Tom Clancy's Tom Clancy
Fact: there are approximately 17 million different types of Tom Clancy game. There's Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Tom Clancy's The Division... and that other one with the jets. We love them all dearly, even EndWar, which is why we think the world needs EVEN MORE Clancy games to quench our massive Clancy thirst.
That's why we've trawled through the list of games previously published by Clancy-brand owner, Ubisoft. We want to make a few suggestions about games that could be quickly, easily and brilliantly Clancy-fied. Quick word of warning: we may not be totally serious with some (ok, all) of our suggestions.
Tom Clancy's Dance on Broadway
We see this one starring Sam Fisher, as he abandons his career as a top-flight spy to pursue his life-long dream of performing on Broadway. You would play as Fisher and take control of his entire career, from young upstart to big-name star with his pick of the roles.
Of course, the gameplay would be all about singing and (somehow) keeping the world safe from terrorists. A jaunty rendition of 'All That Jazz' could prevent a potential chemical weapons attack by some disgruntled show-goers. Conversely, hitting a few bum notes during an audition for Fame could cost a 4th Echelon Agent their life!
Tom Clancy's Business Tycoon
So, this one would probably star Irving Lambert from the Splinter Cell series. Tired of getting paid relatively little for shielding Sam and the rest of 3rd Echelon from the wrath of the pen-pushers in Washington, Lambert quits to start his own business. That's where you come in.
You can choose from a wide variety of business areas, ranging from Military Contracting all the way to Private Security, and selling naughty underwear. With the help of an able, deadly, yet impossibly sexy secretary, you'll deal with normal, everyday business demands like high-level, political assassinations, covert weapon drops, and making sure the printer doesn't run out of cyan ink cartridges.
Tom Clancy's Cold Fear
We see this one starring Ding Chavez from the Rainbow Six series. While on board a luxury cruise with his mother, who has always been so supportive throughout his military career, Chavez gets a number of chills down his spine (cold fears, if you will) that remind him of mundane tasks he may have forgotten to do before leaving for his cruise.
You play through Chavez's memories of the events leading up to the cruise. In one thrilling level you'll be checking that you asked the nice lady next door to feed your gerbil. In the next, you'll be double-checking that you turned the TV off at the wall, because leaving it on Standby still wastes electricity. In another you'll struggle to recall whether you properly smashed an international terrorism ring threatening to blow up the Seattle Space Needle, or whether you just left a Post-It to yourself for when you get back into the office.
Tom Clancy's Hooters Road Trip
We see this one starring Col Mitchell from the Ghost Recon series. In this game, Mitchell is dropping off his eldest son at college, but because he was too pre-occupied with saving the world from insurgents, he's accidentally driven Mitchell Jnr to the wrong side of the country. To make matters worse, the insurgents have disguised themselves as Hooters waitresses and have infiltrated restaurants all across America.
Cue a hilarious racing game / shooter hybrid, where the Mitchell boys drive across the country hunting for busty terrorists and getting into all kinds of unlikely scrapes--all set against the clock, as the time for Mitchell Jnr to enroll at college ticks away.
Tom Clancy's Import Tuner Challenge
We see this game starring... well, who cares? Terrorists are on the streets of Tokyo! Posing as sentient, highly-modified sports cars, these evil doers are plotting to run-down several influential political figures in the Japanese government, and it's up to you to stop them.
You take on the roll of a beaten up Volvo Estate with a petrol-consumption problem. You're days from being decommissioned, but you decide to go deep under-cover in the modified sports world after one of the terrorist cars crashes into the Audi you've been parking next to for years. Can you save Tokyo by drifting further than your enemies? Or by having a louder exhaust and gaudier neons? Find out in Tom Clancy's Import Tuner Challenge.
Tom Clancy's Petz: Crazy Monkeyz
We reckon Dieter Webber from Rainbow Six would be ideal for this game. After returning home from a top secret mission that involved shooting a bunch of bad guys in the chin, Webber finds that his family bought two pet monkeys in his absence... and they've started breeding. Also, they're terrorists.
Your job is to hunt down every monkey in Webber's family home, using a net that looks like (but isn't identical to, for copyright reasons) the Ape Escape nets. The start of the game will see you attempting to humanely dispose of the prolific simians by catching them and taking them to a local zoo, but by the end you'll have access to all kinds of high-tech weaponry as Webber loses his patience and just hoses the horrible screeching beasts.
Tom Clancy's Tonic Trouble
We see this one starring Tom Clancy himself. Meta, we know. After a hard day spent writing intricate military fiction, Tom likes nothing more than to tend his vegetable patch at the end of his garden. It really gives him time to think, you know? One day, however, Clancy finds terrorists disguised as turnips hiding out in his patch, so he shrinks himself to 1/10th of his original size and decides to kick the radical root veg out of his garden for good.
This fun-for-the-whole-family platformer sees Clancy leaping between mounds of soil, stomping the evil turnips with his boots, or spraying them with military-grade pesticide. After each level, Tom records the events of the game in a notebook, mindful that he will one-day turn his veg-crushing exploits into a high-tech novel about the US navy.
Tom Clancy's Velvet Assassin
We see this one starring Anna Grimsdottir from Splinter Cell, largely because she's the only woman we can think of in any Tom Clancy game. Anyway. After a long day ordering Sam Fisher about in a really stern voice, Anna returns home desperate for some 'me time'. She runs a bath, but discovers that her tub is secretly a terrorist. That's when she puts on her velvet bath robe, and becomes Tom Clancy's Velvet Assassin (long-winded, but we got there!).
In this taught, stealth thriller Grimsdottir creeps through an unnamed American city, looking to rid the area of insurgent plumbing. Armed only with a spanner and some limescale remover, Grim will fight her way to the heart of the terrorist cell--the local swimming pool--for a final show-down with some truly evil communal showers...
All Clancy'd out
Well, we're sold on these games. Time to write that open letter to Ubisoft and make these things happen. Ahem. Look, we know this is a ridiculous feature--it's just for laughs. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
If you're hankering for some real, proper Tom Clancy coverage then look no further than our Splinter Cell Blacklist review. Perhaps you've already got Splinter Cell. Wise choice. Here's our preview of Tom Clancy's The Division, which is due on next-gen consoles in 2014.
