Pixels to paper - 10 videogame novels reviewed

Features
By published

From Halo's prequel to Perfect Dark's sequel, we rate the reads

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Operation Barracuda

What is it?
A Sam Fisher-starring, first-person adventure in the world of Splinter Cell. Sam's out to take out The Shop, a vicious arms dealing ring, and discover who's assassinated the scientist creator of a new kind of submarine.

Who wrote it?
David Michaels, who's penned four Splinter Cell novels and one EndWar adventure for Ubisoft. Actually, no - Michaels is really just a pseudonym forRaymond Benson, who's written several Bond novels. Benson wrote the first two Fisher books (of which this is the second) but pulled out, and now an unnamed writer is responsible for the series. Oooh, mysterious.

Fanboy factor?
Gettinginside Sam Fisher's head isn't exactly a big draw, since we're sure people play Splinter Cell for the sneaky-sneaky-stabby-stabby gameplay, not the character development. Fortunately, there's lots of spy-lite creepy-killy action. Huzzah!

Is it any good?
The first-person narrative isn't great, as you need a very strong central character acting as the narrator to pull it off. Still, it does mean the countless action sequences flow at a readable pace, even if Sam's internal monologues/history/geography lessons seem a mite contrived.

Further reading
The shadowy David Michaels has four Splinter Cell novels - Benson's first,simply titled Splinter Cell, and the anonymous sequels,Checkmate andFallout.

Ben_Richardson

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.