Neither is it any of Fisher's other equipment. Rather, the superfluous nature of Fisher's knife hints at what makes Chaos Theory such a fantastic stealth game, because it isn't that. I don't say this as a criticism of Chaos Theory, or to mock Ubisoft's marketing strategy (the game sold 2.5 million copies in its first month, so clearly the added edge didn't hurt). It's the gimmickiest of videogame gimmicks. Fisher could easily perform these actions without the knife. The knife is never mechanically active in the world as it might be in games like Dishonored or Skyrim. But all of these are context-sensitive actions. Sure, Sam uses it all the time for interrogating a guard, cutting through fabric, breaking a lock, and occasionally dispatching an opponent. It's a little like Apple selling us the latest iPhone based on its functionality as a paperweight.īut it gets weirder because when you actually play Chaos Theory, the knife doesn't really do that much. And yet Ubisoft sold Chaos Theory to us on basis that he wields a bit of pointy metal. He's equipped with enough tech to give James Bond an inferiority complex a rifle that can fire a half-dozen different projectiles, vision-enhancement goggles with three settings, and a pistol that can remotely disable any electronic device (I suppose any pistol can technically do this, but Sam's can do it sans bullets). This is Sam Fisher we're talking about, the most gadget-fixated sneaky bastard in videogame history. I remember thinking this strange at the time of release, and after ten years it isn't any less so. It's that the big new feature that Ubisoft hinged the game's success upon - placing it on the front of the box and touting it at every PR opportunity - was a combat knife. It isn't the embarrassingly obvious product placement of Airwaves chewing gum in every other cutscene, or the general absurdity that nobody ever notices a middle-aged man with three green lights on his head sneaking around the high-security buildings they're patrolling. I've always found something a little odd about Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Ten Years On: Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
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