Splinter Cell: Ghost Challenge

Jashin on 2/11/2005 at 08:32

Well, SC is really an action-stealth game (even more so in the latest version), IGS proved that out-and-out passive stealth games won't sell a million, ever.

I was shocked by the esoteric nature of Thief 2 - it's simply not a game for a broad audience, and was never designed to be. It immediately occured to me that ISA's miscalculation with Thief3 was a technical one and not a creative one. Creatively, they made the game much easier to pick up; technically, they downsized the rudimentary scope of the simulation.

Malleus on 2/11/2005 at 19:25

Just finished Abattoir. I did definitely better than last time. So, it's a total 8 KOs.
In the first part, I KOed two guys in the second freezing chamber (there are three guards in that room, and you have to climb on a steel "beam" to reach the next room without being shot by the turret) - I had to KO the guy in the middle, and guy close to the aforementioned turret, because they saw me climbing on the steel "beam".
In the second part, I had to KO everyone in the final battle. That's three soldiers, a colonel, an officer, and Grinko (yes, only KOed grinko :) ).

EDIT: Ok, I was bored and did the Chimese embassy round 2. 4 KOs total. I had to KO the three guys shooting the computers (I just couldn't get past them), the officer at the warehouse (stays in the doorway with his back at you).

Anyway it was pretty interesting, because now I play on my other PC witch is a bit weak, so SC runs a bit slow on it. So slow that in fact the light meter updates slower that the actual lightmaps on the map. So if I switch off the light in a room, and a guard is nearby, he surely sees me, because when he is turned to my (the light switch's) direction, the light meter is still showing visible status. Made stuff a bit harder...
And this PC has an NVidia card, and I had to face the fact that the shadows look perfect. Plain perfect. While on my ATI PC, it had some bugs. I guess it's pretty obvious that the game is optimized for Nvidia :/

EDIT2: Presidential Palace done, with extremely low ... framerate :). It's 11KOs +1 Kill. I had to KO the stationary guard in the courtyard to get the gate keycode, and I had to KO one of the Special forces guys in the first room where you encounter them - he also had a keycode. And I had to KO everyone in the library battle (4 soldiers), and everyone in the battle in the basement (The 5 Soldiers with nightvision goggles). And of course I had to kill Nikoladze.

EDIT3&4: I got past the first two levels of Kalinatek with 5 KOs (two keycode guys, Ivan's guard, and the two guards before you are informed of the bomb). On the roof, I had to KO the 2x3 mercs trying to kill you, and the last two mercs. So, Kalinatek is over, with 13 KOs. I think I'm finished with SC1...

Malleus on 8/11/2005 at 18:13

Quote Posted by Malleus

I think I'm finished with SC1...

...or not?

poroshin Well, since you said you'll come back some time, I hope you wouldn't mind if I spam the thread with my stealth stats :). It will only be two posts actually. I'll edit this post with my Kola Cell mission stats, and post a new one for the SCPT stats.
EDIT: Let's have all my stats for SC1 in this post.

Police Station - Total Stealth
Defense Ministry - 2 KOs (Driver + Colonel)
Oilrig - 1 KO (Technician)
CIA - 3 KOs (guard overlooking the server room (keycode), Dougherty, last guard)
Kalinatek - 9 KOs (two guards before you're informed of the bomb, keycode guard (auditorium), Ivan's guard, the second wave of 3 mercs on the roof, last 2 mercs on the roof)
Chinese Embassy 1 - Total Stealth
Abattoir - 7 KOs (a guard in the freezing chambers (the one before the last turret), everyone in the last battle)
Chinese Embassy 2 - 3 KOs (the soldiers shooting the computers)
Presidential Palace - 11KOs + 1 Kill (one guard in the first courtyard (keycode), one of the first specforce soldiers (keycode), everyone in the library battle, and everyone in the basement battle + Nikoladze)

Kola Cell - 6 KOs (Alekseevich, Masse, Masse's guard (Nikolai :)), and the 3 spetznaz soldiers attacking after you grabbed Masse)
Vselka Infiltration - Total Stealth (Yeah!)
Vselka Submarine - 3 KOs (the guard after the armory, and the last 2 spetznaz soldiers)

Wow. So that's it. The 'as much Ghosted as it can be + one kill' playthrough. :) Maybe there are some points where these stats could be improved, though. By the way, the two Vselka levels were amazing, I never thought they could be completed this way... B)

poroshin on 8/11/2005 at 18:34

No, spam away, man. I'm glad at least someone is interested enough to try the Ghost Challenge with me. I thought I'd be the only one. I'll resume ASAP, I'm still at the Abatoir, right before the minefield. I was also planning on doing the Kola Cell levels (it kills me that they made the extra level for PS2 and never made it available for PC! :mad:)

Vernon on 9/11/2005 at 04:51

If you guys are going to try ghosting Pandora Tomorrow, I'll give it a go. I don't own SC1 or I would have had a go at this one too..

poroshin on 9/11/2005 at 15:02

Vernon, go grab the original game. As good as Chaos Theory is, in my opinion the original is still the best game. And I don't think it's very expensive nowadays. When we'll finish SC1, we'll move onto SC2, and I guess Sc3 then. By then, SC4 should come out ;)

Vernon on 9/11/2005 at 16:24

haha - ok I'll do that - I think I saw it for about 20 bucks (Aussie, so that's about 10 bucks in US dollars). :thumb:

Malleus on 9/11/2005 at 16:59

I second poroshin's opinion, the original SC is a must-have. Try to get the collector's edition if you can, it comes with three extra levels (the aforementioned Kola Cell levels those are).
I'm currently trying to finish the Submarine level, and gather my SCPT stats. By the way, PT is much more ghost friendly that the original... :cool:

poroshin on 9/11/2005 at 17:28

I'm in the US, so we never got a Collector's Edition. I got the bonus levels with the Collector's Edition of Chaos Theory. And I still don't understand why they didn't include the PS2-exclusive level, the Nadezhda Power Plant mission... Sigh...

Malleus on 9/11/2005 at 18:14

Quote Posted by poroshin

The levels are somewhat different on the PS2, mostly they are smaller and less detailed (so I heard, I don't own a PS2). So I guess simply porting the Nuclear Power Plant level to PC would make that level a bit "worse" than the others - and I guess they didn't want to properly re-design the map for the PC.

By the way did you know that originally, the russian levels were more and bigger, and they took place in between the Kalinatek and the Yangon levels? But for some reason they took them out.
Ever onticed that the ending picture of the Kalinatek mission says "another of Nikoladze's cells found in the Kola peninsula, etc, etc", and then you are ordered to go to Mianmar? Or when Lambert mentions the stolen Americium? Absolutely no info on that before he mentions it. And the Pickett Gap stuff in the news feed? They are not just randon stuff, they all make sense in the original concept, where fisher takes out the Kola cell before moving to Mianmar.
There were four levels between Ktek, and Yangon:
-Shipyard (parts of this level has been made into the two Vselka levels)
-Nuclear Power Plant (this level, or parts of it had been remade into the PS2 exclusive NPP level)
-Mining Town (discarded)
-Severonickel (parts of this mission was made into the Kola Cell mission)
These were meant to be large levels, the Shipyard and the Mining Town had two parts (like Abattoir), the other two had three parts (like CIA).