Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

The good: its fun to sneak around
The bad: much too short and easy
The Splinter Cell series has always played second-fiddle to the Metal Gear Solid series. Blame it on the franchise's refusal to grow up, its incomprehensible narratives, and its trial-and-error playstyle. Chaos tries to correct this mistakes but ends up just making more of the same.

For one thing though the plot actually makes sense now. No more fancy twists and turns with hard-to-remember names, this time Sam Fisher gets involved in a massive conspiracy involving the U.S., China, the two Koreas, and Japan. The story is engaging and told through much-improved (but still unremarkable) FMVs. The in-game dialogue serves as a much better medium for advancing the story with occasionally humurous banter and good voice acting.

Gameplay-wise, Chaos is basically the same as its predecessors with just a few tiny improvements to speak of. You can now choose to either kill or incapacitate foes when you've gotten hold of them, and new moves like dangling from a pipe and breaking an enemy's neck have been added. But, like previous games in the series, you'll rarely find use for these moves since sneaking up on enemies or even just plain running to them and delivering a punch to their faces is so much easier to do. Speaking of easy, this game is surprisinglly just that, breaking the challenging mold set by its previous installments.

Chaos is still a very playable game especially if you're a fan of stealth-action games in general. However, the too-short and too-easy quest and the game's stubborn refusal to undergo surgery might leave a bitter aftertaste. (4/5)