titles in the series ''terrible'' and ''forgettable''.

That's just plain wrong no matter how you put it.

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You are certainly entitled to your opinion. Calling someone else's opinion 'wrong' just because you don't agree with it seems really weird, to me, though.

Window said:

It's been a long time since I played these and I only ever beat 2 of them but what made Chaos Theory so much better than the rest? I can't remember.

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It got rid of a lot of the arbitrary stuff like "you can only trigger X number of alarms per level or the mission is over". Instead, the more chaos you caused, the more the enemy beefed up their defenses. They fixed the AI so that it was no longer instantaneously spotting and alarming others. In Pandora Tomorrow if a guard so much as even laid eyes on you, it was an alarm; didn't matter if you put a bullet in their head half a second later, they were somehow able to process that you were an intruder and immediately, psychically, convey this to other guards without even opening their mouths.

The mechanics were overhauled and became much more refined. The story was better, the co-op was fantastic, and it still has the best level design in the series, IMO. Chaos Theory was when all the great ideas and concepts from the first two games finally came together and everything just clicked. I've tried replaying the original a few times over the years and just can't get into it, but I still run through Chaos Theory every other year or so. It's timeless.

gcwy said:

Weren't most multiplatform games significantly better on the X360 until the very end of last gen?

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OP doesn't have a 360 though. I don't know if all of these games are backwards compatible on the X1.

Blacklist is great. Y'all should try it.

I'd recommend against the PC versions, the lighting systems are unfortunately broken. The original Xbox versions would probably be best, if you can play those either on original hardware or Xbox 360 backwards compatibility.

As for which ones to play: I liked all of them but Conviction and Blacklist have probably aged best. Chaos Theory is the best "old-school" Splinter Cell.

Nintendo said:

OP doesn't have a 360 though. I don't know if all of these games are backwards compatible on the X1.

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Not to brag but I think my message on the first page breaks things down pretty well. Basically, for anyone who wants to play great versions of ALL of these games on non-Xbox platforms then all you need is a PS3 and a PC. You only need a PS3 because PT is not available on modern PC game download services and the controls for SC1 & PT are terrible on PC. Though as someone who recommends skipping SC1 & PT if you do that you can just go all PC. Still, I break things down better in my previous message.

Atolm said:

:o! I knew the original doesn't have any kind of support and assumed the same would happen with CT. It has been sitting on my Steam account for years. Installing now.

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Stoze said:

Be warned, it doesn't support Xinput so you'll get weird stuff like right and left triggers not being mappable, B button being accept by default, etc.. I literally have start mapped to jump/climb and whistle and pause are still on my keyboard.

I will say though it's absolutely worth it for analog control in this game, it sucks having to modulate your sneaking speed on M&KB.

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Is JoyToKey still a thing? If so, I would install that as it'll allow you to map functions to the triggers. You may have to play around with it but you should be able to get it going.

PC (you might need to fiddle with some settings, I had to manually disable all but one CPU cores for the first game to work properly) or failing that, OG Xbox. Hopefully the first four OG Xbox games will be made BC.

John Caboose said:

I'd recommend against the PC versions, the lighting systems are unfortunately broken. The original Xbox versions would probably be best, if you can play those either on original hardware or Xbox 360 backwards compatibility.

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This thread has had me go down a serious SC rabbit hole. It's a shame you have to jump through so many hoops to get Chaos Theory working on a modern PC as that's definitely the way to play that game. Those games being available via backwards compatibility for X1 would be great but I could see stuff like dlc not being included which is an issue.