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Returned Chaos Theory

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: August 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

As a fan of stealth games and the Splinter Cell line I readily purchased this game. Between the order and the delivery I was enlightened to the "backend" works of the game and StarForce protection.

As others have written about, this protection opens a REAL can of worms for certain people. If you are a computer novice and incur issues the ROUGH cost of repair ranges from $100-500 with a loss of ALL programs (and the need to reinstall them). The figure includes a ballpark figure on Reinstalling Windows ($200 for home and $300 for Pro if you're without the CD), very light data recovery (recovery can go into the thousands easily), and the reinstallation of a few programs for which you have the CD.

Additionally (as others may have mentioned) StarForce stays in your system even when the game is uninstalled AND CAN NOT BE REMOVED WITHOUT REINSTALLING WINDOWS. As I understand it, this means that 6 months down the line you may add software/hardware which can inturn create a problem leading to some or more of the above charges and problems.

I am disgusted that Ubisoft would implement such "protection" at OUR RISK! StarForce refuses to release information on how to properly remove their software from our machines, so again, if you plan to install this game, your going to need to reformat (delete everything) from your machine and rebuild it up to be sure to avoid future problems.

I'm not sure if this slick move was meant to increase sales, but I personally returned my unopened copy for a refund and made a different selection. If cigarette boxes have warnings to inform us of health risks for our bodies, software needs to come with the same to inform us of potential risks to our computers!

Oh and one last thing, I haven't been able to verify this, but I have read that StarForce works above anti virus software and is able to (one way or another) make it easier for viruses to attack your machine. Something about granting programs OS privs to many programs...

Hope this helps everyone keep their computer clean and healthy (and avert any unwanted additional fees!), good luck to all!

Great game copy protection erased my data

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: August 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I downloaded the demo for SCCT and I thought the game was great. The full game is dangerous though. It uses a form of copy protection called star force. It has caused numerous problems for my PC. A friend of mine says that he lost an entire hard drive's worth of data. buy the game if you dont mind the possibility of ruining your PC.

It is a shame...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 15
Date: April 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I would love to purchase this game, but I have decided to nolonger purchase games with Starforce protection.

A must have buy.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: May 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have played all the Splinter Cell games now after being hooked in by the Pandorra Tomorrow Demo. Chaos theory is a little easier than the previous games though I have only tried it on the 'normal' difficulty. Presumably the higher difficulties will be the way to play this game if you any experience on the series. The 'Starforce' protection issue is something however that you will need to consider. It hasn't caused issues with either my CD-RW/DVD combo drive or my DVD-RW and I have cloned my DvD's without any issues. Nevertheless removing it could be a problem for you so you may want to think about this. Personally I find this better than Steam anyday. Half-Life was such a pain to get going and in the end a slightly better than mediocre game that I decided never to go with valve again. Chaos Theory however is the best game I have had on my system since Far Cry. Not sure why others are having troubles with performance. It runs fine on my PC at 1024x768 with a 2.8ghz P4, a ATI 9600 Extreme (AGP 8X) and 1GM dual channel RAM, running with 2x Anti-Aliasing and 4x Anistropic filtering. There is sufficent performance to run the game at this level and leave bittorrent running as well. If your system is similar then you shouldn't have any troubles. The game looks great. The only downside to using the ATI card is the game downgrades to 1.1 shaders. The nVidia card supports shaders 3.0 so it may look better but I haven't seen it run on nVidia. Either way it looks right up there with Far Cry and half-life 2 so I wouldn't worry either way if you have ATI. The mission format is the same as the previous game and although there has been an attempt to create multiple paths the game is still fairly linear. As I have mentioned the game on 'normal' does feel somewhat easier than previous versions however all in all this is a ripper title that you shouldn't miss if you found any joy in the previous incarnations.

Best Of The Three!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: April 03, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I played and beat both of the previous two S.C. games and I have to say that this one outdoes the other two. Awesome game!!!
My only gripe is that the minimum system requirements seem a bit on the low side. You need a good bit of horsepower to run this game and have it look decent.
On a lighter note....to the Samewise guy...just curious, but if you didn't like the first two...why on earth would you spend another fifty dollars on the this one???

