Splinter Cell: Conviction

The Splinter Cell series has been around for almost a decade. Beginning 2002 with what was simply called Splinter Cell, the game spawned several sequels the fifth of which is Splinter Cell: Conviction the most current as well as today’s topic.
Till the third game in the series (Double Agent) the game’s story was more background focused, sticking with exotic local and setting while keeping character stories to a minimum. This changed with Double Agent as Sam Fisher’s (main character) personal life becomes the focus as his daughter was killed by a drunk driver, and he was sent on a deep cover mission to take his mind off it. Conviction continues this with not only having Sam leaving Third Echelon (Spy Agency) but having Sam learning that his daughter’s death was not an accident. He is going on quest to uncover who did it, but soon he is roped into Third Echelon business as a former friend now asks him to help as the agency has fallen under a new Director who is up too not too good things. The game takes Sam to a very local place, Washington D.C, where he needs to find out what’s going on and stop whatever evil is afoot. While fighting evil he goes to many famous landmarks including the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial.



While sticking to main idea of stealth this time around there have been many changes to the Splinter Cell formula, rather than sticking to the old method of have Sam Fisher relying on Third Echelon for Intel and equipment, this time he’s on his own. The game has also switched from the old ways of stealth of crouching in the shadow and waiting it, Conviction has turned to a more action orientation stealth approach, similar to what you would see in a Bourne movie with fast action and gunplay. That’s not to say it doesn’t do stealth well, it cover stealth quite well with a couple of new features. When you’re completely in the dark you’re screen turns black and with enemies and targets in color. You also have a feature called “Last know Position”, where if you’re fast enough when an enemy see’s you all that remains is an outline of where you where and that is where your enemy’s will search in that area leaving you to fool them and flank them. Another new edition is the “Mark and execute” feature. To do this simply take an enemy via hand to hand and he can now mark multiple targets and automatically kill shot them all with devastating headshots. To prevent this being a game breaker you can only store one round of kills. Also certain weapons have a certain number of marks you can make to limit easy kills.

Sam gains a wide variety of weapons along your path. Unlike past Splinter Cell game where you only had access to a silenced pistol and rifle along with gadgets like flash bangs and remote cams, you now have access to shotguns, assault rifles, as well as a number of gadgets like EMP, flash, and frag grenades as well as a remote camera, and an EMP backpack. Over the course of the game you gain XP for kills and completing challenges like kill X amount of people in the dark. You can use this XP to upgrade weapons and gadgets, giving an added edge like extra power or reload speed. Also during the single player you come across some interrogation scenes where to get information from a person, you can use the environment to bash them around to talk. Unfortunately what you can smash them into is limited and some scenes it’s not clear what you can interact with, If there’s nothing, then a standard and generic scene with Sam punching them in the face happens.

In addition to the single player campaign, there are two other modes in this game. A single/co-op mode called denied ops, a challenge mode were one or two agents from Third Echelon or its Russian counterpart called Kestrel. Denied Ops has four modes which you can play alone or against a human opponent as you clear out enemies, defend a bomb, infiltration without being seen or a simple death match. There is also co-op campaign where you play as one of said agents working together to take down a rouge Russian general.



Splinter Cell: Conviction is quite a good game, it manages to change game play but still keep the Splinter Cell feel. Stealth is done quite well and while a little dumbed down from previous games, it still does its job. Jumping from uncovered to cover is easy with a push of a button. To make things easier when you’re in the light or someone is seeing you’re screens in color, but when you’re completely in the dark you’re screen is black and white, a difference from the old games as you had a light on your back that went from green to red depending on your stealth. This provides a new level of visual experience that is rather immersive. All in all it’s a step up from the last games, where stealth was usually a step of trial and error as you had to watch out for guard patterns, as being seen could mean mission failure. Now being seen, while discouraged can be rectified without starting over. Also the mechanics of the game have changed focusing more on action than stealth, feeling more like the Bourne than the old Sam Fisher. Hand to hand is better as you can now take down enemies with brutal moves and efficiency. Adding to the fun is the co-op which is done quite well and is equally entertaining.

The Good
• Nice looking
• Excellent Story
• Deniable Ops
• Co-op
• Game play

The Bad
• N/A

The Ugly
• A.I could use some lesson’s

Written by Historiagamer
Edited by Josh
Images from www.giantbomb.com