InsaneBear

Review: Splinter Cell: Conviction

Score: Meh
Difficulty played on: Normal
Time to beat: About 7 hours
Loved the most: Co-op.
Hated the most: Pretty much everything about the single-player campaign.

When studying Microsoft’s entry into the console race, people often point to Halo as the sole reason for the Windows maker’s success. I’d certainly say that the Master Chief and friends played the lead role in Microsoft’s rise to power, but one franchise that often gets over-looked is Splinter Cell. The high-tech espionage practiced by Sam Fisher and Third Echelon gave Microsoft a viable competitor to one of Sony’s most successful series, Metal Gear Solid. So it is with high regard that people look back on Splinter Cell and with great anticipation that they’ve looked forward to the several years-in-the-making reboot, Splinter Cell: Conviction. But as shadowy government operations tend to do, everything goes horribly wrong in Sam Fisher’s latest outing and we’re left with an underdeveloped, quasi-stealth game who’s only saving grace is a good co-operative mode.

The visuals in Conviction are serviceable enough, but are by no means eye-catching. There are some nice animations to be seen and lighting/shadow effects can be interesting at times, but for the most part everything is pretty mundane. That description aptly applies to the environmental art direction and variety as well. Nearly every level looks like the same concrete jungle with no truly memorable set pieces. And the range of foes is just as pathetically unvaried and lifeless, what with Merc 1, Merc 2, and Merc 3 satisfying the enemy quota for pretty much the entire game.

The most striking visual aspect of Conviction is its mission interface, which projects objectives and other information as boldly lettered phrases on the surrounding environment. This innovative technique is also utilized in certain situations in order to play out cut-scene-like memories on the walls around Sam, all in game. I applaud the concept, as I am the type of gamer who hates invasive cut-scenes or briefings, but the idea is terribly mishandled in this game. For starters, the developers completely undermine the purpose of the technique by including traditional cut-scenes anyways. In the instances where “movies” are played out on the environment, they’re often too difficult to decipher anyways. Most of the writing is redundant or could have been communicated just as easily through dialogue, but without the imaginary letters painted on buildings which break immersion in the game-world. And on the few occasions where the phrases actually attempt to make you feel like you’re in Fisher’s head, they tend to backfire and make you feel insulted that the game is telling you what emotions to feel. All and all, the “projection” presentation is a daring idea, but one that ultimately contributes little to the game and is nothing more than a distracting novelty.

The audio department fares a little bit better, as the score generally supplements given scenarios well, even if it isn’t particularly memorable. All of the guns sound good enough, but your neighbors definitely won’t be mistaking your game nights for war-movie night. It’s also a bit disappointing that so many of the guns sound so similar. That’s certainly not as disheartening as their overly-similar feel and usefulness, but worth noting nonetheless. The star of the auditory arena is probably the voice acting, which while not on par with the intensity of the media Conviction so freely barrows from (the Bourne trilogy, 24), manages to convey enough emotion to keep the player engaged. Michael Ironside’s Sam Fisher is still top dog, but there are a few other stand outs. None of them stand out as much as the obscenely awful henchmen, however. It is honestly distracting how unnecessarily vulgar and down-right stupid sounding enemies in this game are, and that is not something that should be coming up in a review.

Then again, I suppose the meat-head dialogue spoken by all of your paint-by-numbers assailants is becoming of their (artificial) intelligence. If enemies aren’t standing around doing nothing then they’re listlessly patrolling the same predictable path over and over. In the event that you’re spotted, rather than actively seek you out, they’ll just rush to your last known position (with no regard for cover) and stand there wondering aloud where you might have gone.

Given the mental capacity of these mercenaries, it’s highly probable that their bosses purposefully group them in packs in the hope of piecing together enough brain power to hoot at mysterious noises and panic at the sight of corpses (because we can no longer move our victims). So instead of feeling like a stealth predator who picks his prey off one by one (hey, didn’t another recent game called Batman: Arkham Asylum do that well?), we’re often forced into combat with large groups of hostiles. Maybe I just really suck at stealth games, but I was constantly confronted by hordes of semi-retarded man-children who would rush out after trigger events, which typically left me in open space and vulnerable to fire.

