Splinter Cells Essentials is pretty average
I posted this from an old website.
Well to be honest Splinter Cell Essentials is not bad even though no site has reviewed it yet but its not exactly great either. I think they should have definently delayed it a little bit longer becuase its got some glitchy gameplay and the graphics are pretty horrible compared to other psps games.The graphics for the game are pretty bad with the night vison on which almost every splinter cell game looks bad using it but it looks like chaos theory for the ds while the ds version is in night vision, although when your not in night vision there pretty average but the best part of the graphics the lighting which looks pretty good. The cutscenes look pretty good but I just wish they wouldn't have just put pictures they should have did FMV's for there cutscenes.
The gameplay is pretty good you do have most of the moves from Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory which is awesome but the framerate usually stutters when your in alot of gunplay also you do have the knife from chaos theory which is awesome.
The controls are really hard to get used to in the beginning and they still dont get that much better later in the game. The main problem is the camera in it you can swith between using it like this hold the o button and move the analog stick to look around but you can't move or you can press the down button on the d-pad and then you look around with the face buttons and you can still move. Part of me wishes that they use the r and l triggers to move the camera and just use the x button by pressing it hard to kill somebody with the knife and lightly to knockk them out but I'm not sure if the psp can do that with the face buttons.
The sound is pretty good not amazing but is better than some other psp games mainly becuase the sounds sound kind of off I mean why does a guy whistling sound louder than a gun firing in the game.
So I would say rent it first its good but it might dissapoint you, I just wish ubisoft delayed it since me and my katamari came out this week and metroid prime hunters then maybe they wouldn't have hurried it out. While the game takes about 10-15 hours to beat the multiplayer is average since theres only 1 against . If your looking for a stealth action game get Syphon Filter Dark Mirror it just makes me pretty mad since this could have been so much more.