Splinter Cell: Conviction is the fifth game in the Splinter Cell franchise, sixth if you include the PSP game; Splinter Cell: Essentials. It was released back in 2010, I originally picked it up within a week of its release as an impulse buy and I really enjoyed it. Splinter Cell: Double Agent was the first in the series that I had played, but I consider Conviction the first one as with Double Agent I played it in parts with a friend, whereas Conviction I played all the way through.
I have a lot of good things to say about this game, they really packed this game with content, there's a story, a co-op story and four different game modes you can play alone or with a friend. I played through the story back in 2010, but having matured as a gamer, I decided to play through on realistic, which is the highest difficulty. It wasn't too difficult, but that's mainly because it's a stealth game and you're able to sneak through most areas with little problems. The story is around eleven missions so it's not too long and seems a good length, as you don't won't it to drag and get boring. The co-op story is four reasonably sized missions and it's very fun to play with a friend, as you work together to get through each section as best you can. The hunter mode is very stealth based, you have to get through each area and if you get caught more enemies spawn. You want to take this slow so you don't have to fight a lot of enemies. Last stand is a wave mode, killing a bunch of enemies in each area. Face off is a fun mode as you battle your friend to earn the most kills and if you're able to take out your partner you take their score and add it to yours. Infiltration mode is similar to hunter mode but if you are caught it is an instant fail, rather than spawning more enemies.
The story follows on from Double Agent as Sam Fisher tries to find out the truth about his daughter. I liked the story and really wanted to find out how it ended. The voice acting is really good and Michael Ironside who plays Sam Fisher was excellent. The gameplay is brilliant and the mechanics in the game work so well. The graphics are OK, certainly nothing special but the hair on the characters looks painted on, it doesn't look real at all. The game turns black and white when you're in shadows and can't be seen, this is great as it makes you feel safe and you feel vulnerable when out in the open. The stealth in this game is definitely one of the best I've played, sneaking around and using cover then taking them out is very satisfying. I also love the way the game tells you your objectives, they're written in large letters on the walls of the game, it just looks great and works really well.
The controls are quite odd but they work in this game, but it was confusing aiming in with the right analog rather than LT. Turning off light switches and shooting out lights is your best way of cover, which is a unique cover system. The shoot outs can be quite difficult as enemies can take a few bullets and lining up head shots can be difficult under pressure, but it's good because it makes you play stealthily. Unlike many games you can shoot through small gaps and gates as most games just show the bullet hitting the gate etc. Probably my favourite thing in the game is the mark and execute, where you mark two or more targets and then execute them, it's sort of like getting kills hassle free, provided they're in range and you can only get executions by meleeing enemies. When you get seen there is a 'last known' position, which is a ghost-like Sam Fisher, where the enemies last spotted you and investigate that position, even though you could have fled the area. The Interrogations are also great when you grab enemies and beat information out them, it's great to see the animations of Sam slamming heads into walls in exchange for what he wants to know.
Marking the enemies can be frustrating as if you mark the same target, it removes the mark, so trying to mark enemies in a group can result in you accidentally unmarking them. Not being able to move bodies and hide them seems odd for a stealth game and in missions where you faced the police and couldn't kill them, it seemed weird that you didn't have any non-lethal weapons like a stun gun to take them out. Having so much to interact with was also sometimes difficult as it was always done with the A button, so if a door and a light switch were next to each other, you may keep opening/closing the door and switching the light on and off. I had this problem in co-op as we had to extract in a helicopter to end the mission, but there was a rail you could vault over, this ended up in us failing as we couldn't get on the helicopter and would keep vaulting over as enemies came after us. I think cutscenes would've been better placed as conversations took place, instead of the characters talking in game, this led to awkwardly trying to move the camera around to see the person who was talking. There were also some bugs in the game which were absent my first time around, one which included Sam floating in the air as it tried to trigger an animation for an Interrogation I started.
I think this game is great, a few of the issues I had were also resolved in the following game Splinter Cell: Blacklist. There's currently no news on a new SC, but it's certainly on the top of my wishlist as I really am enjoying them. I think a lot of effort went into this game and I think the co-op shows it because the areas you traverse are big and well designed rather than small, quick missions. Keep them coming Ubisoft.
7.9/10
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