Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction Review

Sam Fisher is back and boy, is he annoyed. With good reason too, at the end of the last game, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Sam's daughter Sarah got killed in a hit and run, and he was forced to kill his friend and boss Irving Lambert.
After all this he leaves the employment of Third Echelon and heads for Malta looking for his daughters killer.

This is where Splinter Cell Conviction kicks off, your thrust right into the action immediately as you need to escape the market place in which your currently sat. A familiar voice in your ear is informing you of multiple hostiles winging their way towards you pretty quickly. This level serves as the tutorial, explaining the new features of the game to you along with simple manoeuvres like movement, gaining cover and dispatching enemies. At the end of the tutorial level you get to interrogate the leader of the group of men you've just killed, this is something that I found quite fun, there's something sadistically satisfying about smashing a bad guys head against a toilet in the pursuit of the truth!

I particularly enjoyed a part of the game where you have to walk about a funfair looking for people who are following a friend, once found you have to drag them into the darkness away from the general public and beat a confession out of them. Interrogation allows you to pick which item around you that your going to face plant the unlucky guy your holding by the throat into. An interesting inclusion that breaks up the action a little bit sometimes, in a good way.

Throughout all of the action glowing commands appear on walls, pointing you in the right direction telling you what to do. This is something that continues throughout the game and is pretty useful as it means you don't have to stop your game you can just carry on without interrupting the flow of the action. Along with the glowing writing, black and white old style movies are projected upon walls and other surfaces, these tell the story of the game, play flashbacks from Sam's past, and give all kinds of useful information. This is a unique way of doing things, certainly not something I have seen in a game before. The game play isn't interrupted by cut scenes all the time, it seems like you're watching the contents of Sam Fishers mind projected for you to see and helps you to gain a greater understanding of why he is the way that he is. Its an interesting idea and I do feel that Splinter Cell Conviction benefits from this casual style of story telling.

Controls are pretty easy to use, with the W,A,S,D keys used to move, the space bar is used for a variety of different commands such as opening doors, jumping over items, moving from one area of cover to the next one automatically and picking up items. Prompts appear on screen when you are near something that space bar would be used for to let you know that the item can be picked up, the door can be opened, the window can be jumped out of so on and so forth. Ctrl is used to toggle crouching on and off, left mouse button for firing your weapon and right mouse button for crouching behind cover. Other commands include C to do an unarmed kill, and F to use your available gadgets. Gadgets can however be assigned to the number keys to make selection and use easier.

It is a nice feeling when you are able to walk into a room under the cover of darkness, silently take down someone standing in front of you, duck behind a chair, snipe somebody across the far side of the room, climb up a pipe on the wall and dangle from the ceiling and grab someone from above, clearing the room in a matter of minutes in an efficient and stylish manner and not having to contend with clunky controls.

One of the new features to the game, and probably the most notable is the mark and execute system. When you do a unarmed kill you gain the ability to do an execution, dependant on weapon and how upgraded it is you can lock on 2 or more targets by pressing Q whilst targeting your victims, do this as many times as your allowed to at that point and then press E and watch Sam take them all out execution style. Whilst this is really useful for getting yourself out of some tight spots it can make the game a little too easy sometimes. Room clearing strategy can be reduced down to pick off the lonely guy in the corner with a unarmed kill, gain the mark and execute ability and mark two, three and sometimes four of them and tada, room clear. This may sound like a good idea but it seems a shame to constantly use this when there are so many other wonderful ways to kill your enemy's but the easiest way so often prevails.

Another interesting inclusion is last known position, if you have been detected by the enemy and then manage to sink back into the shadows a white outline of where they last saw you will remain. This is really useful for outsmarting them as they will continue to unload their guns in that general direction giving you a chance to move away, sneak up behind them and silently break their neck. Unfortunately, unlike in previous games, you are not able to drag the bodies of the recently deceased to somewhere more inconspicuous looking, meaning you have to leave them in full view of their friends which will obviously make them suspicious and want to come take a look at what's going on making it sometimes a lot more difficult to escape. It doesn't feel as stealthy as previous titles, you must keep Sam moving pretty much constantly otherwise there's a good chance of him being found and killed. This may alienate players of the series a bit. It plays well though, even without some of the older features.
If waiting around in shadows picking enemies off one by one is your way of doing things this is still possible, using the light and shadow cover system, when you are completely invisible to enemies your screen goes black and white. Very useful for planning attacks and for running away if you have been spotted to let you know you've escaped your captors.

No good agent is complete without an arsenal of gadgets to aid them along the way, Sam Fisher is no exception. Along your way you will find all kinds of items to help you ranging from a simple car mirror used to look under doors, to its upgrade the snake cam, a fibre optic cable passed under doors attached to a screen so you can view whose behind that door. Other goodies include multiple types of grenade, sonar goggles and a EMP device which knocks out nearby electronics such as light so you can make a speedy getaway. Some interesting stuff that works well and does exactly what you want it to. You are also able to upgrade your weapons, completing some of the games P.E.C challenges (persistent Elite Creation) such as pull 10 people from a window will net you points which you can spend on upgrading your weapons with all kinds of goodies such as new sights, better bullets and higher capacity magazines. Doing this also gives you more marks to use when using the mark and execute system. The P.E.C. challenges offer some replay value to those who like to complete everything and can be good fun to achieve.

Along with the single player story there is also a two player Co-op prequel to the story which sees you and a friend retrieving stolen Russian EMP weaponry before it is sold on the black market. On top of the Co-op there's plenty of challenges to keep you coming back, these Deniable ops come in 4 different variety's. First up there's Hunter, where its your take to sweep through the map taking everybody out. Every time you get detected reinforcements are bought in making the it harder to clear. Next up there's Last Stand, In this mode you have to defend an EMP generator against waves of enemies, basically a defending a certain point mission. Then there's Face-off which pits you against another spy and waves of enemies. You both gain points for the enemies you kill and gain bonus points if you are able to track the other spy down and kill them. And last but not least there's Infiltration, your goal is to eliminate all enemies without being detected at all. These extra modes add a lot of re-playability when the main story is finished which in turn increases the longevity of the game.

Overall, Splinter Cell Conviction is a good game, it has plenty of action to keep people happy as well as lots of stealth to entertain those who like to hang around in the shadows...watching...waiting for the opportune moment. With a unique way of telling the story and nice looking locations its certainly not displeasing on the eye. It can however be a little too easy in places with the Mark and Execute ability and the removal of some of the stealth aspects found in previous games may alienate lovers of the original series however. It takes a step away from the old formula and in my opinion is better for it, definitely worth a try.