Sam Fisher, As Played By Jack Bauer
I hate Splinter Cell. I've practically always done so. When Splinter Cell Conviction was announced I took the same reserved opinion that I had with the rest of the games. I thought to myself, "as luscious and promising the engine and presentation would seem, the game itself would always fall flat to poor design choices". And like Peter Molyneux would over-hype his own creations, Ubisoft would fail to impress me with the usual problems their games would have: unimpressive pre-set animations, terminator vision enhanced AI (who effectively could wall hack) and a pre-determined set of gadgets.
The Splinter Cell series, in my opinion, really didn't push the envelope of the stealth & espionage genre. To make things worse, Ubisoft somehow kept to that trend for almost five years. Gamers somehow were able to tolerate it and more curiously spring the game series up during awards shows. I couldn't understand it. Conviction changes this. Before, the series had been predictable, with literally the same Sam Fisher working under the same Lambert to fix any international terrorist threat, yada, yada, yada. Realising this, Ubisoft would try to fix the design when Double Agent tried introducing a morality index. And the series went in a Jack Bauer direction with the focus of the games being less on stealth and more about action. In general, it was A LOT more of a visceral experience for a Splinter Cell title, and take it or leave it, was quite fun despite the change.
The underlying flaw to Double Agent wasn't that it changed the Splinter Cell experience but rather that it was too similar to the earlier, and arguably better, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. Conviction continues the fixation with recent action TV shows, like 24. Where to a lesser extent Splinter Cell Double Agent could be played as if a straight-forward third person action game the only way to play Conviction is as a straight-forward action game. That is probably where much of the hate for this entry into the series will derive from aswell.
Splinter Cell Conviction is set directly after the events of Splinter Cell Double Agent. Sam Fisher, former seasoned Third Echelon operative under the NSA, is now on the run after killing his boss Lambert. The story initially focuses on Sam's hell-bent crusade for answers, with the belief that the death of his daughter was staged. Yet as the plot thickens, Sam's stubborn motive to find out the truth would only plays part in a larger conspiracy, this time concerning the very integrity of the NSA itself.
As you might imagine, Splinter Cell Conviction is a very cinematic experience set in a more open environment than previous games in the series with sprawling towns and industrial areas being the common backgrounds to a firefight. Infact one stage nearly perfectly imitates the look of a funfair to the very attractions in the carnival. A bit of a shame that you can't play on them but I guess that would detract from the core of Conviction itself.
It would seem Ubisoft HQ paid particular attention to the firefights themselves in Splinter Cell Conviction and it can be played entirely as a straight forward third person shooter as unwise as that would be. I call it unwise because, being a stealth focused game, it is often better to avoid fighting altogether in Splinter Cell Conviction. In older Splinter Cell games it was a rather tedious effort bypassing your enemies without any attention as you had to carefully press the forward key or thumbstick in the direction you're going to not go too fast, equalling noise. That isn't a problem at all in Conviction, controls are literally as basic as walking, sneaking and running across levels.
Ubisoft cleverly stuck by the same shadow system with only three degrees of visibility. The only worry for being hidden now is to remain in a dark area. Simple. But it has to be said the the developers attention has probably been better spent on Sam's arsenal with Splinter Cell Conviction more than anything else. It would seem you now have a whole array of customisable weapons available in Splinter Cell, as you'd might discover upon first visit to the weapons locker. Guns can range from small handguns like the typical Sig Sauer to powerful assault rifles like the M4.
This is complimented alongside a whole new cover mechanic akin to that of Gears of War. Tom Clancy games have been adapting to such schemes for a while now with Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and Rainbow Six Vegas so it is nice to finally have an adapted version for Splinter Cell. There is also now a quick kill feature which has you aim up those you want to kill and give you the opportunity to quickly dispatch foes at the click of a button. But this option has to be stored from close-quarters knock-outs first. It contrasts heavily with the stiff and dull firefights of old Splinter Cell but also makes you wonder how much Conviction even feels like a stealth & espionage game.
I suppose that the same point has to be applied by Splinter Cell's eternal rival, the ever so visceral Metal Gear Solid IV, but Konami have always been light-years ahead of Ubisoft's own work. The constant AAA MGS series has made jumps in practically every area while Ubisoft set out on their homogenous annual releases. It is a shame because Conviction would show that the extra time and effort is more worthwhile than it seems for the Splinter Cell series. Although I would generally recommend this one over the others by all means I will note that it still a prompt, perhaps a little underwhelming of a conclusion. Splinter Cell has never dished out an amazing character or narrative and Conviction does good to carry on this trend, much unlike Metal Gear Solid. The game feels a short six to seven hours and while Metal Gear this time has nothing to say about length it compensates in short gameplay for magnificently memorable, and no doubt lengthy, cut-scenes in comparison.
Ubisoft does create a new plot for the series to develop from when the series felt as if in stand-still by the time Double Agent concluded but cinematic quality voice acting or cinematics aren't demonstrated enough to grasp the scale of Conviction. It still feels like a game with a slight Hollywood budget at the end of the day. Not that it matters anyway because running the thing at full blast on a solid set-up isn't exactly smooth without atleast a quad-core CPU processing the bustling environment developed for the game. It truly looks fantastic but the level of stutter is absolutely unacceptable when so many games are able to make decent use of two cores, not four. Otherwise you need only a middle of the road Radeon HD 3800 series or Nvidia Geforce 9800 to produce some solid visual results.
Splinter Cell Conviction is an absolutely amazing looking game at the end of the day with a landmark lighting system, studio quality in-game cutscenes and I suppose the same applies to a heavy extenet to the gameplay itself. It is a splendid reinterpretation of the series, much in the same way Metal Gear Solid 4 was for the MGS series with an engrossing story, accessible combat layout and an enjoyable co-op mode on the side. It is easily the most vivid Splinter Cell to date but might initially create a split in the audience as the action moves towards TV's 24 territory. That said, Conviction could of also been a couple of hours longer too, especially for a game that has been in develop as long as many years as it took. Ultimately though, this comes hard to regret and coming from a typically pessimistic gamer on the Splinter Cell series, you'd really be missing out if you were to not play this game. Give it a look now.
