This first mission has Fisher and an AI-controlled ally infiltrating a weapons facility in Iceland, before things have gone bad. So this is standard Splinter Cell fare, where you're proceeding through your required and optional mission objectives, occasionally taking direction and receiving updates from your old pal Lambert. But even within the first few minutes of the mission, new gameplay aspects became evident. For one, since this first mission sees you accompanied by a friendly operative, you can perform some of the tandem maneuvers that you could pull off in the cooperative mode of the last game, Chaos Theory, when you had a second player at the controls. You'll be able to boost your ally up to a high ledge, for instance, and then have him help pull you up too. Otherwise, this first mission features the same stealth action you've come to expect from Splinter Cell, requiring you to sneak around guards, disable lights and security systems, hack into computers, pick locks--basically, get in and get out without being seen.

At the end of this mission, though, the game drops a pair of story-related bombs. One, some bad guys have made off with the weapons you were after--though it turns out they weren't just any weapons. A cache of red mercury--the nigh-mythical, horrifically explosive chemical compound--has gone missing, and it appears it's fallen into less than savory hands. Needless to say, Fisher and Lambert aren't very happy about that. And then there's the fact that Fisher's daughter has just been killed, which he understandably doesn't deal with very well. In the face of frustrating government foot-dragging on the red mercury issue and a feeling of nothing left to lose, Fisher and Lambert hatch a plan allowing Fisher to infiltrate the underworld group with access to the red mercury, in order to save countless lives before things go awry.