With his back to a corrugated shipping container, Sam Fisher touches the blood groove on his high-carbon steel combat knife as he contemplates his next move. His OPSAT calmly informs him that there are five bright yellow blobs in his immediate vicinity: at ground level Fisher knows that these innocuous dots are heavily armed and highly-trained Arab terrorists. Two are roaming in circuits several metres behind the mesh of a high-voltage electric fence – a liability, for sure, but not his most pressing concern. That would be the two patrolling his compound with flashlights, but despite being besieged in the centre of terrorist missile silo encampment, Fisher feels relatively safe in shadow cast by the container. For now.

There’s one other guard, his back perilously turned toward Fisher, a little more than two feet around the corner of the container. He’s stationary for the time being, but his position perpendicular to a well-lit power supply for the electric fence means any tampering with the cable on Fisher’s part would undoubtedly alert him. The guard also stands in the shadow, and the dark cavity inside the container would make an ideal hiding place for his corpse. It would mean a particularly difficult flanking manoeuvre for a stealth kill, but Fisher has chosen his target. Timing his approach so that the yellow blobs are at the furthest point possible when his target is neutralised, Fisher flattens his back to the container, sucking in air through his mouth to minimise the sound of his breathing and clutching the black latex grip of his knife as he tentatively closes the last few inches to strike.

The guard unexpectedly turns toward Fisher. He’s just shifting position and still isn’t aware of his presence, but now Sam’s in danger of alerting the whole camp, putting his life, the mission and, ultimately, the fate of millions of people into jeopardy. He remains stock-still for several excruciating seconds while the guard casually scratches his face beneath his balaclava, before mercifully turning the opposite way. Fisher doesn’t waste a second: closing the tiny gap between them, his left arm slips around the guard’s, pinning it to his side while expertly twisting his right wrist into an agonising grip. Simultaneously, Fisher’s right hand has brought his combat knife to the guard’s throat and a well-placed nudge in the small of his back has set the guard’s centre of gravity inches behind him. He’s perfectly poised to strike but before Fisher can deliver the lethal blow, a searching flashlight picks him out of the shadow.

He swiftly finishes the job, but the dead guard’s chance decision has sealed Fisher’s fate. The whole camp has now been alerted, and even as he pulls his semi-automatic SC-20K, Fisher realises that the game is up. Ah, sod it. The last checkpoint was only a few minutes ago anyway, time to reload and try again for the fifth time…

Whatever happened to the revolution that was supposed to be ‘new’ games journalism? Thank God it never took off in a big way, because we dread the thought of such pretentious and uninformative diatribe dominating the scene. It does have its place, however, and in this case it serves to illustrate just how immersive the Splinter Cell series is.

… continued