Splinter Cell, however, does become slightly frusterating. You have to play and play and play to get to an area where you can save. If you're going to play it, make sure your gameboy has a full battery.

This is the best Gameboy Advanced game I have yet to play.

Luckily, the gameplay in the Gameboy Advance version of Splinter Cell is smooth enough to keep you coming back. But a large chunk of the enjoyment is eliminated by the poor game-save system. You could plow through six or seven different parts, hanging on to your health by a thread, and then miss one step and get blasted back several steps in the game. Some repeat gameplay is necessary for this genre, but this one goes too far.

The graphics are unexceptional but acceptable. The idea of having multiple puzzles to solve (for example, when you upload top-secret files to your superiors, the game gives you a twisty maze puzzle to solve) is a great one and adds to the scope of the game. However, they really should have added a much more comprehensive tutorial to the Training level of this game. While the puzzles tend to be very intuitive, the in-game obstacles are not. How about actually telling us that our rifle is silenced and that you can shoot cameras out without alarming the guards? Or how to get around an automatic gun turret without being seen? No One Lives Forever did a great job in this department, training you in the use of gadgets and various in-game activities before you're thrown out into the missions, preventing unnecessary replays just to figure out what to do.

I do play this game quite a bit, despite the high frustration factor, but by the time I'm forced to replay certain boneheaded parts of a mission the 30th time just because of one super-tough obstacle at the end, the enjoyment's sucked dry. They should have added more checkpoints along the missions. As it stands, this is a good game, but if you're only a casual game player like me instead of a thumb wizard, you better be prepared for multiple repetitive, eventually tiring replays.