Improved gameplay, awesome gaming experience

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: April 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

For those who played the previous Splinter Cells, you don't want to miss #3, and for those who have never played any S.C., here's your chance to catch up.
The overall gameplay is improved, with more moves and more possiblities, and so are the graphics, which are just fantastic.
As a reference, I am playing this with a Nvidia 6600GT and 1GB of RAM, and it looks absolutely gorgeous while being perfectly fluid.
The only critic I would have so far is that, once again, the solo campaign is too short. It's so enjoyable that it's a shame it can't last (the new possible moves and choices, like breaking locks, contribute to that unfortunately).
Other than that, that's a classic, run for it, you won't be disappointed.

meh.......decent game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: May 19, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Having played the other games in the series I have to say these games are getting better, but at the same time getting worse.
The first thing I really hated about this game and probably would have given it 4 stars without it, is Starforce. Starforce is really just a pain, and although others have had more problems with it than I did, I still had to write few emails to get the game to even start up. Enough about that, I have to say first, I really liked the variety of ways to take out your enemies in CT. More ways to kill=more fun, such as the sneak and slash method. Graphics are pretty, sounds good, and the story is average. I think the two worst things about this game is the fairly linear level design, and the unrealistic dark environments. The level design is not really a design that has replay in mind, and the constant dark is just aggrevating because you have to use NVG's practically the whole game. The enemy AI is alot better than in previous titles though, and really respond well to your actions and sounds. Other than those few gripes about the game, it is enjoyable and a must have if you enjoyed the previous titles because it is better in many ways.

Yep, another victim of Starforce

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: August 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I was aware this game had starforce, but I decided to install it anyway, because I thought "How bad could starforce be". Personally I've never had a problems with starforce, NEVER, until this game. But thats because all my games before this one did'nt have starforce on them. First my Optical drive was turning slowly and then acting as if it was stuck. I was running this game on my DVD-ROM drive. Then one night I poped in my IL2 Pacific Fighters Flight Simulator game, and with no warning, my DVD ROM drive made a gun like POP noise, guess what, my IL2 Pacific Fighters CD is broken in about 7 to 8 big pieces. Talk about getting extremly mad. I kinda guess it was probably the starforce. Then later that week, my Windows XP home edition would not boot up, only show a black screen, I had a feeling it was also caused by starforce. Not only did I lose my optical DVD ROM drive, I also had to buy another Pacific fighters sim game CD. And I had to do a total reinstall of Windows XP home edition. You may be wondering why im not mad about what I experience. Well thats been a year ago and now Im fully recovered. Personally I would love to sue starforce for all the damage that was done to me. Just like some of the other reviews have told you. DO NOT BUY THIS VERSION OF THE GAME. If you really want to play this game, go for the console version.

(Alittle word for starforce company-->I hope you have to file bankrupcy, further more I hope you go to jail for making junk...)

THIS GAME IS GONNA ROCK!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 39
Date: August 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (along with Halo 2) is gonna rock!!!
Sam Fisher will have all new gadgets and all new moves. The best part? The graphics. SCCT boasts to offer the best graphics on any platform! I'm not sure it'll be better than Doom 3, but definitly better than Half-life 2. Sams old SC-20k (his rifle) now has a shotgun mode, for all of those run-and-gun typs out there. A combat knife is also going to be added to Sam's arsenal. As for the moves, you can now push people off buildings, grab people upside down, and work with a partner on CO OP MODE*. Ubi says that sam will have perfect interactions with the enviroment, and SCCT will have rag-doll physics!!! I cant wait for this game!!! Visit "www.splintercell3.com" for more information.

Nice Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: February 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game has more stealth actions than Metal Gear. This is the first time I play Splinter Cell. It doesn't require much of cpu and gpu resources since it was made in 2005. There's no lag in my system at all. This is a third person game. I personally can't play first person shooter. I get dizzy usually after 10 minutes of fps. This game is the best for me and anyone who has the same problem as I do.

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