Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell series has all the po-faced pomp and hoo-rah seriousness that that author's name conjures up, supposedly being a grittily realistic look at how black ops espionage missions really operate in the modern US intelligence community. Or at least, it would if terrorists were blind to great honking glowing green night vision goggles which, apparently, are invisible in shadows. Anyway, the Splinter Cell games are incredibly serious - to a fault - for a series about rolling around stabbing dudes in the shins, which is probably why Ubisoft opted to brighten things up a little with the fifth instalment. At least, that was the plan. Much like Rocksteady, however, they got bored of waiting for players to actually uncover their fun little Easter egg, so they had to make a tutorial. And you'll be glad they did, because what they'd hidden was delightful and ridiculous. Splinter Cell: Double Agent has a secret, game-long mission where you can find baby seals wearing party hats. Oh also they're aliens, and rescuing them from their hiding places returns them to their home planet. But you have to release them in the correct order, or it won't work. Wonder why nobody stumbled across them...
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
