Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Essentials

Pretty enjoyable game. Has some fun story beats. I love the (funny) banter between NPC's. Clunky controls are helped by a remastered controls mod.

Adapting PS2 experiences on the PSP wasn't an uneasy task. Just look at games like SOCOM and Metal Gear Solid. While they controlled different and some sacrifices had to be made, they were fun experiences. So what happened here? They just dumped a PS2 game here, that's what happened. Ubisoft thought you can just develop a PS2 game then dump it on the PSP without making changes. First, the controls, oh my, the controls. Because of no second analog stick (seriously who the hell thought just one analog stick was a good idea?), camera control is a nightmare. The default means you cannot move Sam and the camera at the same time. Alternative allows you to do so but it puts camera control on the face buttons. Guess where the action buttons are. Either way, you need to push a button to activate or deactivate camera mode. Granted you can get used to the controls quite easily, but if only the levels were designed with that in mind. But they aren't. As if the PC and console SC games weren't difficult enough (in a good way), the control scheme made it frustrating. Remember those times where you had to reload saves when you screwed up? You'll have to do it many, many, many more times here. Speaking of reloading saves, get used to the Title: you'll be seeing it many times and for quite a while. Aside from constant reloading, you'll have to wait a long time when reloading saves. And I was playing the DIGITAL version. On a PSP-3000. So imagine playing on a UMD with the PSP-1000 (which has less RAM). That said, the loading times can be resolved if you play on a PPSSPP Emulator. The control issues, however, are still there. And I had no idea what's going on in the story. This is after Double Agent (which was released months later). Sam get falsely arrested and needs to clear his name. So all except the final level are flashbacks as Sam is telling what really happened. You also see a twist in the SC timeline which I think was not supposed to be seen until you play DA (gg Ubisoft). And remember when I said they just dumped a PS2 game here? Well, two of the levels are exactly from the console versions (one from the original and the other from Chaos Theory). And like I said, these levels were hard enough on the bigger platforms. And the bonus **** all from Pandora Tommorrow. No, if I want to play those levels, I'll play Pandora Tommorrow. You can only unlock them by entering a code on the website but since it's dead and you're curious: just go to the Bonus Missions screen, hold Select and tap L+R at the same time repeatedly till you unlock all of them. But trust me, go play PT instead as you'll just torture yourself. You've been warned. SC:E looks fun. I just wished it was playable on a platform other than the PSP. If it got some more development time, it would have been excellent. Wasted potential is what I'm seeing.

I picked this game up for my PSTV for 3.49. I'm a big fan of metal gear solid and thought that I should give Splinter Cell a shot. Perhaps I should've picked something else... The game controls like utter **** thanks to the PSP not having a second analog stick. You have to toggle between camera controls and action controls and it all feels clunky and terrible. For a PSP game, the game looks absolutely terrible. Mind you, this is the same system that brought us Midnight Club, Portable Ops and Resistance. All in all, SC Essentials is a stealth game ruined by clunky controls and horrible graphics...

Did not like the game much. The militaristic/stealth setting is great and shooting/melee attacks from surprise were fun, but overall Essentials is way too hard for non-hardcore splinter cell gamer. High difficulty, complicated controls, often unclear/obscure mission objectives, and also in some places somewhat busted technically. Only for die hard fans of stealth games.

Although it has the janky controls, as everyone says, the biggest turn off for me was the fact that this game suffers from the problem that most stealth games have, which is the dumbest AI **** one of those games where you walk in plain sight but none of your enemies sees you, just **** first game I've played from the franchise, and couldn't be a worst impression./////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////Embora tenha os controles desajeitados, como todo mundo diz, o que mais me incomodou foi o fato de que este jogo sofre do problema que a maioria dos jogos de furtividade tem: a inteligência artificial mais burra possível.É um daqueles jogos em que você anda bem na frente dos inimigos e ninguém te vê, simplesmente porque **** o primeiro jogo que joguei dessa franquia, e não poderia ter uma pior impressão.