The Best Xbox Game Every Year 2001 - 2024
23. 2002 - Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
Around the late 90s, Ubisoft began using the Tom Clancy branding on several military-focused franchises. The first was Rainbow Six, based on an actual Clancy book. Then came Ghost Recon. In 2002, Splinter Cell arrived.
The first game released from the Ubisoft Montreal studio, Splinter Cell was described by audiences as a hyper-real Metal Gear Solid, which was exactly the point. Developers sought an answer to the upcoming PS2 eventual-megahit MGS2, and in so doing kicked off their very own franchise.
Sam Fisher's premiere mission broke new ground with the jaw-dropping lighting system which sat at the core of the concept. Now it wasn't simply about evading an enemy's line of sight but directly interacting with it by taking out the lights and then navigating through the darkness with night-vision goggles. Players used light and shadow to their advantage, carefully tracking the amount of sound they were making, and flicking to the heat-sensitive visor to keep an eye on enemies.
Splinter Cell opened the door to brand new levels of immersive digital worlds and won a bevvy of awards for its efforts.
The game did eventually come to the PS2 and GameCube but for the first five or so months it was a tantalising Xbox exclusive that made early adopters of Microsoft's system glad they were in on the ground floor.