Game Review: Splinter Cell Conviction
This game has one vital point … IT – IS – NOT – CALL – OF – DUTY.
Some of you may have spotted my posts in the recent weeks about me playing a computer game …. and being sad. Well all is true, well, and good in the world now as I have completed it. So here is a review in my own highly factual and linear way … so don’t expect too much of this to make sense.
I’m going to fill in the back story for the game very quickly so if your reading this you can understand what the game is; the Splinter Cell Franchise (now 5 real games in total) is a ‘Stealth-Action game’, this means although there are guns if you try to charge in guns blazing (as per COD’s [And if you pronounced that 'cod' as in the fish throw yourself out a window] example of real life) you will fall over in the doorway and resemble swiss cheese as you hit the floor. These games require some thinking and timing in order to not give yourself piercing the size of a 7.62mm bullet, you can survey the room, find the bad guys, look at the surroundings, go up a ledge get a vantage point and then begin to pick them off one by one in the shadows without getting shot and without then realising that their mates have suddenly taken permanent holiday leave.
The newest game to the franchise however has fiddled with the formula a bit and made some changes. Whereas before the idea was to quietly knock out that guard and put him in the shadows so his mate didn’t see you, now you can’t move lifeless NPCs (Non Playable Characters) at all. There is now more action (in the hope to attract some new fans I’d imagine), and more combat orientated but make no mistake if you don’t prepare a plan or react quickly and decide to bash down a door you will get some serious lead poisoning from the enemy coming your way.
So lets start the beginning of the game; you start off being contacted by a old friend (Grim, if you care about the back story here’s is the Wikipedia article) and there is lots of forward and back with some timeline bits here and there but you can feel the game has changed, provided you’ve played the other games. If you’ve ever watched or know what the TV series 24 is then the plot almost gets a bit familiar (by no means a bad thing seeing as i enjoy 24 a lot as well!) Sam Fisher gets dragged back into a world he thought he left behind to combat a new threat. Not knowing who to trust apart from a friend from the past and having hear strings pulled from every angle he sets about doing what he does best and getting the job done. There are some good twists along the game which players who have played previous games will like (playing Double Agent is almost vital … actually, just watch the opening video of the game and you have most the story already), and all the (remaining) characters from the games have all had a somewhat ‘visual’ upgrade especially Grim (who for some reason is now ginger?!).
The gameplay is nice and varied with some levels requiring a more upfront approach in order to complete and others relying you holstering your weapon till the right moment and in one swoop clear the room. The pace is also well thought out with a nice rhythm running through what the designers call ‘the gameplay loop’; you go into a room, survey, plan, execute, and disappear ….. sometimes with the steps ‘fuck up’ and ‘run away’ implemented between the last two points. You can customise your loadout whenever you come across a ‘Weapons Cache’ which is a chance to change your weapons, refill ammo and spend points from completing challenges on customising your weapons. Each item has three upgrades which you can purchase which change the effects of your weapons like adding more ammo, increasing the range, or adding and extra ‘Mark & Execute’ marker to the weapon (a new game mechanic which i think it amazing but tons of fanboys are complaining about).
I want to go through some of the stuff i like about this game; firstly, i love all the new mechanics that have been introduced, the game looks well made and the environments are smooth and solid which is an advantage. Unlike most of the games brought out this year by developers, Ubisoft Montreal have used a colour other than grey and brown to colour the worlds and its for the best. Gone are the colour and noise measurement bars from the previous SC games, now if you are in shadow the world saturates (yes it goes grey but in a good way) leaving the dynamic (destructible) parts of the world lit up as well as highlighting enemies and if you’re in the open the world is normal colour which makes the game easier to play as it means you’re not watched bars the entire time. I also love the cut scenes, they fill in story, provide background for the loading scenes, and help to keep the story going. In addition I like the new interrogation sequences where you bash bad guys using the environment to help you out they are well scripted and well animated.
But there are some things i don’t like the first major one isn’t even about gameplay. This game was first shown off in 2007 … then it died in 2008 when the project was scrapped, then it poped back up in 2009 and looked amazing and good fun and the first release date was penned in, then it got pushed back (it always happens) and the second data was pencilled in and i waited (even pre-ordered a special version) and then the date got pushed back again to my annoyance … and then i get told that XBOX are getting the copy 11days before me!!! damn you!
But in terms of gameplay there really isn’t much i can say that i don’t like, sometimes the environment is so full of stuff to do that when you hit the action button to pick up a weapon or climb a pipe you can end up jumping over the box your using for cover and face-plant some bullets in flight which is a bit annoying but the other issue when this happens is that some of the saves are quite far apart so when you screw up you might have to go through the same cut scenes or fights to get to the point again. But my main problem was with a 20sec sequence when you go the hornets nest and you need to watch a cut scene, then jump over a desk and get past the guy in the booth with a gun in 5secs before the power comes back on … i lost count of how many tries that took me! Also there is a really random flash back mission but its all still good as you get to exercise that ‘gung-ho’ part of your brain for a bit.
So now for the sum up … in case it wasnt obvious from my facebook statuses and from this post just how much i like this game …. i like this game! 
Although it is a step away from tradition its a step in the right direction, with the previous games if you didn’t see everything and went in you would killed and that could get pretty annoying at times. Also there is a much better story here, it was really as good in the previous games and as such it would just feel like you’re doing missions just to do them rather than with some sort of aim. It all well put together and if you’ve never played the previous games this might be the one to get you in to the series. I would however only play this one and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory as they are prime examples of getting right.
Sam Fisher, professional badass defined.
