Video game review by ERIK LEIJON

By official count, Splinter Cell: Double Agent (X360/Ubisoft, Ubisoft Shanghai) is the fifth Splinter Cell game to come out since 2002, if you include the PSP-exclusive Essentials, but not the N-Gage, cell phone and DS versions. Ubisoft is reaching the level of Missy Elliott in terms of quantity of production, but even the true first lady of hip hop’s repertoire began to stagnate somewhere around This Is Not a Test!

Sadly, it’s an impossible task; Ubisoft Shanghai must manage to keep a very difficult streak of excellent games alive, and also convince those who just finished 2005’s Chaos Theory to jump into the world of tactical espionage yet again. Double Agent is a very good game, but you can’t help but feel this is “Pass That Dutch” compared to “Get Ur Freak On.”

The two main areas where the game is noticeably different are the trust bars and the revamped multiplayer. Sam Fisher is working for both the NSA and the enemy at the same time, and whenever he completes a good guy mission, their trust level increases, and the same goes for the bad guys. Not only are there big moments where your decision can affect the progression of the story, but the missions lack the rigidity of previous titles (which you might actually miss). This doesn’t alter the core gameplay very much; it merely gives you a few more choices during level play.

Ubi has completely overhauled the multiplayer first seen in Pandora Tomorrow. It’s a three-on-three team battle between spies who have to infiltrate the base and complete their mission, and players who must hunt them down. A strong multiplayer is necessary nowadays, but Splinter Cell is the one Tom Clancy property that felt natural as a solitary experience, unlike Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon. Hopefully in the future, the developers will remember that the single-player is le raison d’être, and to not allocate all their time to multiplayer.

The visuals are familiar: mysterious locales with dark corners suitable for sneaking around, but utilizing the 360 hardware, everything looks cleaner and more detailed. If you don’t believe the difference, check out the lighting and shadow effects when Sam enters the fan room in mission 4, or the Shanghai skyline immediately after. Mission 4’s introduction, which has Sam completing a dangerous skydive from a plane, is one of the coolest things ever seen in a SC game.

Double Agent is solid, but hopefully Ubisoft only calls Sam back to work when it’s possible to revolutionize the single-player mode.

I can be your hero baby

Justice League Heroes (PS2/WB, Snowblind) is a cut from the same hero cloth as the dastardly X-Men Legends, but thankfully Snowblind Studios did Batman, Superman et al justice. Heroes is a dungeon-crawling action game that blends RPG-level building elements with old fashioned action beat ’em ups.

The gameplay can pose problems, notably the fixed camera that often refuses to point in the right direction, and when there are too many enemies on the screen to count, the cheap hits are unavoidable. Positively speaking, the superhero moves are authentic and frequently used, and two players can play the story mode together.

For DC Comics fans, there are loads of recognizable heroes and villains, and multiple costumes to purchase with experience points. The graphics were also a pleasant surprise, considering X-Men Legends had horrible quasi-cel-shaded characters, but the level of authenticity in this title will satisfy the normally élitist comic book crowd. Non-fans might grow tired of the repetitive gameplay and lack of online multiplayer mode.