The first 10 minutes (*2.8) : Splinter Cell Chaos Theory demo

SnakeX
Tuesday, February 15, 2005 | 2:16 PM
20 comments

Xbox

After a very good first episode, and a second one with a very original live mode, Ubisoft is back with yet another Splinter Cell. Yet another ? Well, this demo from the Official Xbox Magazine certainly shows a lot of new features and a brand new and very impressive game engine. Just take a look at the 28 minutes video (where SnakeX manages to die at the very last terrorist...) and I think you'll agree with me!

There is a delay problem with the sound. SnakeX tried to capture this 2 times (and died at the same exact spot each time !) but he had this same bug. Sorry about this.
Update : The Bittorrent tracker seems to be working again.
Update 2: A new version of the video is now available with the sound in Sync, thanks to Nightmarecast24's hard work. The video quality is quite a bit lower, but at least you can watch it with the sound. You'll have to decide which is the most important for you :)

Je me suis donc dépêché de lancer le jeu pour pouvoir tâter cette sympathique démo dont nous avions déjà eu un aperçu avec Blimblim en Angleterre au mois d'Octobre dernier et force est de constater que le jeu est vraiment extrêmement bien réalisé. Même si la vidéo est longue à télécharger, prenez le temps nécessaire de le faire car vous verrez que ça en vaut vraiment la peine.

Pour les plus blasés d'entre vous, vous vous direz que c'est ENCORE un Splinter Cell, en plus beau et c'est tout. Vous n'aurez pas tout à fait tort puisque bien évidemment le but est toujours le même, réaliser des missions pour les services secrets américains mais il y a tout de même des nouveautés. Tout d'abord, si vous observez bien la vidéo, vous pourrez voir que vous pourrez cette fois-ci emprunter plusieurs chemins pour arriver à une destination, ce qui permet par exemple de vous enfuir après avoir tiré sur un ennemi et de faire le tour pour abattre le second.

Pour ce qui est du gameplay là aussi quelques nouveautés, vous pourrez désormais porter directement sur votre épaule un ennemi que vous aurez tué ou assomé plutôt que de le laisser tomber pour ensuite le ramasser. L'accès à votre inventaire a aussi été simplifié puisque le bouton blanc vous permet d'avoir accès à toutes vos armes et autres équipements, mais mieux que ça, avant la mission vous aurez le choix de la composition de votre inventaire, tout comme le mode multi de Pandora Tomorrow.

Je ne vais pas non plus passer 3h à vous présenter chaque nouveauté puisque vous les verrez dans la vidéo mais pour conclure rapidement, c'est un grand plaisir de rejouer à un nouvel épisode qui ne change pas radicalement mais qui apporte un moteur graphique digne de la Xbox et un gameplay très réussi. Le seul point négatif reste la caméra qui bien que réglable manuellement peut s'avérer gênante dans certains angles.

Bon, c'est fini ? Vous arrêtez de me lire ? Vous regardez enfin la vidéo ?

Téléchargement

Commented on 2005-02-14 16:42:39

This is what I was waiting for at the pearly gates of heaven.................... ok no it isn't but it's darn close, Thanks A Million Blim Blim & SnakeX.
I wish my darn OXM Mag would come in the mail so I can play it but this should kinda tide me over....................... or make me more mad at OXM for being slow as a moving glacier.

Thanks!

In reply to

Commented on 2005-02-14 18:27:10

I think I can fix the sound, if I manage to fix it I will send it to ya. ;)
I am working on that right now.

syphon0928

Commented on 2005-02-14 18:39:27

Any luck fixing it?

Commented on 2005-02-14 18:57:43

It's still converting from AVI to WMV, I have to do this in order to transfer it to Vegas Video, I will just re-encode the converted WMV with Vegas Video and it should be fine, I will post when im done. :)

Commented on 2005-02-14 20:37:06

The re-encoded video should be ready soon, I will send it to blim(it will be like 106MB or so)and the sound seems to be fixed from my previewing of the file but I will further preview it after it's done by testing it out on the NVG transfermation sounds(that does it everytime)and see if they are in sync.

