The Tom Clancy series

Outside of talking about Seige, there hasn't been much mention of the series on here. So, I was wondering what some anons on Holla Forums have to say about it. Were the pre-Red Storm titles any good? At what point should users just stop with the individual series? Is there an overall canon to everything that stretches across all of the title?

I wouldn't really call it a series. It's more like a bit of branding that they slap on some games for name recognition. The only attempt at integrating canon from different series was Endwar, where I think they have references to Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, and Splinter Cell. Regardless, I hope they stop putting Clancy's name on things because: 1) he's dead, 2) he's not a great writer and only two of his books were passable (Hunt for Red October and Cardinal of the Kremlin), and 3) the old games that his name was applied to have been turned into franchises that are ruined husks.
Anyway, to answer your question properly, the only good Clancy games I know of are the original Ghost Recon and its expansions (all of the sequels were shit), and most of the Rainbow Six games up to and including 3 (but none after that). Also, Splinter Cell was pretty good until Conviction ruined the series; the first two games haven't aged well, but Chaos Theory is still a standout, and probably the best game ever made that had Tom Clancy's name on it.

When are you gonna stop shilling Chaos Theory?

The first game is better, we've gone over this multiple times.

Clancy wasn't even involved with siege. That aside, siege is barely a rainbow six game at all. It's just a CSGO esque shooter with SWAT elements and loot boxes that the hi/v/e will mindlessly defend because they are scared to have a differing opinion.

Maybe you're confusing me for someone else. I don't think I've ever seen someone claim that the first game is better than Chaos Theory. I have no idea why anyone would think that. I played the original Splinter Cell when it came out, and I loved it. Hell, I even played the demo that they released, of the Abattoir level.
I still like it quite a bit. I just think it would be a bit harder for younger people to get into these days.
And Chaos Theory is undeniably the better game. It has the knife, a sound meter, levels that are contiguous instead of cut up into small chunks (with the sort-of exception of Seoul), it looks better, it sounds better and has audio that actually fades in and out based on distance, it has a more interesting story, it has loadouts, there are optional objectives… I could go on. It's really good.

Clancy wasn't involved with most of the games that feature his name. He was still giving advice and signing off on things as late as 2002, but I think it probably stopped not long after that.
Polite sage for doublepost.

Pretty much this
Except Advanced Warfighter on PC was good. Vegas 1 was also good especially on co-op but after that shit went south fast.

Messy and no need for. Sam did just fine knocking people out with his elbow. Having a knife is redundant, it does the same thing (eliminate a guard in melee) except it kills and leaves blood. It's messy and there is no need for a knife in non-lethal (the only correct way to play the game) runs.

Loot at Thief. It does just fine without a sound meter, and that's a game where sound is an integral part of the gameplay.

False. This makes me really question whether you've played the first Splinter Cell at all. He looks like a badass George Clooney, whereas in Chaos Theory he looks like a malnourished pale ghost.

False. The original SC has an interesting grounded espionage plot, something realistic. Chaos Theory is fantasy/escapism almost on par with MGS.

Tom Culancys poop on your toothpaste

How did you know about their next game?

Ghost Recon (2001) was the only good GR. All the sequels completely stray away from the original concept.

GR was Rainbow Six in larger outdoor environments instead of inside buildings, and Special Forces instead of counter-terrorists.

It's cool. It also lets you cut through fabric, which was neat.
I love Splinter Cell, but it's not like Thief. Thief had a really good sound engine, and it had to, because in first-person, the only way to know if a guard is coming around the corner is to listen for his footsteps or other sounds. Splinter Cell isn't like that; it didn't have the precision of Thief when it comes to audio. That's OK, but it means that knowing how much sound you're making isn't a very granular affair, which encourages you to always be as silent as possible, which usually means going as slow as possible. Because it's a stealth game, that's not necessarily a bad thing. But the sound meter let you know exactly how fast you could move and how much noise you could make before alerting someone, which let you move faster if you wanted to. It's good for speedruns, and it allows for more interesting high-noise level sections where you have more aural cover, like in the boat's engine room, or during thunderstorms. The original Splinter Cell only did this once (I think), in the server farm of the CIA level. Pandora Tomorrow did it with thunder, but it was pretty under-used.
You're blind. The lighting is much better, the models have more polygons, and the animations are much better.
Yeah, it makes me think the same about you.
I wasn't talking about Sam's character design. I didn't have a problem with that in either game.
Chaos Theory gets a little out-there when the war breaks out, but overall it's no sillier than the original. Both rely on the trope of hacking = superpowers. But Chaos Theory worked in more real-life issues such as international resentment among East Asian countries, and the legacy of Japan's occupation and disarmament. It also has a more personal angle with Doug Shetland. Neither game has a great story, and the first game does hit a decent emotional beat with Wilkes, but I think Chaos Theory is more relevant, coherent, and personal. Story is probably the most subjective point of comparison, though, so I'm not going to die on this particular hill.

Also, sorry for the differing IDs, proxy keeps changing.

Pandora Tomorrow is the best Splinter Cell game. Chaos Theory is a good game, but it was very much the most popular and mainsstream one.

