Sam Fisher is going senile - Conviction *NO SPOILERS*

[Tolya]

So, I've got Splinter Cell Conviction. And I am fucking disappointed. The best game of the series was the Chaos Theory. It had developed graphics, fluid and interesting mechanics, good stealthplay (and by good I mean not the Commandos-like stealth play where you had to time your movements using a stopwatch making it look like playing Space Ace), cool gadgets and a cool story, involving the right mix of betrayal, conspiracy and foreign meddling. And of course famous Fisher's one-liners and interrogation dialogues which were just a blast to watch.

Then enter the Double Agent. Interesting premise, unfortunately the game mechanics were already going down. Movement was not so fluid, gameplay went a bit clunky and the levels in which you could stand on an iceberg in the middle of a full sun without being seen was slowly were just fucking ridiculous. It was the point at which more pressure was being put on the graphics department than on the actual gameplay. It was a bit buggy too, but still interesting enough to give it a whirl, with the possibility of making some choices along the way.

And finally we have Conviction. When the game was still in development I just loved the overall idea of the premise. It had this nice touch of Robert Ludlum's books or David Morrell's Brotherhood trilogy. Im a sucker for this kind of story and soaked the in-game footage and trailers with anticipation.

But something went awfully wrong somewhere. When I finally got the game (screw you Ubisoft DRM, with your broken shit which has been cracked within days of the game's premiere) I fired it up and went straight for the solo campaign.

First problem. Without giving away the actual plot, the game is narrated from future perspective by Sam's friend. I really hate this kind of narration in stories like this, because it takes away most of the feeling of uncertainty. The game's intro is set after the final events of the game without giving any actual information as to the plot development but it feels like a friendly pat in the back with the game devs saying "everything is going to be alright". It is not the kind of feeling you want to promote in a game like this. I want tension, uncertainty and imminent disaster.

Second problem. Cliches. Government conspiracies and rogue PMC's are slowly becoming a cliche. Can't you people invent anything new once in a while?

Speaking of PMC's, most of the game's enemies constitute of EVIL mercenaries. And I mean EVIL. Those guys are portrayed in a way that makes Charlie Manson look innocent. I always liked the greyness of Splinter Cell games - even if you were fighting against terrorist conspiracy, there always were some guys which were just in the wrong place in the wrong time. One of the best levels from Chaos Theory is set in New York after a blackout, where you actually had to avoid US soldiers trying to keep things under control. Here all bets are off and the game says it is OK to kill almost everyone (there are a few very rare and refreshing instances when you are under fire from the good guys, but that happens maybe once in the entire game).

This has its dire implications if we look at the fact that this game is very action oriented. You are no longer an outside factor trying to stay hidden. You can (and even are encouraged by the way the enemies are portrayed in the game) just kill everyone you see and move on. Couple that with the fact that your pistol has a silencer, unlimited ammo and Sam's firearms expertise and you suddenly realize that the game lacks what made the Splinter Cell games so interesting: competitive edge. There is just no incentive to sneak through the level, avoiding attention, making people disappear and use cool gadgets. Also, with the game becoming more action oriented, no one has really reworked the gameplay mechanics apart from adding a cover system and taking away the ability to fluidly change your speed using the mouse wheel. Oh, did I mention that Sam's footsteps are inaudible? You can dash through the level and no one will ever hear you, even if they are standing right next to you.

The game's main problem is that it tries to mix stealth and action gameplay and fails to do so. The final effect is average gunplay and watered down stealth. And the widely advertised "surprising plot" just fucking sucks and at some points is so horrendously stupid it makes you think that the devs really consider gamers a bunch of ignorant stupid retards. Some points in the game are so retarded that it makes Bioware look like Oscar nominees in the plot category. And I mean it.

Visually I can't complain, but Im not impressed anymore by big studios making good looking games - its a matter of having a large enough budget.

I haven't played the coop multi or the deniable ops yet, but the solo campaign didn't really encourage me to. I need a break.

If someone would ask me to write a review of this game I would give it 6/10. If not for the overhyped campaign and tons of promises I would probably consider a 7/10. I just got Episodes from Liberty City which provided ultimately much more fun than Conviction. I think those guys at Ubisoft should actually play The Lost and the Damned to see that it is actually possible to make a fun and believable story.

