China - Shanghai

At the beginning of this level, you'll have to take on the controls of the helicopter you're flying in, after the pilot suffers an acute case of CIA poisoning. Simply move the ship back on course by pressing your left analog stick to the right until the ground levels out. If you want to put the chopper into a maniacal death-spin, that's your right as well.

NSA Primary Objective: Record The Secret Meeting
NSA Secondary Objective: Infiltrate The Hotel Without Alerts

Time to get busy. When you can start moving Fisher around, move him to one of the small stacked set of pallets in order to boost yourself up to the railings above, where the guard was standing a few moments ago. He'll eventually move away a bit and start talking to the other guard on the small structure. When you're on the upper level, sneak around to the opposite side of the antenna building and climb up the pipe there to reach the roof.

Uh, I'm the cable installer?

The two guards should still be busy talking when you hit the roof. If you're quiet and careful, you can stay in the green on your light meter while you sneak around and get underneath the zipwire and jump up to it, or you can zap the light on the antenna with your EMP device on your pistol if you want to be extra sure you're not spotted. Either way, get underneath the zipwire and jump up to slide across. You go across bare-handed, which would shred the flesh of most mere mortals, but hey - this is Sam Fisher we're talking about.

You'll land on another roof nearby, free of guards. Hop over the air duct near you and immediately drop down to reach another section of the same roof. A small set of wooden planks will lead you across to the top of a large container. If you head towards the lighted area nearby, you'll probably spot a couple of guards and a pair of floodlights. Your goal is to drop down and head up the set of steps leading to the crane nearby. If you zap both of the lights and monitor the guard's reactions, you should be able to find a path to the steps. It's not very far. Just remember to edge off the container so that you turn around and grab hold before you drop; otherwise you'll make a crunching sound when you hit the ground and get the attention of the guards.

When you hit the top of the steps, move over to the small control panel near the crane. (If you can't spot it right away, use your wave vision to see it.) No guards patrol up here, so take your time and hack the box so that you can extend the crane with its lights off. Immediately after you do so, though, a soldier will come up the steps and investigate, so hide behind the control box until he goes away (you can EMP the light across the way to move him more quickly), then climb up onto the crane and start rappeling down.

Time For Fireworks

The climbing section of the level begins in earnest now. When you start rappeling, go straight down until you hit the window washing platform, then move off to the left. When you hit an obstacle in the corner, drop down to hang on with your hands, then continue to the left until you can slide down the pole nearby. From there, slide to the right while hanging on until you hit an obstacle in your path.

Moss can't see you through the window, as bizarre as it may seem. Record the meeting from anywhere you like.

A party appears to be ongoing inside the windows here, so you'll have to be careful about your movement. Each of the two obstacles here will require you to pull yourself up to the top of the walkway and move on your feet, but each of them will also be "guarded" by a drunken civilian inside. The first obstacle is near a man who rotates his head to look inside and then look out the windows. Wait for him to look out the windows, then, when he turns back inside, quickly pull yourself up and sidle along to the right and drop back down when you can. At the second obstacle, simply wait for the gentleman in the chair on the left to get up and fall over in a stupor, then repeat the process and move off to the right. The fireworks here will occasionally light up your light meter, but that doesn't matter; if people can't see you, then it doesn't matter how lit up they are.

After the checkpoint marker, hook yourself up to rappel again and quickly go down the building; you can use your jump button to make one large leap if you like. When you reach the window into the meeting room, quickly equip your laser microphone and point it at the glass; you'll need to get there before the conversation proceeds too far if you want to have a chance to record enough to appease your NSA masters. If you jump down, though, you should be there in plenty of time.

Infiltration

With the meeting recorded, immediately stow the microphone and start hitting your jump button to rappel down as far as you can. The helicopter that you're hearing about will be coming down the building in an attempt to spot you, but if you're quick, you can completely avoid it. Just jump down the building until you're forced to disengage, then quickly move off to your left until you hit a couple of gray panels. Drop down to your hands at this point and move over to your left.

Real smooth, Sam.

If you didn't beat the helicopter down to the bottom level here, you'll have to avoid its spotlight. It's a pretty regular rotation, where it'll move left when it's on the bottom of the ridge and right while it's on top. It's easy to avoid; just stand and move to the left when it's pacing on the bottom, then drop down when the light comes up top and move with your hands while it's on the top. When you reach the gray air conditioning casings, again, move over to the left.

You won't be able to go far, but no matter; a soldier will eventually come up to one of the casings and open up to peek outside. He can't see you, but you can pull him out if you wish, then climb up yourself. If you're going nonlethal, then whistle to alert him, then wait for him to walk away and quickly tap the jump button to climb on up. He'll move around to the side, allowing you to sneak around to the right and disable him.

NSA Primary Objective: Sample Red Mercury
NSA Secondary Objective: Don't Kill Any Civilians

Time to get busy. Now that you're inside the hotel, you have to find some way to get upstairs without causing a ruckus. You're in the laundry room, and Emile and friends are one level up. Guess where you're going?

Anyway, laundry room first. There are a few guards on this floor, but only one of them should currently be inhabiting the laundry room, although one more may join him soon. There are a few ways to proceed from here, but the simplest one will let you sneak through without getting any attention at all.

To begin with, zap the light in the air conditioning room, then open the door and peek off to your right. The soldier there shouldn't be able to see you, so creep off beyond the tables towards the red switch on the wall. There'll be an electrical line off to the left of the switch; cut it to cut the lights in the washer/dryer room. With that done, watch the soldier until he moves off a bit, then sneak behind the left row of washers to find a small gap leading to an open access port. This port has a ladder, which leads you up to a closet in Emile's hotel room. Simple!

If you want to make things more interesting, you can fool around in the laundry room (the valves on the walls cause bursts of steam to shoot out, which either disables or kills anyone it gets in contact with) or attempt to move out the other exit from the room to find the stairs. It's a far more complicated path and will probably force you to disable more enemies, so if you're looking to stay stealthy, the behind-the-washers path is definitely the best bet.