Splinter Cell: Conviction Review

(Xbox 360; $59.99; Rated M for Blood/Drug Reference/Intense Violence/Sexual Themes/Strong Language; www.splintercell.com)

(three and a half stars)

The Tom Clancy-branded "Splinter Cell" series has held a dear place in my heart since its debut on the original Xbox console.  It refined and normalized the "stealth-action genre" that had been dominated by the "Metal Gear" franchise on the PlayStation.  Instead of awkward, Japanese-inspired camera work and controls, "Splinter Cell" stood out as being easier to navigate and quicker to get out of a tense situation.  It was, by no means, an easy game to get into though; even with its refined controls, "Splinter Cell" was definitely a hardcore gamer's game of hide-and-sneak.  It took patience and planning to make it through the levels with minimal amounts of detection and using shadows and distractions to your advantage.  It also had its fair share of frustrations in levels that would automatically end and force a restart if detected.

But that was part of its charm- it required the player to be methodical, which was such a nice change from the twitchy action games that dominate the consoles.

"Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow," the second game in the series, introduced a multiplayer mode that was refined in the third title "Chaos Theory," and completely overhauled in the fourth game "Double Agent." The multiplayer featured 2-on-2 (or 3-on-3 in "Double Agent") matches pitting Spies versus Mercenaries in high-tech game of cat-and-mouse.  Simply: the spies would try to hack terminals for points and the mercenaries would try to stop them.  It remains one of the most original and well-implemented forms of multiplayer to this day, though the steep learning curve and real need for teamwork is what probably caused the masses to go back to multiplayer games where you can shoot up guys real good-like.

"Splinter Cell: Conviction," the most recent release in the franchise, has been a hotly anticipated title since Ubisoft showed off its original incarnation in 2007.  Back then Sam Fisher, the game's protagonist, looked more like a shaggy-haired, brooding emo-kid than the cold, calculating super-spy that he is.  The 2007 version of "Conviction" also showed a lot of mechanics in gameplay, like hiding in crowds and hand-to-hand combat, that would later show up in Ubisoft's "Assassin's Creed."  For a while "Conviction," like its hero, went off-the-grid, and no one heard about it for a year.  At E3 in 2009, Sam was back and his game was completely revamped to look and feel more like something out of the "Bourne" movies.

Sam, who used to only be truly safe in the shadows, now has the firepower to pop out of the darkness and engage in straight-up, cover-based shoot outs.  Though the firefights aren't as prolific and eggregious as the would be in a game like "Gears of War," to see Sam do it is a little bizzare and definitely emphasizes the "Action" part of the "Stealth-Action" genre.

In fact, though stealth is still used in the game, and even smartly in some ways, players have to really want to be stealthy and avoid detection instead of being outgunned and forced to do so.  In past games, levels were designed in such a way that players felt the freedom to climb in, on, over, or around just about everything to approach the levels from different angles to avoid detection.

Here in "Conviction," there is generally only one way of getting through a situation, and often times stealth will only take you so far and players will be forced to engage in firefights.  Certainly at points in the game, the only way through the level is to start shooting, and this really takes away the fun in being sneaky.

Sure, you can use the "Last Known Position" trick where enemies get a bead on where they last saw you and converge on that position, giving you ample time to sneak around them and take them out in creative ways, but when your default weapon is so powerful that a well-placed head shot will drop most enemies with one pull of the trigger, you can pretty much stand your ground.

I would like to be able to play the game in such a way to not take down a single enemy, I do not believe it's possible to do so in "Conviction." Maybe it never was in the "Splinter Cell" franchise, but it should at least feel like it.

Another gripe about "Conviction" is the total removal of the Spies vs. Mercs multiplayer.  It is replaced by a full cooperative campaign that can be played with two players which act as a prologue to the events of "Conviction."  Working together as a team to take down enemies can be fun, especially when working with a good "You set 'em up, I'll knock 'em down" strategy; but there is nothing in the levels themselves that really require a second player, as evidenced by the fact that a single player can play through the entire co-op campaign alone.  The same problems in the single-player campaign make themselves apparent in the multiplayer: you have to want to be stealthy, but now you also have to want to cooperate.

Nevertheless, "Conviction" remains a solid game, and certainly the easier learning curve makes it a good introduction to those unfamiliar with the series, but its refinement in controls and mechanics come at the cost of dumbing down the gameplay too much for me, and the lack of a real competative multiplayer is disappointing.

Ubisoft, I'm telling you: if you design a Spies vs. Mercs multiplayer game for download, you may not have the massess jumping into it over "Call of Duty," but you will have a loyal fanbase that will be thanking you- the same fanbase that supported you to get to the fifth game in the "Splinter Cell" series.