Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory was one of the biggest surprises at last E3 because the game was in such a far state of development already after the last episode.
Meanwhile it got postponed already but by the end of March it's supposed to hit store shelves. We got the chance to play five levels during a hands-on with the XBox version, assisted by one of the Ubisoft developers.

A first, unsurprising finding is that the gameplay still consists out of sneakily sniping around, radio-conversations between our hero Sam Fisher, Lambert and his sexy assistent and of course lots of light and shadowplay added with taking down terrorist opponents. Also the third person view is still present, just like the infrared- and light enhancement viewers. New, and very cool, is the viewer that lets you highlight all elements using electricity. Very interesting to know what you can turn off to manipulate the surrounding and create the ideal setting for your next move.

This time you'll also get a gun with which you can take down electrical equipment (lamps most of the time) without making any noise. Up until now you would need to use a bullet for that and make a certain degree of noise. With this new option you can stay quiet as a mouse! This will be necessary too as next to a light meter you'll also have a similar indicator that tells you how much sound there is in your surroundings. An example: if you want to sneak up on someone without him hearing the squeaking of the floor under your feet you'll have to wait for a passing truck that makes enough noise to mask your movement. Very exciting!

Since we're talking about gadgets: the commando knife is without a doubt the most renewing addition to this new Splinter Cell. In a certain map filled with tents I could see with my heatviewer that a guard had turned his back on me in a camouflage tent. The next steps were nice: you cut an opening in the tent with your knife and a couple of seconds later the guard is being strangled by you. That's another point where the makers did their best: when taking someone down you can choose to make a bloody kill with the left trigger (type knife being stabbed in the neck or slicing the throat) or make them unconscious with the right trigger.

Also the interaction with the surroundings seems to have increased thanks to the knife amongst others; you can disable a generator by making a hole in the gas tank and letting it empty. Objects also offer more possibilities for use; a simple door can quickly become a deadly object. First see with your camera what's behind it, then you whistle to lure an unsuspecting guard and then you quickly do "bash door" which will knock the opponent out without him knowing what happened.

Next to that also the movements of Fisher have gone through some changes (Sam will for instance take another appearance depending how close he is to an enemy) and a lot more variation was added to his moves. We got to see a beautiful animated move where our favorite spy threw someone from a lighthouse by dragging the opponent with him and at the last second grabbing the stones to hold on. The controls of all this is still very simple by the way.

Together with this added variation and the accompanying high factor of toughness compared to the previous games, it came to me that the developers want to make the series more accessible to the general public. The freedom to solve problems has greatly increased: you can take different routes around a problem, there's always different solutions and when you do something wrong (let a witness die f.i.) you'll have Lambert giving you a backup solution.
These things lead to the fact that the three alarm stages we know from Pandora Tomorrow have gone, something which our developer told could lead to frustration.
Also much more simple: bodies don't always have to be dragged into the shadows anymore.

I'll leave the storyline as it is, it sounded quite interesting, and also on the technical side things looked very much ok. The shadow and light effects are as usual plenty available and now also bumpmapping and all other graphical highlights are supported. In fact, the graphics reminded me of Chronicles of Riddick, especially due to the excellent reflections, the very realistic textures and the many rain effects. You can see the raindrops on Sam's suit, caves really look wet and both sea and streams look fantastic.

I can also tell you that water will be extremely important throughout the game, not in the least for the storyline. It's also fun to see that you can take down two guards by shooting a shock-round in the water with your loyal SC20-K. The resulting electrical shock, given through by the water, delivers an efficient disabling of both opponents.

On the technical side also the ragdoll-physics deserve a mentioning because they look very authentic and completely not overdone. At a certain moment we robbed another villain from his worthless life and after letting go of him, he nicely staid hanging over a ridge.

A last point I would like to say is the improved A.I. of the opponents who are without a doubt less suicidal and will not hesitate to run away when in great danger, who will take a lamp to be able to track you better and who patrol a lot more realistic and varied. This should deliver a more authentic experience.

All in all I have to say that I was very much impressed by the game and that I definitely want to try out the final version. Here and there the AI still showed some strange behavious but that can be because of the version we got to play. Some levels also looked quite familiar but that will probably not spoil the fun.
I do hope that the developers won't make the game too easy because they were clearly looking for ways to make it as accessible as possible. We'll have to trust that they find a good combination between attraction for the average gamer and gameplay for the hardcore stealth-action lover. I certainly looks like they're heading in the right direction!