Through sheer coincidence, I managed to somehow be the first journalist to get hands-on with Ubisoft's Wii version of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent. In fact -- near as I can figure -- I am tied with two other people for the title of "first person who does not work for Ubisoft Montreal to even see the game running." Don't worry, though, as you'll all be able to get your hands on it when the Wii launches. And then I won't be special anymore.
Full hands-on gameplay impressions after the jump.
Bear in mind that the following impressions are based on only about a half an hour of play time with what appeared to be (what had to be, considering the timing) a near-final build of the game.
As it turns out, the Wii version of Double Agent is a straightforward port of the current-generation versions of the game (PS2, Xbox, GameCube), which are different from the Xbox 360 Double Agent. The graphics are clearly marginally better than the PS2 version, but not by much.
While Ubisoft's Red Steel gets you used to the Wii's motion-tracking control scheme very slowly, Splinter Cell has you jump right into gameplay without any tutorial session. Frequently during the game, you can watch and interact with brief video clips that show you how to pull off Sam Fisher's stealthy assassination and infiltration maneuvers. (These are also present in the PS2, etc. versions.)
Like in the PS2 game, you first have to take out a guard by sneaking up on him and choking him from behind. Then you must work with your AI-controlled partner to climb up a wall, take out a couple more agents, then sneak further into the facility. You use the analog stick to move Sam, and point with the Wii controller to move the camera. If you move Sam when the pointer is offscreen, the camera automatically resets behind him -- a nice little design idea that makes things far less messy than they otherwise might be.
When you pull out your weapon, you can of course aim by using the pointer. And shaking the left-hand "nunchuk" attachment in an upward direction is what you do to make Fisher climb up walls, grab onto pipes, etc.
The rest of Fisher's many, many commands are mapped to buttons all over the Wii remote -- the two trigger buttons on top of the left-hand nunchuk, the four different directions of the D-pad on top of the remote. I found myself totally confused as to what did what -- it's obvious that Sam's moves were designed with a PS2 controller in mind, then mapped after the fact to the totally different Wii setup.
After spending a half an hour struggling to complete the first level of Double Agent on Wii, I went home, popped in the PS2 version, and blasted through it unscathed in minutes. I had all kinds of problems on one section in the Wii version, in which I had to shimmy down a pipe, break a guy's neck, then shimmy back up it to get to the next area. I tried it four times on Wii and couldn't do it at all; then nailed it using the PS2's simpler controls, no problem.
It would have be nice to see for the Wii what Xbox 360 got -- a version of Double Agent developed from the ground up. I think with the proper attention, Splinter Cell could be a great fit for Wii -- Sam Fisher could get a host of new spy gadgets that rely on pointing and motion activation.
Instead, those who want tactical espionage action on Wii will, for now, have to work with a control scheme that -- again, based on my short gameplay experience -- is going to be much more difficult to master. Will the increased accuracy of the Wii pointer make it worth the while for gamers to really put the effort in? We'll see how the Splinter Cell faithful respond when the game hits shelves on Wii launch day.