Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Diaries Part Six

This is my ongoing exploration of the Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell games, played in release order. I will chronicle my playthrough of each title in turn and discuss any recurring themes and noteworthy events.

With Zherkezhi dead at the hands of Douglas Shetland, a confrontation would have to wait as Sam was being sent to North Korea to find out why they sunk the USS Walsh…

After HALOing in, I was asked by Lambert to grab the base commander, and interrogate him for up-to-date intel. Redding then asked me to find some shipping logs, to try and find out the who and how of the missile battery’s operation.

Sam's such a giving concierge

I opened the hatch in front of me and slid down the rope to gain access to the facility. There were two men taking inventory of eight large crates, so I grabbed one and interrogated him for a door code, then went in through the nearby door. I shot out a light to hide me from a camera, and in through another door. I turned off the lights and had just carefully entered a room to check a computer when the lights being off alerted someone.

Sneaking back out of the room, I throttled him before checking the computer. I went into the room the guy had just left and turned off the lights, alerting the man sat at his computer. I choked him out when he went to turn the light back on, then checked his computer. There was another man sat in a corner office with its own light, so I went in and dispatched him, finally locating some shipping records for Redding.

Who even knew missile bases HAD offices?

The hallway led to a bunk room with one guard napping in a chair and another asleep in bed. I shot the guy in the chair with a sticky shocker, then knifed the sleeper into an eternal slumber. The doors at the far end led to another warehouse with another guy doing inventory. I shot the light next to a camera with an EMP, making the guard look, so I grabbed and interrogated him away from the camera. I shot the light out, which somehow alerted the guard in a locked security room on the other side of the warehouse, so I had to shoot him before going into the room myself.

There was another shipping log, which I grabbed before going to a hidden grate which the previous guard had told me about. It led down to a crawl space beneath two guards, who I tried to gas grenade. They ran, and a firefight ensued in which one hit an alarm.

Thankfully I had knocked out or murdered everyone thus far, so I simply turned off the lights to hide from the cameras, and bypassed a circuit which sent a missile along a guide rail. I hopped on top of a truck, then followed the missile as it went through an opening, and dropped down into a corridor. There was a hatch which I dropped into and bypassed a circuit to open a hatch to the left.

It turned out that I could have just gone hand-over-hand instead of shimmying along...

The room I entered was full of missiles, and a single guard. So I shot an EMP at the light to distract him, and interrogated him to discover that there was an elevator to find the base commander. I went across the missile bay and EMP’d a camera before going into a control room. I took out a guard, turned off the light and checked the computers.

As I was leaving, I spotted a guard approaching carefully, so hid in the dark and grabbed him as he passed. Then I heard another guard coming to investigate, so I knocked my victim out and repeated on his mate. Once I had both of them hidden in the dark, I used the elevator to go up to find the commander.

Unfortunately, the well-lit elevator and well-lit room I entered caused the man looking right at the elevator to spot me. I shot him quickly, but the alarm went off regardless. I shot out the light to avoid the camera, and cursed as the door in front of me required a retina scan.

Luckily for me, four men opened the door and came at me. With the light out, they couldn’t spot me so I threw a gas grenade. Sadly, it was actually a smoke grenade. In the ensuing confusion, I knocked two out, a third shot me before I hit him, and the fourth went down quickly as well.

Grímstóttir complained that I had knocked out a technician I could have grilled for information, but it wasn’t like I had a lot of options… I went into the command control room which was now empty of people, their unconscious bodies piled near the entrance. I accessed a computer and took the technician’s logs off of it, allowing Grim to state that although the facility did in fact launch the missile which sunk the USS Walsh, it wasn’t on purpose. The command originated in Seoul.

What do those panels on the left even do?!

Grim said that, to be certain, she had to check the BIOS of the launcher which fired the actual missile, so I went back down the elevator and through the missile bay towards the launcher. I EMP’d the light at the end of the tunnel, which hid me from the guard outside who I knocked out. I went down some steps and EMP’d another light before opening the door to the control room.

There was a guard wandering around, so I snuck past him into the shadows. Another guard was crouched repairing a mechanism, so I waited for them both to line up before gunning them down with my SC-20k. I checked the computer for the final shipping log, and used the mechanism which was being repaired to open up the missile launcher before heading back upstairs. I accessed the launcher and sent the data to Grim.

It was all I could do to stop myself exclaiming "Metal Gear?!"

The Koreans chose that moment to fire more missiles. Lambert ordered me to stop the launch, so I legged it back to the missile bay. I went through the control room, then through the second control room and into a tunnel leading to a second launcher. I shot a sticky shocker at the guard patrolling the tunnel and ran down it to the door. which I opened. As I went out, the missile fired.

Lambert cursed, but the warhead wouldn’t arm until it was within range of the target. I had three minutes to find the disarm codes, and input them. I went down the steps to the control room and shot an airfoil round at one of the guards. The other two were close together, so I knocked them out with a gas grenade, and accessed the computers.

With the codes, I had just over a minute to run back to the second control room I had passed through, and input the override. With the warhead disarmed, the missile was destined to crumple like a beer can on the hull of its target.

Sam took a moment to appreciate the sunset. Or sunrise... One of them, anyway

All objectives complete, I went back to the first launcher and extracted. I was headed for South Korea, to see what I could extract from the National Data Trunk, before North Korean forces took Seoul...