Bone-idle.ie - SPLINTERCELL CONVICTION

INDEPENDENT GAMING WEBSITE

WWW.BONE-IDLE.IE

SPLINTERCELL CONVICTION

TITLE : SPLINTERCELL CONVICTION
PLATFORM : XBOX360
DEVELOPER : UBISOFT
RELEASE DATE : OUT NOW

You may have thought that after loosing his daughter killing his best friend and retiring from 3rd Echelon that Sam Fisher was finished. But oh no at the ripe old age of 56 Sam is back once again for one more mission. The game that has been in the pipeline for what seems like an age has finally gotten here. Dogged by release date set backs and exclusivity rumours the next game in the Splinter Cell series has finally landed. Conviction is definitely an evolution in the series, one that many of the old school fans will be unsure about as it deviates from its pure stealth background.

The Story as always is full of good twists. Retirement was never a real option for Sam knowing his daughters killers where still on the loose and when he finds out that they are planning an attack on Washington DC he see's this as his opportunity for revenge. This revenge sets the pace for the game. He is no longer happy with slipping past people unnoticed and lurking in the shadows he has retribution to deliver and will go through anyone that stands in the way.

Sam hasn't forgotten his training and stealth still plays a big part in Conviction. But in a bold new move Ubisoft have replaced all the stealth meters with a clever new technique. When you are in cover the screen goes black and white this ensures that the enemy can't see you. Stepping out into the light reintroduces the colour to the screen you then know if your exposed again. This works really well it keeps a nice flow to the game. This is very important as the story has a sense of urgency to it so the game needs to keep ticking along at a nice pace.

Ubisoft use a very good loading system to help with the flow of the game. Bar the initial load up at the start of a level so you are never interupted. Cut scenes are projected onto walls and objects in game to both keep the flow and to created a very stylish look to the game in fact on more than one occasion i thought this was more Jack Bauer than Sam Fisher. Not a bad thing but its clear to see some one in Ubisoft has been a fan of 24.

The cover system is brilliant, well almost brilliant. It is one of the best i have ever used. Holding the L-trigger gets Sam in behind his chosen cover, but it doesnt stick him too it. It is very smooth you can dive behind cover with ease, you can move between cover with ease and you can get out of cover by simply backing away. Removing that horrible glitch of popping out from cover at the wrong time or place that has plagued other games. The only problem i have with it is your ability to move from one piece of cover (by hitting the A button) to the next is distance limited. Meaning that if you need to get across a room or road quickly you dont get an next cover option so you need to just get up and run a very minor complaint.

The third big change is the one that got the most critisim from the hard core fans. The ability to mark and execute enemies was met with trepidation. It is not always available. A hand to hand kill will unlock this feature. You can then mark 2 to 4 enemies (depending on your weapon and upgrades) with big red arrows. Then one press of you button and Sam takes them all out automatically. This does look really cool but it does make the game a little easier. Being faced with a room full of soldiers now dosent seem so daunting and doesn't require the thought process to trick and pick off enemies one by one that fans have come to love. You don't need to use this feature you can still creep around if that is your preferred method but i found myself using it too often because it looks so good.

Graphically it is quite impressive. Animation is very smooth and of course as its so important the lighting is top notch. Using black and white and projecting the cut scenes onto walls give the game a sense of style lacking from modern gaming. Some character design leaves alot to be desired but on the most part it is good looking game.

A lot has been made of convictions length and while its not the longest it did take me a lot longer than the reported 5 hours to finish!. But thats not all there is to the package. A new co-op feature has been introduced. It features 2 other characters Archer and Kestrel. The story is a prequel to the single player mode the two agents are on the tail of some missing WMD's. If you thought the single player mode was good you will love this. Teaming up with your friends in either split screen or online games in a new mode with its own stand alone story is really brilliant fun. Of course since its co-op you need to work together thats the point.

Overall: Hard core fans will be a bit disappointed that Splinter cell has changed so much if they view this as a totally new game they should enjoy it but i fear the fans will feel hard done by. New players or those players that are more common the ones that liked the series but got stuck and a bit fed up with the slow pace to the old games will be delighted. This is action packed it has a good story and as always with Tom Clancy games the scripting and acting is very good. This may open up a new market for Ubisoft to revisit the series again with a bigger budget and hopefully a few extra hours of gameplay as i thoroughly enjoyed this outing.

SCORE : 90%