Splinter Cell: Double Agent Comments by Kristan Reed

Aaargh ! Still no PC version ! due on Nov 2nd !??? Hope it will feature less bugs and better framerates !

Maybe Ubisoft will try it one of these days then.

hey, here is an idea: If you can make a better game, why don't you do so? Must be really good games if they mop the floor with 90%+ games...

Oh wait, that's just you trolling again...

Ok .. After this review I got the game yesterday and have played a few online games and 2 first missions and I am impressed. Spot on review IMHO. A very nice 9.

I can't wait to get this game myself but will have to wait untill later on because it's not long before Gears of War will be out. I can't buy alot of games within one month at current prices. This game and RB6:Vegas along with many others coming is going to put a hurting on my wallet. :(

Damn Christmas. I played PGR3 for ages, and everything was fine. No need to spend money, enough time for PGR3. Then came Lego Starwars II, Dead Rising and Test Drive Unlimited on the very same day. My wallet was crying - luckily I was on a three week vacation starting with this huge release day and thus had enough time to play them all, but not as much as I wanted to. Then Doom on Arcade got me, and now a surprisingly good multiplayer demo plus this review convince me of buying this.

I bet tomorrow's RB6 demo forces me to buy it too. I am just happy that I am not really interested in Gears of War. But maybe it will be the same with GoW as it was with Splinter Cell and RB6 and I just have to have it. Which is bad because I am very interested in Viva Piñata too. Not to forget the Wii launch.

Argh, I need more time.

Need more money.


/gold please

>" EA, take note: It IS possible to make good non generic, non chav games and still make a profit."

of course EA are taking notes. But the only notes they have is that ubi is making money (they can't see how), and that's why they wann buy them out.

No save issues for me either. Max 10 secs to save and 5 secs to load. Just as well, as my quest to remain undetected occasionally means I want to re-load... besides the end of a certain level took a few tries.

Again, no screen tearing whatsoever either.

I've just started playing Oblivion! No bloody time for this! Then GoW is coming along! Damn you! ;-)

Well, I bought it in HMV yesterday (for £39.95 - is this going to be their new price point for next-gen games?) and spent the rest of the afternoon/evening completing the last few levels of SC:CT on PC which I hadn't entirely finished! Got enough time to play training level 1 before work... I've just got in and I want to go hooooome! :(

I see plenty of tearing in HD, dont really see how anyone can not notice it tbh??

never really bothered me that much though, still a v good game.

I absolutely love this game, but there's shit loads of tearing, and the framerate isn't great either. I'm on a 720p HDTV too.

Tried with the save-load problem again last night and timed it at this:

-85 seconds to access the save menu
-Same to access the load menu
-About 70 seconds to physically load a saved game unless it's "load last save/checkpoint" - in which case it's 5-7 seconds.

I even moved a save game to a memory card in case it was the hard disk, and had the exact same issues. This 360 is brand new, and it was exactly the same with an older 360.

Regarding v-sync tearing - there's a minor amount in this (nothing like Saints Row) but nothing that really had me worried. I'd say it's somewhat TV dependent, with some people screaming about it, others hardly noticing it.

has anyone else noticed the game crashing when attempting to hack a machine. its happened to me on several occasion, particulary when trying to open the safe on the tanker.

I'm playing on a 19 inch widescreen monitor. Screen Tearing agogo :(

The game is good though.

I always thought that if a game has any vertical synchronisation issues then it'll exhibit signs of tearing regardless of whether you play it on an LCD or Plasma HDTV but will be less noticeable on a standard definition TV as screen resolution affects it. It's an issue caused by the game overloading the frame buffer with more frames than it can display and nothing to do with the TV itself. When did you ever see Eastenders or Lost tear? /wink

I think the fact that not everyone complains about it is purely down to the fact that not everyone notices it or knows what it is plus it's dependent on far you sit away from the screen.

@ Krudster - load times sound the same as mine, only thing that is fast is load last save, anything else takes well over a minute.

Thank god, someone finally has the same issue. Anyone else? Surely I can't be the only one.

I've noticed it getting worse as I've gone on. Load last save and last checkpoint is always quick, so it doesn't bother me too much (although like you say you occasionally wish to load a less recent save).

After recalling a similiar experience with Oblivion, where load and save times began to really ramp up once I had an absolute pile of saves, I'm wondering if it's somehow related to the number of saves you have and this semi-mythical HD defrag issue people keep talking about.

Loading a level takes an age. Loading a save takes around 30 seconds and a checkpoint load is virtually instant.

Havent noticed many screen tear issues myself but I think I did spot it happen once but it hasnt affected my experience of the game.

For reference, I ended up with about 78 save games. Maybe the answer is to keep the number of saves to a minimum, overwriting as you go.

Just my 2 pence worth. Vsync tearing, ok im only on the first jba mission as we speak, but i have seen none so far, and before anyone says other wise i know what it is, saints row is bad with it, but as someone else said earlier maybe its down to how different HDTV,S update the screen(like gaming lag maybe)? Load times on mine pretty good, KRUDSTER has a problem, maybe its the actual game disc not the 360, i only have about 6 gig left on my drive and have had close to 50 games through mine aswel (including live arcade).

What actually constitutes a game save, is it saving from ram or a paticular part on the game disc?

Yeh. I posted earlier to say my save time was 29 secs. Now I'm further into the game and have more saves it's definitely taking longer.

maybe I'll try with fewer saves later and see how it compares, though TBH I dont remember it being that fast when I started the game....

No question it's to do with the game saves, I saved about 15 in total. As I went on the time to list the saves grew, tho, never more than about 5 seconds or so to list them. 78 saves would definatly cause some problems in my experience.

Oh, and, what a graphics engine, amazing that it's still looking so good. The final level in particular has some amazing lighting and scenery. Did everyone here get the 'best ending?' What a nice looking level!!

What I love about the game is that you can really see the roots of where Ubisoft are going with Assassins Creed - all the context sensitive movements, where Sam seems to react to obstacles in the environment in a very contextually appropriate manner.

It's clear that Assasins Creed takes this to the next level, where even more of the environment is 'contextualised' (is that a word?) properly. I think it's great, but it must be absolutely horrendous to level-design. Must place a great burden on level designers and particularly animators.

Unless its being done via a clever procedural system, but I suspect not.

How does the orignial Xbox version compare? Unlike MS and a lot of the gaming media seem to think not everyone has bought in to the next gen yet. Ubisoft seem to have remembered though.

PS3lol, you are on Global Ignore and nobody can read your posts. You're wasting your time.

Yep, I just deleted all but 3 of my saves (from the dashboard rather than in-game) and now loading/saving is pretty much instantaneous.

78 save games?

Almost every game I've played on any platform has load and save time issues with large numbers of saves. Yet you made it sound like it was a problem unique to the game.

Now I know why people hurl abuse at reviewers.

I guess someone is Depeche Mode fan here :)
Maybe NIN titled review nextime, anyone?

I guess someone is Depeche Mode fan here :)
Maybe NIN titled review nextime, anyone?
Then what? Modern Talking?