[weemadando]

I miss the ability to do a pure stealth approach, but then again at times I really liked the way the game played out. I have to say that the burglary scene was probably the most awesome tutorial scene that I've ever played.

I also appreciated the seamless approach that the game takes, moving from scene to scene really well. The changes in pace and perspective (like the Iraq level and some of the better interrogation scenes where Sam really rages out) make the game feel better than it really is.

I just wish that the game had been way more levels like the Maltese Market, Fairgrounds or the Lincoln Memorial and Diner were more the norm than shit like the water pumping station or airfield. That said, the scene: "Sam Fisher. I used to work here." *BOOM* is hilarious and really highlights his new approach to life.

I've been spending most of my time just messing about in the "terrorist hunt" modes trying all sorts of

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

6/10 is pretty damned generous.

So, I've got Splinter Cell Conviction. And I am fucking disappointed. The best game of the series was the Chaos Theory.

Hits the nail on the head.

Conviction is... pretty bad. I beat it a few days ago and apart from a couple of neat things I was not impressed.

PROS:

• Mark/Execute is potentially a cool mechanic. I say potentially because the game is generally way too fast-paced to use it effectively (there is no ME-style combat pause, which would have helped immensely), and the mechanic would have worked better in the old-school Splinter Cells much better.
• For those of us who care about Sam Fisher and the Splinter Cell "fluff", we get a cool playable flashback sequence to Desert Storm (complete with chocolate chip!), as well as some much-needed rainbows and sunshine in Sam's life.
• The interrogation minigame is kind of fun.
• The "deniable ops" single-player skirmish modes are decent. Sort of like Vegas 2's terrorist hunts only with stealth.

CONS:

• The NEWER AND EVEN IMPROVEDER stealth feedback sucks shit. It was perfectly fine in Chaos Theory -- a sound meter and darkness indicator on the HUD. Then they got the hairbrained idea that they needed to fix what ain't broke and jump on the minimalist-GUI bandwagon (an insufferably retarded software development trend, but I digress) for Double Agent and we got that retarded cell-phone-on-Sam's-back and no UI to speak of. That wasn't good enough, though, and now we have the even worse screen-goes-B&W-when-hidden.
  
  Sounds nice on paper, except that it sucks shit. It's very hard to see and analyze the environment when it goes B&W. It's almost impossible to pick out light sources, lit areas, relative lighting, and just the general layout of the area. This forces you to walk into more lit areas (which you can't really see until you run into them) just to see what the fuck is going on, making you rather vulnerable in the process. It's also black & white in a more philosophical sense -- you are either in INVISIBLE MODE or SHOOT ME MODE, there is literally no grey area.
• Run, gun, shoot lights. That's about all there is to the game. One sequence has you dodge cameras (also the most godawful level in the game thanks to its extraordinary amount of frustration), another brief sequence has you parkour around dodging police officers, you record a conversation with a laser mic, and then there's the occasional interrogation minigame. Everything else involves shooting waves of bad guys, in one instance literally. You enter a discrete area, there's a bunch of guys there, you take out a few silently before the mechanics of the game or scripted sequences force you into combat and you kill everyone in gun fights, shooting out the 30 zillion lights in your path to help you survive being constantly outnumbered.
• Weapon customization is dubious. It's a nice feature and pretty standard nowadays, except Conviction's tends to suck. Why? Well, it decides that you don't actually want the customized weapons you painstakingly upgrade and specifically select after every checkpoint, instead stripping your nice blinged-out M468 completely and replacing your tricked-out pistol with the default Five-Seven. Every. Fucking. Checkpoint. Thereby forcing you to run around until you can find a Vegas-style weapon cache and re-equip your desired weapons until they get replaced again.
• DRM. In my eagerness to play the new Splinter Cell, I foolishly did not check if the game uses that retarded new DRM I heard was used for the new Silent Hunter. It does. Twice my goddamned single player game was interrupted by a dropped connection somewhere between Comcast and Ubisoft's servers. And I can't even play the game on my laptop even if I wanted to.
• Multiplayer uses stupid match-making bullshit and is severely limited. From what I can tell, it does not include the Pandora Tomorrow/Chaos Theory style spies vs. mercs gameplay, which was goddamned brilliant.
• No vision modes. Toward the very end of the game you get "sonar vision", a crappier version of CT's electromagnetic vision. No night vision, no heat vision. Not really any cool gadgets, either, except for one scene with a laser mic.
• It's short. What do you expect with AAA titles these days? Content? Don't be silly, they blew all their budget on next-gen graphics. The fact that the whole game is just played a helluva lot faster doesn't help either. A game like CT could get away with being fairly short on account of the levels taking days or weeks to finish properly.