Also, Chaos Theory has a better soundtrack, though the original's was pretty good, too.
Chaos Theory's alarm system is also better. Guards donning armor and helmets makes more sense than an artificial-feeling three-alarm (or no-alarm) limit.
And the inability to shoot out cameras, only temporarily disable them, is nice. They're permanent obstacles, rather than being a brief distraction that serve as something to shoot once and ignore. I guess this also makes sense for Chaos Theory's more nonlinear levels, since you'll often do some backtracking.


I liked it, but I think it's the weakest of the original three. It had a few new animations, and looked marginally better, but it was basically just a full-priced expansion pack. Replacing Lambert's voice actor for no reason didn't help. Fighting not-Che Guevara in the not-Iraq War as also pretty on the nose.
That doesn't make it better or worse. "It's popular so it's bad," is the ultimate hipster shit. Like what you like regardless of what other people think of it.

Actually, thinking about it, Splinter Cell is one of the few stealth games where choosing between killing an enemy or knocking him out could affect the later levels in the game and the progression of the story (Because people talk, and even slaughter tells a story). Sadly, however, I think the only game that's actually done this is Alpha Protocol (Why did Obsidian have to make such a noteworthy game?).

I hate this timeline.

Splinter Cell at least lets guards wake up unconscious people that they find. I'm amazed that Dishonored didn't do this. Even the new Dude Sex games have that feature.


It wasn't even fantastical or escapist. Chaos Theory is all about hacking, disinformation campaigns, false flag operations, and the threat of nuclear war in the Korean peninsula–and those are all more relevant than they have been in a long time, despite Chaos Theory being twelve years old.

Hell, throw in a super weapon and it's just Ace Combat: Sam Fisher edition. I can understand a lot of your other complaints but I can't wrap my head around that one. If the series was much more grounded like a Total War or Rainbow Six game I could understand but Sam Fisher always seemed like he could fit those types of scenarios. At most SC might have been the dev trying to separate Splinter Cell games from the Rainbow Six games.

Fix'd. I hate writing in acronyms.

Do you think GR Wildlands would have worked better if it wasn't a Far Cry game and had dedicated maps for each mission?

???
I'm not complaining. I love Chaos Theory. I just think it's better than the original.
I don't think it was that crazy or unrealistic. At most, it has moments that are Bond movie-tier, but it rarely goes even that far.
Not that I think that's a bad thing. I'm fine with grounded, and I'm fine with fantastical. I just think Splinter Cell tends to lean more towards the former.


The original Ghost Recon was about planning and executing squad operations in punishing, one-hit-one-kill, medium-range, first-person combat.
None of the games after the original were like that. It's sort of like Alien; all the sequels were drastically different from the original, and even when they were good on their own, they never scratched the same itch.

Addendum: by "Splinter Cell" I mean the entire series. Both the original's story and Chaos Theory's are pretty similar in tone and grounding. I only like Chaos Theory's more because it has a slightly more personal touch with the characters, and because some of the subjects it deals with felt more relevant to the real world.

I thought red storm was the original?
Rogue Spear master race reporting in

It is. I think.

I'm pretty sure all the games are canon to eachother but its just since Ghosts and Splinter Cells are basically black ops it makes sense they aren't communicating. I think Ghost Recon 2 and Chaos Theory were happening in the same conflict though.

Yeah, I forgot that there was a tie-in during GR2, you're right. I think it was only in certain versions, though. That was back in the days when ports were drastically different from each other.

No! Chaos Theory a big poopy!!!!!!!!111!!!

That must be Double Agent.

While Tom Clancy, himself, founded the company to make games based off of his works, there were a few games not made by them such as The Hunt For Red October, Red Storm Rising, and SSN.

Oh man does that game piss me off.

I've been playing 3 recently and having a blast, although the teammate AI's kinda retarded.
That might be because I played on veteran instead of elite, but I'm gonna restart on elite right now.

fact is both are decent, rest is a matter of opinion

I liked both versions. I think people overstate their differences. The 7th gen version had some casual elements, but they both felt like Chaos Theory expansion packs to me. (Which is fine, by the way, I'd kill for more Chaos Theory expansion packs.)
Also, you can play the 6th gen version on an Xbox 360.

It has a better story but worse gameplay. Pandora Tomorrow is the most overrated of the first three though.

Looking at what the likes of Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six were, and what they are now, makes me weep. Door Kickers is a good enough game, but I wish someone would make something like the old Rainbow Six again.


I never particularly understood why people like Splinter Cell so much. It's a rather simplistic stealth game that, just like most other stealth games with firearms, make things far too easy on the player. Silenced guns should be way more loud to discourage players from using them and the enemy should be able to determine if guards suddenly start going missing.

The rifle was pretty loud in Chaos Theory.

I can't really recall all that many instances where I would use the rifle instead of the pistol. I mostly used the rifle to fire the special ammunition and little else.

Yeah, that's fair. I guess its loudness was an additional punishment for being in combat at all.

No because it's an MGS V clone with co-op and not outdoors Rainbow Six, the game is just killing people over and over in the same fashion and the story is the worst one in any game I've played, everything about it is like a parody of Ubisoft itself, I don't think anyone was hyped for Wildlands at all except the most dumbest of normalfags, there has never been a game that depresses me as much as this one and made me reflect on my life in the most shameful way possible, it's 50GB and uses Denuvo on top of this too, the only good thing of substance is the multiplayer which will die soon and is decent at best.

t. 20~ hours