IGN: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent Review 9.0

The preview builds for Double Agent were tough to get a good read on because so many little things hadn't gelled yet. But the final retail versions, which we played, show Double Agent's full promise. The game came together. The layers of animation boast an excellent looking and moving Sam Fisher. Ubisoft uses an array of color schemes and shows them off in all sorts of beautiful-looking levels. The Shanghai team perhaps uses too much high-dynamic range and bloom lighting, but the game still offers stunning visuals as exemplified in the icy underwater passages of Okhotsk, the scenic views of Shanghai, and the war-torn streets of Kinshasa.

All sorts of improvements have been made to level design, AI, gameplay mechanics (which are simplified yet still require skill), and a meaningful storyline punctuated with directed moments. While some may argue the point, the new Mercs Vs. Spies mode is good fun and should prove to have legs on Xbox Live. The game still loads slowly and it slips below 30 FPS in both single and multiplayer (in fact there is already an auto-update patch to eliminate the MP lag). But overall, Double Agent is a major leap forward for the series and, at least in my opinion, gets better and better the more I play it.

IGN