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Silent Ops - TV Tropes

  • ️Wed Jan 15 2025

Silent Ops (Video Game)

Welcome to Ubiquity.

Silent Op is an action/stealth-based Third-Person Shooter developed and released by Gameloft for the Android and iOS devices, whose gameplay format - like most of Gameloft's outputs - is based on an existing mainstream franchise but refitted for mobile devices, in this case the Splinter Cell series. And with a plot "borrowed" wholesale from GoldenEye (1997).

Patriarch, a massive terrorist network operating on a global scale, has their agents stationed in every corner of every country, and only the international peacekeeping organization known as the Ubiquity stood in Patriarch's way. Ubiquity's top agent and the player hero, John Oaks, has a personal vendetta with Patriarch due to an incident eight years ago; assigned on a mission alongside his best friend and partner, Hans, to investigate a Patriarch facility developing a highly-potent bio-weapon strain, the mission unfortunately ends with a bust where Hans was killed in action while John escapes, triggering detonators along the way and destroying the facility.

Eight years later, John is an elite senior agent investigating Natalia Petrovich, a CIA Rogue Agent suspected to be affiliated with Patriarch, only to discover the truth that Hans is not only still alive - with half of his face disfigured - but was actually under Patriarch's payroll, having faked his death in Geneva to throw his superiors off his back. With Hans' betrayal and Natalia's assistance, Patriach now had access to a highly-potent biological virus and they're intending to hold the world at ransom.

Have we mentioned the game wants to be GoldenEye so much that it hurts?

It started in Geneva eight years ago...

  • And Now for Someone Completely Different: The second- and third-to-last stage has Nicole being the player-controlled agent instead of John. And she turns out to be quite capable in kicking ass too, if not better.
  • Artificial Stupidity: The AI for enemy mooks are severely lacking to the point of being ridiculous. They're programmed to react only to John, where they attack him if John is within view; so if John kills one of their colleagues from a hidden corner via silenced pistol, expect another one of them to blindly walk over their comrade's corpse without batting an eye.
  • Ax-Crazy: Natalia, the ex-CIA Rogue Agent/Psycho for Hire under Patriarch's payroll, seems to enjoy her job a little too much; her Establishing Character Moment sees her gleefully shooting up a room filled with rival arm dealers, and she's absolutely giddy when piloting a turret-equipped helicopter to wipe out the penthouse staff of a high-tech facility in Hong Kong. She predictably becomes The Starscream when she kills Hans at the end to take over Patriarch leadership.
  • Ballistic Discount: Natalia's first scene sees her making a business deal in Capri with some Russian Arms Dealer group to obtain blueprints required for Patriarch's latest virus prototype. After receiving the go-to from her higher-ups via phone, Natalia promptly murders everyone in the room in under a minute, even severing the last guy's wrist to free his Handcuffed Briefcase.
  • Cast of Expies: That the game isn't particularly blunt about, being a GoldenEye (1997) Whole-Plot Reference. John Oaks is James Bond, Hans is Alec Treveylan, and Natalia Petrovich is an even nastier Xenia Onatopp. Meanwhile Patriarch can be seen as a stand-in for SPECTRE (from the 1960s Connery-era Bond), with their leader spending his entire screentime with his face obscured being the Blofeld equivalent.
  • Convenient Escape Boat: Natalia, after slaughtering the leaders of a Russian mafia syndicate for a prototype virus sample in a yacht, makes a quick getaway with jetskis conveniently parked outside. John needs to chase after her of course while battling mooks, and luckily there's a second jetski he can use to pursue Natalia with, and Nicole arriving via speedboat seconds later to assist him.
  • First-Episode Twist: The first stage seemingly concludes with Hans killed in the Geneva facility's self-destruction as John escapes, if just barely. And then Hans shows up in a cutscene — half his face burnt off but still quite alive - conversing with Patriach's No. 1, where it's revealed he faked his death and is working for the villains the whole time.
  • Grappling-Hook Pistol:
    • After Natalia killed her fellow arms dealers in the Capri stage, she fires a grappling-hook gun outside a broken window and swings out - John catches up in time to see her landing on jetskis parked below.
    • John uses a pair at the start of the Hong Kong mission, while gliding above the city in a wingsuit, to cling on the roof of a high-tech government facility he's supposed to infiltrate and reel himself in... while a helicopter piloted by Natalia is busy shooting up the place.
  • "Hey, You!" Haymaker: A method John constantly uses to take down enemy mooks from behind; by stealthily sneaking upon enemies without being noticed, if John's close enough a skull icon will appear. Hit the action button and THWACK! - there's even a bonus for the amount of mooks eliminated in this manner.
  • Hollywood Silencer: The silenced pistol plays this trope straight, with every shot reduced to a soft phut that sounds like a whisper. Being a Stealth Game, it's used for taking out mooks to avoid drawing security.
  • Kidnapped Scientist: Dr. Rahman, the only survivor of the attack on Hong Kong, was subsequently abducted by Natalia during the chaos and taken to Patriach's Dubrovnik facility, where she's forcing him to further develop the viral strain... while showing him a video feed of his abducted son. Even after Rahman helped Patriarch complete the viral research, Natalia executes his boy anyway... while making Rahman watch before killing Rahman too for good measure.
  • Quick Time Event: More than one of these shows up throughout the game, usually done by having the player slide their fingers over the device's screen before a timer hits zero. Either to help John avoid and dispatch enemy mooks, dodge obstacles during chase scenes, hack through control panels, dive through closing doors, and all that. Occasionally failing some of these events requires a stage to be restarted.
  • Outrun the Fireball: In the final stage, after John killed Natalia, the reformed Hans activated the plague missiles' self-destruction before he succumbs, and John's partner Nicole took out the rest of the mooks before she rendezvous with him. Hans informs John the base is about to blow and he should leave - cue the last cutscene where John and Nicole leaps through a tunnel exit as the whole place explodes, narrowly avoiding getting caught in the blast radius themselves.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Hans, wounded by Natalia's bullet and near his death throes, decides to return to the side of good one last time by activating the bio-virus missiles' self-destruction and telling John to take down Natalia and put a stop to Patriarch's operations. Alongside apologizing to John for his betrayal.
  • Sequel Hook: The game ends with John completing his mission, and the villains Hans and Natalia dead, but the Greater-Scope Villain, the No. 1 of Patriarch, still alive and on the loose. However this hook was Left Hanging and Gameloft seemed unlikely to make a follow-up.

