Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
dev. Ubisoft
Now available for Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube, and PC.

The man with the French accent spoke into my ear. "Climb my body like a ladder. Go on. Do eet." So help me, I did.

"Stand zere," he whispered. We had to speak softly--our headset voice communication would cause virtual guards to notice us in the game if we spoke too loud, a nifty touch. "Now zrow me at zee guard and I shall tackle eem."

We were dressed in techno-thriller fetish gear: black body suits that made us invisible to thermal vision, rubber and mesh straps and pouches, cool metal hardware. We were spies, deadly ones, and we crept through the shadows together, our normal-mapped muscles rippling in the pixel-shaded light.

"Two guards, zere, on zee couch," my French spy cooed. "You take one and I will take zee ozzer one." We stood up behind the couch, guns trained on the villains who were, in their villainy, watching television. Bastards. They hate our freedom! Each of us took a bead on a guard's head. "Now." Two silenced gunshots cut the quiet and the guards slumped dead. "Ahh," my new partner sighed. "Very good. Double keel!"

I needed a cigarette. Or maybe my character did--this virtuality is all so confusing. I was playing the new Splinter Cell video game in online co-op mode, with a fellow player I'd been randomly paired with. Now this accented voice was talking through my headset, telling me what to do. He was older, more experienced. His name was EliteLord723. Perhaps it sounds better in the original French.

"Crouch zere. Put your hands togezzer. Yes. Now lift me up." With a deft movement he flipped over the wall behind me, then opened the locked door from the inside.

The Splinter Cell games are obsessed with sneaking around. You play Sam Fisher, aging beefcake secret agent, the body of Rock Hudson with the voice of perpetual B-movie villain Michael Ironside. Gauges on screen show how visible you are and how much noise you're making, so that you must always move slowly, in the shadows, to avoid detection. It's a painstaking experience, and an unforgiving one--if somebody sees you and opens fire, you're toast. The visuals are astonishing, almost on the order of cutting-edge PC titles like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2, far better than I thought the Xbox was capable of.

Online, the experience acquires a surprising sensuality. You and your anonymous partner slip from shadow to shadow, speaking in whispers and using teamwork commands to win the game. You're intensely aware of your physical presence, and the timbre of your voice. "Good," he says, "zat ees good," satisfied with my maneuvers. Maybe next he'll ask me to blow up the Rainbow Warrior.

If you have the patience for stealth gaming, Splinter Cell is good stuff. I can't guarantee you'll have a Frenchman watching your back, but if you do, tell him Sam Fisher said ciao.