Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent (GCN) (gamespy)

- gamespy -

Having played the 360, Xbox and PS2 versions of Double Agent, I marveled at how the Xbox version bested its next-gen sibling with better multiplayer and a competitive single-player adventure. Tagging along behind them all like the unpopular kid who picks his nose and eats the boogers comes the misfit GameCube version, shaming the series as its black sheep.

This Splinter Cell iteration is essentially the same game that's offered for PS2 and Xbox. Sam Fisher needs to go over to the dark side in this, his most dangerous mission. That means trying to gain the trust of the JBA (John Brown's Army), while still letting the NSA know that he's one of the good guys. It's a nice little twist on the series -- which has been in desperate need of an image makeover for some time now.

On GameCube, however, things fall apart pretty quickly. Before you can even start up the game, be prepared to clear off 78 blocks from your memory card. That's one massive chunk of storage for a simple action/adventure title; and to add insult to injury, every time you save you'll be waiting upwards of 30 seconds. That includes when you tweak the brightness settings or audio levels. At least the actual loading on the game is reasonable.

Usually, savvy developers can get around the one-less-shoulder-button conundrum of the GameCube. It's all in the mapping, baby! In Double Agent, it seems the designers threw away the map, and even failed to ask for directions. Example: To zoom with your weapon -- something I do every time I shoot -- you're supposed to hold the Z button and hit down on the C-stick. Even better example: I literally never got it to work in this version. It's nice that you can view tutorial or informational videos mid-gameplay by hitting A, but the game forgets that you actually need to hit A sometimes to do things like choke a guy to death, and decides to play said video instead!

Single-player is only half of a Splinter Cell game, right? Well, even though you need to switch discs to access multiplayer on GameCube, it's definitely a shell of other versions. There is no online play, which means no versus mode. I know GameCube-only owners are used to that by now (unless they're still playing Phantasy Star Online), but the rest of us find it a little annoying.

Co-op mode is still a pretty good time here, and will take you and a friend a long time to play through. But again, control issues hamper the experience. To do some of the cooperative moves, you have to crouch, then hold Z and hit left on the D-pad. No wonder Nintendo embraced a revolutionary control configuration with the Wii -- it was sick of this crap, too! I found the long jump difficult to aim and the new persuasion move useless, but the back-to-back climbing is pretty darn cool.

Next come the graphics. Splinter Cell games rely on darkness for the gameplay to work, and the visuals need to convey that. On GameCube, they don't. The entire game looks washed out, and it's nigh impossible to figure out if you're under a cover of darkness or not. I like the different goggle variations, though, and EEV (electronically enhanced vision) really helps you pick out cameras and laser sensors.

I've been bagging on Double Agent for GameCube so much that you'd think I worked at Safeway. Honestly, it's an okay game at heart, but it's hard to see that if you've even caught a glimpse of the other versions. It's obvious that Ubisoft slapped this together like a lazy 5th grader's science fair project. Think of it like this: Blues Brothers is one of my favorite movies; imagine if they removed one of the brothers, made the songs crappier, and phoned in everything else. You'd end up with Blues Brothers 2000, and nobody wants that.