    Patriarch No. 1: Well played. But I wouldn't celebrate just yet. You might have won this round, but the game is far from over.

  • Sniping Mission: The missions in Hong Kong and Lake Como requires John to set up his Sniper Rifle a distance away and snipe mooks before attempting an infiltration, with the screen turning into an entire crosshair while John tracks down enemies and shoot them.
  • Spy Catsuit: John tends to wear a black, full-body suit when assigned on infiltration missions. In the prologue, both John and Hans wears these.
  • Strapped to an Operating Table: In the opening cutscene, the Cardinal captured alive by Patriarch agents was subjected to this fate while having goggles strapped over his eyes, as a Patriarch scientist prepares to inject him with chemicals to better probe his mind.
  • Synthetic Plague: Patriarch's latest project revolves around development of an artificial bioweapon strain, that John and Hans sabotaged in the prologue mission, but it resurfaced years later. In the finale, Natalia, after betraying and killing Hans, intends to launch Patriarch's missiles - loaded with the bio-virus - into the stratosphere to unleash The Plague, and John needs to stop her once and for all.
  • Title In: Used every time to announce the location where a new stage is set. Right in the prologue, we see a huge "GENEVA" all in caps that takes up the entire screen, before zooming out to show the city by a waterfront. Meanwhile the stage in Hong Kong has the camera zooming through the gap between the first G and K...
  • Tracking Device: The Capri mission seemingly ends with Natalia escaping with samples of the prototype virus at the conclusion of a speedboat chase, but John's partner Nicole is nearby and fired a tracking node on Natalia's case. Cue the next level.
  • Vulnerable Civilians: The opening Geneva stage has civilain scientists that can be killed by accident, and John will be penalized for shooting them because "it would be against Ubiquity's policy". Yet another element ripped off from GoldenEye 64...
  • Walking Swimsuit Scene: In the Capri mission, Nicole (the Mission Control who doesn't follow John, only standing by in a speedboat to provide backup) spends the whole stage wearing a white bikini, including the subsequent chase scene while she backs up John while shooting mooks.