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Graphics Engine

The game is based on the same engines as the previous Splintercell games, the Unreal engine.

It’s been enhanced to support the latest in hardware.

Originally you only found support for Shader model 1.1 and 3.0 and after 4 patches; Ubisoft released Shader Model 2.0 support.

Shader model 1.1 offers nice and simple per pixel shading and covers DirectX 8 capabilities, while Shader model 3.0 reveals support for HDR rendering with or without tone mapping, parallax mapping (virtual displacement mapping) and high quality soft shadows, as used on most high-end NVIDIA Cards.

Shader Model 2.0 specification has been added in the latest patch and this allows especially ATI video cards to run the game at their highest setting available.

Parallax mapping is a form of texture mapping and gives you the illusion of depth and height differences in textures.

Tone mapping ensures that the HDR rendering colors will “fit” on your monitor in terms of colors, as most HDR rendered scenes have more colors then the monitor supports.

Also the shadow mapping can be supported through hardware, which again some of the newer NVIDIA cards support.

This game seems to be favoring NVIDIA hardware to run this game.

CPU

The engine has been designed with multiple thread support and should give a significant advantage to CPU manufacturer with multiple simultaneous hardware thread execution.

This basically translates to Intel processors with hyper-threading, but could also be used for multi-core processors.

It has been optimized to send a high number of primitives to the graphics card to allow further processing.

This allows to processor to focus on other tasks such as AI or gravitational effects.

The Havok engine is also incorporated to support gravitational effects in the game.

It’s been used in many games already such as Half Life 2, Halo 2, and Painkiller etc.

Sound

Almost all unreal based games have support for Dolby or EAX and this game is no exception.

The game will detect which support you have and enable it where possible.

In the options menu there aren’t much choices, except from changing the volume.

EAX 2 and EAX 3 filters are used for dynamic sound propagation and occlusion along with the reverbs.

The sound engine has been designed with the Audigy/Audigy 2 in mind for the high end sound quality, but of course other cards will work with reduced sound quality.

I didn’t see any option to enable or disable EAX or Dolby manually.

Benchmarking

Splintercell has support to benchmark using the engine.

It has the ability to enable or disable several features at the command line or in the game itself.

You have control over the shadow map resolutions, anti-aliasing, screen resolution, reflections, anisotropic filtering, shader model selection and the shader model features themselves (HDR, tonemapping etc.).

Due the high amount of pixel rate usage per frame, it is possible that high end video cards won’t reach stellar performance in the highest of resolution, yet.

Combine that with very intense CPU usage per frame due to usage of shaders and changing vertex and pixel shaders/constants in the driver, makes it an ideal candidate for (future) benchmarks.

Multiplayer

There are two modes, the Coop and versus mode.

Versus mode does compare very much to Counterstrike, with spies on one side and the mercenaries on the other, you can play against each other.

Coop mode or cooperation mode is where you play a mission with as a team of 2 people.

• To aggressively collect intelligence vital to U.S. security.
• To protect critical U.S. information systems.
• To keep all operations invisible to the public eye.
• To work outside the boundaries of international treaties, but know that the U.S. will neither acknowledge nor support their operations.

Each mission has those directives in mind and that increases the difficulty of the missions.

I don’t want to spoil much of the fun, but an example of these directives is the 2^nd mission; where you have to gain information from a bank, disguising the break-in as a bank robbery.

The game starts off with the level some of us played in the demo; it allows us to warm up on familiar grounds. J

The controls are the same as previous Splintercell games, keyboard and mouse, so those of you who have played the game before know how to use the controls.

When you start the mission, you’ll get debriefed Irving Lambert, Operations Coordinator, Anna Grímsdóttir, Communications Lead and William Redding, Field Runner for mission info, after which you can outfit the equipment of Sam.

These people will also coach in the game itself, giving you hints, tips or extra objectives.

Some times an extra consultant or expert is added to supply information on specific subjects.

There’s always one recommended equipment choice and usually one choice for stealth and a choice for assault and it lets you put together your own set.

This allows you to customize the equipment you think you need, however you see fit.

Once again you can choose by yourself which approach will get you the mission goals that are set.

Either use stealth or brute force to get passed your enemies; though brute force will not be easy on you as

you do not have many bullets or weapons to your disposal.

You have to be strategic and plan your way through enemy camps and that basically comes down to stealth.

Along the way you might receive extra (optional) goals that you can complete during the mission.

At the end of each mission you’ll see a full rapport on how you did, including a set of statistics on the mission.

For those of you lucky to have shader model 3 and recently added shader model 2 support the game looks superb.

There’s not a lot of visual difference in the two shader models, unless you are a real nitpicker.

The environment looks amazing, with high textures and a lot of shadows.

Sometimes it’s almost too bad you have to use the infra red or thermal goggles to spot your enemies.

But it does help to set the atmosphere and give you that chill as you hide in the dark, waiting for just that one guard to turn away.

Looking at the inventory menu, it’s been tweaked and a lot sleeker then previous releases.

It’s straight and to the point.

More prominently used is the knife now, as you can cut open a side of a tent to gain entry.

Also grabbing an enemy, to interrogate or knock out, will show the blade across the neck of the enemy.

If you find yourself in a pinch facing a guard, Sam has even got a move to swiftly yet silently stab the guard to take him out.

The mobile generators that supply power to the lights; can now be sabotaged with the knife, letting the fuel leak away through a punctured tank.

Of course you can also switch off the generator or shoot it with your gun; the choice is up to you, it all depends on how quiet or unseen you want to remain.

This brings to light the scope on your head; it has extra modes, next to night, heat and EMP vision mode, the sniper mode and the EHF mode.

The sniper mode will allow you to zoom in on enemies and take them out if necessary, if that doesn’t cause too much problems of course.

The EHF mode is useful to hack computers, keypads or other electronic devices from a distance.

Hacking is new feature in this game and I didn’t see it in the demo, but I was pleased to find it non-the-less.

You can now hack computers, keypads and iris scanning device to gain access to certain areas.

Like I mentioned before, there are several ways to complete a mission, but also to gain access to the different areas.

Sometimes you can sneak up on a guard and interrogate them to find out key codes and such, but sometimes that’s not possible and you need hack your way in. 

The hacking of the devices is much like a mini-game of sorts, giving you a small amount of time to find the right code.

It’s like picking a lock only this time with a time limit on it.

There have been more improvements on the game such as Sam’s movement when doing his job.

Sam can now do more athletic moves and find more ways to kill someone in a stealthy way.

During the game if you ever get lost you can fall back on the training videos.

These videos show examples of the moves, tactics and devices Sam can do or use.

Along with showing how it looks, the keyboard is shown below the video to show you the key sequence pressed to achieve that effect.

Some new features with regards to detection have also been included, there is now the possibility of motion sensors and infra-red cams in the game; both trigger the alarm and sometimes the lights too when detected.

Some guards are now equipped with flashlights and road flares, enabling them to see better in the dark.

It still has the same charm as the first part in these series, while still finding new features and new moves to expand the game and keep it exciting.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer is also new for SplinterCell games and it’s a good addition.