Before the likes of the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox were even around on the market, the name Tom Clancy certainly rung a bell. The author brought forth a number of acclaimed novels, including The Hunt For Red October, Clear and Present Danger, and The Sum of All Fears, among others. Obviously, Hollywood caught onto his popularity and began adapting his books for the big-screen. But then Clancy turned to video games and introduced a whole new medium for storytelling, as he's proven with a number of games including the Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon series entries. But it's Splinter Cell that remains his most dedicated work, brought to us by the folks at Ubisoft. It combines the kind of high-tension situations with tactical, hard-thinking gameplay that has made the first three chapters in the series something to really appreciate. And they're not done yet.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent looks to be the most complicated game in the series to date...and I say that as a compliment. Special agent Sam Fisher returns yet again, but his latest mission is unlike any he's tackled before. This time around, he puts himself in deep cover in order to infiltrate a terror cell, even putting himself behind bars on a fake murder charge in order to "fit in". However, as the game proceeds, you find yourself getting deeper and deeper into the mission, soon walking the fine line between what is right and what is wrong. Can Fisher complete his mission and save millions of lives from a devastating attack, or is he bound to be uncovered and forced to face a hostile situation to finish?

You can just sense the bump in intrigue that the series is going to take with this chapter. Ubisoft is focusing very hard to bring forth the experience of being a double agent into video game form, and it shows. Early footage of the game shows a side of Sam Fisher we've never really seen before, and why it makes him that good of an agent to get the mission completed. Not only will his fighting skills and use of technical tools come into play, but he'll also be forced into the occasional ethical mission to test his loyality to different sides.

The game will once again bring back the "thinking man's" gameplay that the series is known for. This is not the kind of game you rush through and simply kill everything. Thought must come into play, or the consequences will certainly be dire. In fact, if you go too much on a binge and kill too many criminals, your cover will be blown and, well, that'll be that. But, by the same token, if you get too deep, your agency may actually demand that you abort before something even worse happens.