While Chaos Theory doesn't radically alter the Splinter Cell formula, it nevertheless perfects it. Almost all the nagging issues I had with the original and Pandora Tomorrow have been addressed: specifically, the linearity of the missions, the lack of a mission ranking system, the frustratingly inconsistent gunplay, the underdeveloped close-quarters and hand-to-hand combat, the awkward animations. I also found the plot to be just as difficult to follow as its predecessors, especially in its more minute elements, and there are just so many names and dates and places and alliances and double-agents to keep track of. At times I had trouble recalling exactly who did what and to whom and for whom, but I was never in doubt as to the broader consequences of the mission: you know, kill this guy to stop WWIII, for instance. I would've liked some in-game device for recapping the story, especially for those of us who may have played the game slowly and may have forgotten some of the details in the interim. Now, that's not to say that the plot isn't engaging, indeed far from it: the narrative stakes are immense, as tensions between China, North Korea, South Korea, and Japan come to military conflict following the capture of weaponized algorithms by a radical separatist group. As I noted in my Pandora Tomorrow review, this series does an amazing job of furthering the plot through gameplay and not through cinematics, so that while I may not have retained every piece of data thrown at me in a mission I played two weeks prior, the briefings and in-game chatter between Sam and Lambert et al. made the goal of any specific operation sufficiently clear. Episodically, each mission works on its own quite nicely, something which keeps any of them from becoming pedestrian affairs.
As mentioned above, Chaos Theory addresses many of the bugaboos I had with the two earlier games in the series. First, the missions, while certainly not open-ended by any means, have been opened up considerably. There are often several ways to overcome an obstacle, much less obvious and guided this time around, and seldom do the choices offered seem hierarchical: in other words, this route rarely appears strategically preferable over this other route. Second, Chaos Theory has a mission rating system that evaluates your performance immediately after extraction, based on accuracy, shots fired, number of alarms raised, bodies found, that kind of thing. It's something that adds a wealth of replay value to the game, especially for those perfectionist spies out there dead set on being 100% invisible and nonlethal. It also helps that you can finally pick the equipment you bring into the field via the mission outfitting screen. Third, though shooting has been improved somewhat, there still remains some frustrating moments of inaccuracy. It's maddening to plug an adversary with few choice shots to the chest or legs only to see him sprint to cover unharmed, or to wait patiently for that perfect shot to align itself, from a crouched position with a motionless target, only to watch the bullet innocently bounce off his head. Fourth, hand-to-hand combat has improved tremendously with the addition of a knife. It seems like a simple addition, but it adds a new wrinkle to the way you approach your enemies: should you give him a knife in the gut or K.O. that sucker with a palm thrust to the jaw? Each has strategic implications unfortunately absent from the two earlier games in the series. Finally, the new physics engine gives the animations of Sam and his opponents their proper physical dimensions. Gone (for the most part, anyway) are those instances in which Sam would slide to door handles, for instance, and gone are the bodies that would get stuck between walls, which often resulted in those bodies being spotted on camera. I think Chaos Theory, like every successive entry in the Splinter Cell series, improved upon its predecessors without making them obsolete. Even in light of Double Agent or Conviction, Chaos Theory can stand on its own, and that's the mark of a great series.
