Changing My Convictions

Throughout my gaming life I've never been a huge fan of stealth-based gameplay. With the exception of playing a thief in Skyrim, shooters, sports/racing games and RPGs have always been more of my forte. Recently however, I've been whistling a different tune. 

Having played the Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea Episode 2 DLC I found myself wanting for a taste of something comparable. The NHL season is slowly coming to a halt so, with minimal hockey on TV, I've had some time to dig into my backlog and finally popped in Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction for my 360. The game has been around for about 4 years now but, to me, it looks brand new. I have played games from the Splinter Cell series before, and I've enjoyed a few of them, but none were very memorable—I couldn't tell you any of the other games’ story lines if my life depended on it. I just remember being frustrated at my inability to shamelessly go on a murderous rampage when stealth got boring. Conviction changed that.

In this chapter of the series you are no longer working for anyone in particular, meaning you don’t have the restraints of pacifism like in the older games. You still play as the infamous Sam Fischer, but the game starts with you trying to enjoy your retirement until certain events pull you out of it. Straight from the get-go you’re thrown into a combat situation that doesn't require you to fully rely on stealth abilities. This is where the “Mark and Execute” mechanic of the game is introduced. After performing a hand-to-hand kill you gain the ability to mark and execute. As long as you have a visual on the target you can mark him by pushing the right bumper and once you get close enough you can take him out quickly and efficiently. In the beginning you only have the ability to mark 2 targets but as the game progresses you get upgrades and newer weapons that allow you to mark up to 5 or 6. This feature is perfect for taking out larger groups of enemies instead of having to sneak around the whole damn map for half an hour just to get past a meaningless section of gameplay.

Another thing I really enjoyed about this game, so far, is the awesome visual effects. The scenery and ambiance seems to have a big Noire style influence with a lot of heavy shadows and minimal colour, sort of akin to the movie Sin City. Whenever Sam is hidden to enemies your whole screen goes black and white. I thoroughly enjoyed the way that was handled. On the topic, the game’s entire design philosophy seems very minimalist. For instance, there are very few menus to navigate through, and all of your weapon selection can be done with quick lists on the D-Pad. Additionally, whenever you get a new objective during a mission it is displayed in a big wide white font on a wall nearby—however if you want to view it again you just press Select and it will appear on whatever surface you’re looking at.

The gadgetry you come across also adds a good deal of different ways to neutralize your enemies. Besides your basics like flash bangs and frag grenades, you get things like the deployable Sticky Camera. The camera is a throwable device that sticks to walls and allows you to get a look at what might lie ahead of you. The camera has a noise maker to distract enemies and if they get close enough you can detonate it to take them out. I had a lot of fun luring unsuspecting foes to their untimely demises.

The game isn't perfect of course: there were a few things that got on my nerves. At one point in the game you’re given a pair of sonar goggles to detect enemies and laser security features. Shortly after that you have to go through a series of rooms guarded by this laser system and the whole thing just seemed tedious and didn't contribute much in the way of gameplay. I’m all for a good puzzle but the story was so enticing and I really disliked wasting 20 minutes trying to figure it out. Furthermore, there are several instances where, if you die, you have to repeat a cutscene that happened at the last checkpoint. One particularly problematic level had me dying over 15 times and I had to rewatch this 30-second cutscene each time. I found myself lowering the difficulty just to ease past it to avoid the scene again. The worst of it is: it was a really great and powerful scene and its repetition really ruined it for me.

All in all I highly recommend Splinter Cell: Conviction to anyone who hasn't played it yet. The game also has a multiplayer option which I haven’t taken advantage of. From what I understand it’s the same story but you can play with a friend on the same TV. I haven’t fully finished the game yet but I intend to in the near future and I’m hoping to buy the next installment, Splinter Cell: Blacklist. If anyone has any recommendations for similar games please leave me a message in the comment section.

Thanks for reading.
Later days.