I get the feeling that the developers intended for me to utilize the very awesome “Mark and Execute” feature in these situations, but I feel as though that too was mishandled. See, the feature allows you to mark a certain number of targets depending on the weapon you’re using (and the upgrades you’ve purchased for said weapon), and when they’re all in your line of sight you can press Y to let loose a salvo of precision bullets that eliminate your problems before you can say “super-soldier.” This feature does a pretty great job of making you feel like a complete and total bad ass, especially when you mark targets from behind a closed door by peeking under it with your mirror and then bashing it open for a slow-motion opera of death. Problem is that you can only activate the feature by dispatching an adversary in hand-to-hand combat. This serves to balance Mark and Execute and keep you from abusing it (although there is one sequence in the game where the ability is unlimited and you feel fantastically unstoppable), which I can respect. But in my case, I found the levels to be designed in such a way that I’d always end up using the ability right before a big room full of potential targets, thus forcing me into a clunky and unresponsive shootout.

Maybe I just didn’t play the game right, but it seemed to be structured so that I was exchanging fire with mooks more than I was avoiding them and/or hunting them. The fact that there are more shooting features than stealth features in Conviction further emphasizes this point. And if that weren’t enough, there’s a massive arsenal of upgradeable weapons that serve almost no purpose. Without exaggeration, the difference between your starting pistol and Third Echelon’s most advanced firearms is negligible. So that basically means the entire weapon upgrading system is a useless waste of time. And that goes for the game’s many cool gadgets as well, considering you’re almost never encouraged to use them (remember when Arkham Asylum integrated gadgets into the core gameplay?). And in the few instances where you find a creative use for a gadget (I tried to blow a chopper up with a remote mine) the painfully linear game-world refuses to work with you. Splinter Cell: Conviction really boils down to a strictly linear shooter with bad shooting, dumb AI, poor level design, and mishandled features.

It should come as no surprise that the game’s story is just as ineffective in its efforts to evoke excitement. Basically, it’s some cliched and predictable romp about government conspiracy that ends with you SPOILERS***rescuing the President and seeing your daughter again, who was presumed to be dead.*** I really don’t feel to bad about giving plot points away considering how unoriginal they are. And like I said before, they’re not even delivered in an original way because traditional cut-scenes are the driving narrative force. The only real spot of narrative innovation is in the interrogation feature, which sees us taking some poor sap and bashing his face into just about every hard surface we can find until he tells us what we want to know. Unfortunately, this opportunity is fumbled too, as the interrogations amount to one-button Quick Time Events that rob the player of any sense of control. Why not just show a cut-scene?

By now you’re probably getting the vibe that I despise this game and that you should too–while that may be true to a degree, Conviction does have a few redeeming qualities. The first of these is the Deniable Ops mode, which offers the Hunter and Last Stand game types. Last Stand focuses more on defending a bomb with the game’s unnatural shooting, so that’s not as fun. But Hunter is the most entertaining solo experience you’ll have with the game. Essentially, it throws you into one of several maps taken from the co-op campaign and tasks you with eliminating all threats. These levels are designed in a much more stealth-friendly way and generally had me kicking ass and taking names to the tune of four-tango Mark and Executes from the safety of a human shield. If only the campaign could have been designed in such a way.

The best part of the game is without a doubt the dedicated co-op campaign. In the interest of full disclosure I’ll admit that I haven’t finished it yet, but what I have played was a blast. The prequel story seemed just as throw-away as the core campaign one, but the mode is essentially Hunter with a friend. Granted, team-work isn’t actually required, as one player can safely clear a room by himself and only requires his partner’s aid for those pesky locked doors, but everything’s always better with a friend. Not to mention, co-op has some awesome moments that simply aren’t possible in single-player, like when the hostage I was interrogating pulled a gun, shot my partner to the ground, took me as a human shield, and then received my elbow to his face and my downed ally’s bullet to the chest all in an instant. Good times. But yeah, if you know me then you know that I’m a huge advocate of more co-op in games, especially if it’s a dedicated campaign. This mode is the only reason you should even consider buying Splinter Cell: Conviction.

So is Sam Fisher’s latest outing worth $60? Absolutely not. Is it worth $40? Well, I’d probably still say no. I mean, that campaign is pretty bad. I think the best way to explain how boring it is is by imparting you with the knowledge that the longest I ever got sucked into Conviction for was a little over two hours. It just has no power to hold the player’s attention with its misguided direction and fumbled features. Still, there are a few fleeting moments of exhilaration to be had and its one of the very few split-screen co-op adventures out there. When it embraces its stealth roots it’s at its best, but because shooters sell, we’re left with an underwhelming and forgettable experience.

Author: Cody

Tags: review, splinter cell: conviction, ubisoft, ubisoft montreal, xbox 360