Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell is a series of award-winning stealth video games, the first of which was released in 2002, and their tie-in novels. The protagonist, Sam Fisher, is presented as a highly-trained agent of a fictional black-ops sub-division within the NSA, dubbed "Third Echelon". The player guides Fisher, who usually has the iconic trifocal goggles at his disposal, to overcome his adversaries in levels based on Unreal engines that were extended to emphasise light and darkness as gameplay elements. All the console and PC games in the series were critically acclaimed, and the series is commercially successful.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell was developed in 2 years, after which it was published and released by Ubisoft for the Xbox, PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Windows, and Mac OS X in North America on November 19, 2002. It uses an Unreal Engine 2 that was modified to allow the light-and-dark based gameplay. An HD remastered edition of the game was released on the PlayStation Network in late 2010. To date the game has sold over 3 million copies and won IGN's Best of 2002: Xbox Game of The Year.

Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. (born April 12, 1947) is an American author, best known for his technically detailed espionage, military science, and techno thriller storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games on which he did not work, but which bear his name for licensing and promotional purposes. His name is also a brand for similar movie scripts written by ghost writers and many series of non-fiction books on military subjects and merged biographies of key leaders. He is Vice Chairman of Community Activities and Public Affairs, as well as a part-owner, of the MLB Baltimore Orioles.

Clancy was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Loyola Blakefield in Towson, Maryland, graduating with the class of 1965. He then attended Loyola College in Baltimore, graduating in 1969. Before making his literary debut, he spent some time running an independent insurance agency. This agency thrived for a few years before joining a group of investors.

Clancy and his first wife Wanda married in 1969, separated briefly in 1995, and permanently separated in December 1996. Clancy filed for divorce in November 1997, which became final in January 1999.

The Blacklist is an Australian hard and fast beer metal band formed in Melbourne in late 2001. The band features former members of the Sex Bombs, the Spoilers, the Demolitions and Warped, and play music in a similar vein to Motörhead, the Hookers, Venom and Zeke.

Shortly after their debut album Electric & Evil was released, the Blacklist added a third guitarist to their line-up.

Formed in late 2001 by ex-members of the Spoilers and the Sex Bombs, the Blacklist went into the studio in January 2002 to record their debut EP Attacks (International Trash) without having performed live.

The Blacklist’s debut album, Electric and Evil (Spooky Records), was recorded in September 2003 but was not released until late 2004.

The band undertook an extensive European tour in April/May 2005 that saw them cover the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany and Slovenia.

The Blacklist completed work on their second album, Total Blacklist (Drug Bust Records), in 2007. The album was released in April 2008.

Sadly (but possibly happily), the whole band died after drinking gallons of dodgy toxic (but very alcoholic) home made beverages while on tour in Slovenia in 2005. At least they died doing what they loved.