I give it a 4/10... because it looks pretty and it's playable (sometimes, depending upon your fucking internet connection). Nice story development for Sam.

[PeZook]

So it is as I suspected. Double Agent was a ridiculously sharp drop in quality from Chaos Theory both in plot (not that CT's was all that good, but it worked fine and had no massive, glaring holes), mood, writing, interface, level design...pretty much everything, really. I suspect Conviction wouldn't be any better, and here I am, my fears confirmed.

[CaptHawkeye]

Can't say i'm surprised. The entire Clancy repertoire of games has taken a quality nose dive over the past few years. Ubi probably doesn't give a shit, and is out pretty much to milk the name. End War sucked, Vegas 2 sucked, Splinter has sucked since Double Agent, and Ghost Recon has become pretty weak. I've got no hope for the next game, which looks retarded.

[PeZook]

There's...going to be a next one?

What else can you do after magical red mercury bombing teleporting large-scale domestic terrorist groups funded by one man?

Who you can't apprehend despite massive amounts of evidence laying around their compound...

[Edward Yee]

I've been spending most of my time just messing about in the "terrorist hunt" modes trying all sorts of

All sorts of what?

A "pure stealth" approach is still possible some of the time, but I notice that the game assumes it as a "going out of your way" thing to do, hence the Challenge for completing a level without being detected... although, the one for completing a level without firing a shot I actually find more impressive.

Regarding the moral black/white... the PMC thing is cliche of course (then again is there a "bodyguard game" that isn't Secret Service?) but I choose to use the explanation someone used on SDN regarding Blackwater and SOF recruiting: it's going to be a certain demographic that would be wanted by the bosses. It is ludicrous though for the "Big Bad" act like such an overt dick, be undisguised, and shoot a hapless henchman in front of Sam (even if he thought Sam was unconscious) on the grounds of "Fuel isn't free, man!" Also amusingly bad is that while I'm not too surprised at a "sub boss" having thugs briefed on the target, and the mooks acting defiant-in-a-fearing-way does give me a massive power trip*, after a while the attempts at acting macho while they're being "shadow killed" comes off as pathetic. It's like Tito Ortiz complaining about Lyoto Machida!

I also appreciated the seamless approach that the game takes, moving from scene to scene really well.

One thing I don't like at all -- the inability to skip in-mission cutscenes, all rendered using the in-game graphics engine. When you have to retry or Scene Select "Price Airfield" from the beginning... it's at least two minutes of doing fuck all nothing, followed by a few presses of "B," then you get to actually play. This was also an annoyance when I'm trying to get Advanced Close Combat/Advanced Stealth in one go, with Washington Monument on Rookie. I've got the first portion down pat so it's not really tedious, but I haven't succeeded at the remaining portion and so it's annoying to have to sit through the damned in-mission briefing each time. Unless I'm going for Realistic difficulty, I'm not doing "Price Airfield" again period.

The DRM/multiplayer issues haven't come up for me on 360, but I agree with Brother-Captain Gaius' complaint about the weapon customization; ironically it's actually less of a bother if you're "going out of your way" to play stealthy in the first place! Also, you also can't unequip the bling (hence "upgrades" and not "attachments") if you want to go difficult or need the points back, so to this point I actually haven't spent and of my points.

The whole "minimal GUI" aside, I don't mind the black/white+color change and actually got more tension out of its stealth mechanics than out of the MGS4 mechanics due to the lack of a minimap (or in fact a map at all).

* A good bit of the point in playing a lot of these "AAA titles," no?

[DPDarkPrimus]

Mark/Execute is potentially a cool mechanic. I say potentially because the game is generally way too fast-paced to use it effectively (there is no ME-style combat pause, which would have helped immensely), and the mechanic would have worked better in the old-school Splinter Cells much better.