BlimBlim

Commented on 2005-02-14 20:44:40

Great, I have to admit I did not have time to even try to fix it (or even watch the file completely). Is there a delay all the time, or does it get worse during playback ?

Commented on 2005-02-14 22:04:27

A complete waste of 2+ hours of converting and re-encoding :(
It still delays like hell, even worse through out the video, oh well, I gave it a shot.
The delay is really annoying so I may just take the sound out completely and replace it with some music from the SCCT soundtrack, the delay is that bad.
Thanks again for hosting it though Blim.

Commented on 2005-02-14 22:37:50

Yeah It's the kind of delay that's very difficult to fix, sorry you lost so much time with this.

Commented on 2005-02-14 22:53:13

No problem, it was worth a shot, plus the player really annoyed me anyways, he was in Thermal Vision mode like 60% of the time, so we didn't get to see the beautiful graphics.
Well I hope my demo comes today.

Commented on 2005-02-14 22:58:15

Yeah he's a bit too much in the game when he makes a video, so he does not enough try to show cool stuff and just uses the most efficient view. If I was even average at this type of games I would have done everything myself, but I'm really, and I mean *really* bad at these games. Even Zelda TWW stealth parts were a problem for me...

Commented on 2005-02-15 07:00:31

Ok I finally fixed the video after 3 hours of determination I had to manually sync the sound in place with Vegas Video 4.0.
Whew!!
I will have it later tonight for ya because it takes forever to upload to yousendit.com

Buktu

Commented on 2005-02-15 13:23:39

Im with you on that one Blim :p
Stealth really aint my cup of tea!

Commented on 2005-02-15 17:29:28

Hey, I will have a higher quality version later today, I watched the other one and wasn't too satisfied, so I have the higher quality version converted from AVI to WMV for sync'ing in Vegas Video,I will get to work on that one within the hour.

So one more is coming.
:D

Commented on 2005-02-15 17:34:38

You're really determined to get this file fixed/presenting better. lol

Commented on 2005-02-15 17:35:56

I'm in awe :)

Commented on 2005-02-15 19:16:55

Here is a preview pic the progress:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v306/Nightmare18...

I would have took a non NVG pic but it's not that far along(out of the dark caves)yet.
I will keep ya posted, it truly is high quality though.
:)

Commented on 2005-02-15 19:33:02

Unfortunately it still has that awful WMV look all over the place. WMV compresses rather well, but at low to mid bitrates at blurs the video like crazy to hide the macroblocks. It's VERY easy to notice when there is text. I really appreciate your efforts, but is it really worth it since we already have one video with sound fixed?
Take a look at the original frame :
http://media.xboxyde.com/misc/sc3.png

Commented on 2005-02-15 19:46:20

So would an AVI conversion be better?
I only used WMV because many people on the SCCT fourms had trouble with my Quicktime and AVI versions(they need codecs but eh).

But it keeps me busy until my mail runs and doesn't drop my OXM Demo in the mailbox :( lol.

So I will create an AVI conversion as well. I won't have to do much from that other than re-encoding the original 147MB out of sync file then fix the syncing in Vegas, so I will make 2 of them.

LOL! This isn't any trouble at all really, it's kinda fun actually, I have made tons of fan videos in the past so im used to long hours of video editing.

Commented on 2005-02-15 20:16:46

Ho ok then, try using the Xvid codec. I usually do a single pass encoding, with a target quantizer at 4 or 5 using the standard ALS@L5 profile.

Commented on 2005-02-16 07:07:53

Damnit. I got side tracked by a power outage which interupted my 4 hour conversion, so I will be back on it tomorrow. :(
I was devistated because two hours had pasted and I had two left and BOOM!! a damn power failure....................... talk about crazy.
*sigh*