I don't believe you.

Look, lets try it again. I'll sneak out from under this pitchblack corner of the room, and you pretend to be a little more suprised at the site of a grizzled, elderly spy with a large gun and three green eyes. "Intruder!" just doesn't cut it, mate. Especially as you were asleep three frames ago.

My statement a couple of posts ago suggesting that Irrational's Swat 4, like Act of War: Direct Action was childish, I'm finding my self regretting. [/Yoda] For the game actually has a more human feel to almost any other. There's still not much, but in a genre of game where humans are for shooting, there's a suprising amount of personality in the potential ragdolls.

It's in the encounters. In fear of death, a room full of people with guns erupt into a shouting match. The masked policemen aggressively yelling 'put down your weapons!' and the hostage takers swearing hysterically over the top. Because as a function of gameplay the lives of every character is valuable, you regret a kill inherantly.
I've deviated however. My point wasn't that Splinter Cell shouldn't disallow your guns on even more of its missions, what I'm saying is that at least in Swat 4 - NPC reactions have a degree of realism.

Why don't enemies fumble with their weapons when sighting a completely unexpected enemy? Why don't they put their hands up, shout for help with wide eyed terror, simply run away, or freeze - as any real person may well do. Of course, when faced with an entirely expected enemy, NPCs will shoot on sight or react with conviction and resolve.

...Alright, that description turned into mechanics would make a game with challenges way too easy or hard. But how do you strike a balance? For a game like Splinter Cell, where the level structure needs enemies to be in certain places at certain times, with quite a strict limit on mobility and variation - what can you do with realistic responses?

How about dialogues? Before they shoot shouting "Who are you? What are you doing here!" Perhaps with some Monkey Island style optional retorts. Yes, it's late.



And I'm not sure I could see that working either.