The point of Mark and Execute is that you mark the enemies first, then take out a guy and activate the M&E to eliminate the rest of them... before they realize what the fuck is happening. It's action stealth, basically.


I notice that not one peep has been made about the cooperative co-op campaign or game modes, which are the real meat of the game, in my opinion. Spy vs Spy multi isn't nearly as fun as Spy vs Merc, but getting together with a buddy and pulling off two 8-person M&Es in quick succession against a wave of 30 enemies is immensely satisfying.

[adam_grif]

The best game of the series was the Chaos Theory.

Oh fuck yes. One of my favorite games of all time. It fixed everything that was wrong with the earlier entries in the series and had some neat ideas of its own. You felt like a total badass, but you weren't overpowered.

I'm really disappointed to hear that you don't like the game. I have yet to pick Conviction up, but I will sometime soon. Hopefully I like it :/

[Gramzamber]

CONS:

• The NEWER AND EVEN IMPROVEDER stealth feedback sucks shit. It was perfectly fine in Chaos Theory -- a sound meter and darkness indicator on the HUD. Then they got the hairbrained idea that they needed to fix what ain't broke and jump on the minimalist-GUI bandwagon (an insufferably retarded software development trend, but I digress) for Double Agent and we got that retarded cell-phone-on-Sam's-back and no UI to speak of. That wasn't good enough, though, and now we have the even worse screen-goes-B&W-when-hidden.
  
  Sounds nice on paper, except that it sucks shit. It's very hard to see and analyze the environment when it goes B&W. It's almost impossible to pick out light sources, lit areas, relative lighting, and just the general layout of the area. This forces you to walk into more lit areas (which you can't really see until you run into them) just to see what the fuck is going on, making you rather vulnerable in the process. It's also black & white in a more philosophical sense -- you are either in INVISIBLE MODE or SHOOT ME MODE, there is literally no grey area

Just who in the hell decided that HUDs are a bad thing anyway?
Fuck "immersion"! It's not "immersive" if I don't know what the hell I'm doing!

[Stark]

A properly designed UI simply fades information you don't need. In many shooters UI elements are few and small, and that isn't automatically bad. Metro doesn't suffer from it; the only thing that sucks for Gears is due to uncheckable ammo.

[Edward Yee]

Finally cleared the single-player campaign; while it did devolve into stereotypical action drivel, I was satisfied, and it's unfortunate that there's no real difference... it was amusing to see that the Big Bad, unlike that of MW2, will pwn you if you take too long listening to his Motive Rant.Spoiler

If you mark the five enemy Splinter Cells, you'll get a prompt to Grab Reed during one of the three times where he gets close enough; the first is when he's talking about President Caldwell planning to shut down Third Echelon. If you take too long on the last one, he headshots Sam.

Oh, and after peeking ahead, I got a spoiler for the ending of the co-op campaign, but which finally explains a "throwaway" conversation in the single-player second mission:Spoiler

After you kill the other operative, Andriy Kobin kills your character -- and his body is under a bloodied tarp next to the three men under a chandelier before the first Weapons Stash.

Found a really intriguing, though probably ultimately unworkable, version of "what I would have done" by one of the guys at Armed Assault's developer: Take off from the original idea for Conviction with "hobo" Sam, but instead of "hardass" Sam, split-personality Sam and Fisher (the latter being "the original").

DPDarkPrimus, if you're not sure, let me know and one of these days maybe we can play co-op.

[DPDarkPrimus]

I'm pretty much putting all my video game time into the Reach beta at the moment, and after that's over, there's Alan Wake and RDR to consider... plus I've got several folks already who are go-to co-op buddies. Sorry.

[Losonti Tokash]

DPDarkPrimus, if you're not sure, let me know and one of these days maybe we can play co-op.

I'm up for it, I've had zero luck getting anyone reliable to play with.

[weemadando]

yeah yeah.

Turns out babies are high maintenance. WHO KNEW!?!?

[Edward Yee]

DPDarkPrimus, if you're not sure, let me know and one of these days maybe we can play co-op.

I'm up for it, I've had zero luck getting anyone reliable to play with.

GT is Chortles, should be on after 9:30pm EST.