Running around Shanghai with guns and blowing shit up

It seems that charming Shanghai has become the creative and commercial object of affection for yet another famous Tom (after Cruise and Friedman, of course) and is now featured as one of the backdrops for Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent. The fourth title in the Splinter Cell series is newly available on the Xbox 360, the Nintendo Wii, and the PC, and bears the name and coveted approval of noted author, bass fisherman and Sith Lord Tom Clancy.

The general story of Splinter Cell follows Sam Fisher, an agent of the National Security Agency (NSA) that is sent out into the world to exercise the use of the "Fifth Freedom": the freedom to do whatever is necessary to defend national security and peace for the United States.

Timely. Very nice, Mr. Clancy. Very nice.

In this latest version of the game Fisher is reassigned as a NOC, a non-official cover agent. His mission: to infiltrate a domestic terrorist group called the John Brown's Army. For the first time in the series, Fisher cannot rely on state-of-the-art military technology or the direct reinforcement of the NSA and must instead fall back on his keen instincts and survival skills while working deep undercover.

Read: You do all kinds of rad spy stuff with all kinds of bitchin’ goggles and shit and guns and you kill terrorists. Sweet!

So anyway a significant portion of the multi-narrative game is set in, on, under, around, and in the air above Shanghai in everybody’s favorite old-meets-new-East-meets-West-blah-blah-blah area, the Bund/Pudong riverfront. (Ubisoft has offices in Shanghai.) If you look closely at the picture you can see your Oriental Pearl TV Tower et al — OK, you don't really have to look closely. It is uncertain, however, if the game features the option of sending a couple of SKUD missiles in Attica’s direction.

We haven’t had the opportunity to play Splinter Cell: Double Agent yet because it won’t work on our Turbo Graffix 16. (When are they going to start making more games for this thing?) We did, however, manage to get a hold of a local “gamer” that had this to say: “Its pretty bad-ass. I’m really feelin’ this one.”

More in-depth reviews of the game by the real professionals can be read here, here, and here. The general consensus, however, is that the game is indeed bad-ass.

Shanghaiist whole heartedly encourages comments on the new Splinter Cell. Perhaps a little review or something and maybe some commentary on the game play. Maybe even help us out with a cheat or two.

Screenshot taken from gamespot.com.