Catching Up With Sam Fisher
Conviction picks up shortly after where the events of Splinter Cell: Double Agent left me hanging. The protagonist, Sam Fisher, is still keeping his head down, and his FBI-top-10-most-wanted face outside of the United States. On the run from pretty much everyone, he’s opted for a quiet life off the grid. Of course, as any fan of Tom Clancy knows, once you’ve gone dark, it’s only a matter of time before you’re pulled into a nation-wide conspiracy.
I don’t want to delve too much into the story, (it’s best experienced during a campaign play-through) but it’s important to communicate the change in the actual character of Sam Fisher, as it drives a great deal of Conviction’s overall tone. This is no longer Third Echelon’s, model soldier, Sam Fisher. He’s had with the government’s shadow operations, he’s tired of being manipulated by corrupt officials, and more than laments the fact he was forced to kill his best friend. His attitude toward his situation can be summed up best in his own dialog, “I don’t do this kind of thing anymore” — a line lifted from another Clancy story, The Sum of All Fears. However rumors about how his daughter’s death may not have been the accident he was told it was force him out of hiding and send him off in search for the truth. And this search doesn’t follow Sam’s usual modus operandi — He’s angry, often brutal, and not happy about the situation the game casts him in.
Changing Up The Game
Decked out in Sam Fisher's Outfit
Sam disposition isn’t the only core aspect of the game that’s been given a make over. The entire style of game play is different — a change I was nervous about, but after the first level decided was an improvement over the existing game mechanic.
Sam is no longer doomed to hide in the shadows and wait patiently for unsuspecting guards to pass his by. Instead, he’s bringing the fight to the bad guys with a new combat system that seamlessly blends a much improved stealth based game mechanic (you can hide even when your not shrouded by darkness now) with a duck and cover combat system ala Gears of War. In fact — save for a few scripted scenes where stealth is required — it would be entirely possible to “run and gun” your way through the entire single player campaign.
But running and gunning is not how the game was meant to be played. Rather than kicking in door with gun barrels blazing, the game encourages you to plan and execute your attacks from the shadows and rewards successfully executed maneuvers with experience points. These points can then be exchanged for armor, weapons enhancements and gadget upgrades — upgrades that also carry over into the multi-player arena.
Game upgrade aside, these strategic tactical take downs are also very satisfying to pull off. Sam stalks, traps and tricks his opposition. For example, one of my favorite tactics was to intentionally leave a dead body, trapped with a remote mine, in an area where it would be discovered. I watched from the shadows as other enemies inevitably surrounded the body to investigate, and triggered the mine. After a few levels of this style of prepare and execute game play I couldn’t help but think; “Sam Fisher is Batman.”
Who... Does... Number... 2... Work... For!
It Brought Me Back
About a year ago I made the decision to downgrade my Xbox Live membership from a Gold Account, to a Silver Account. Not that I had anything against the service, but I was really taking advantage of all it had to offer. It seemed that the only people who could fully utilize the online service would be those content to take on the role of a Spartan and kill each other over and over again. Conviction brought me back.
After attempting to play a couple of the co-op levels solo, and failing miserably, I had a choice to make. Either for-go the rest of this great game, or pony up the funds to reinstantiate my Xbox Live Gold Membership. I couldn’t walk away from the challenge. I even went the extra step and purchased the Deniable Ops download-able content just to extend my Conviction experience. Something I have yet to do outside of the Shivering Isles expansion for Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion.
The two player co-op portion of the game was not at all what I was expecting. Rather than being a tacked on re-imagining of the single player environments, it turned out to be a very well thought out and beautifully executed, albeit short, campaign. The story actually blends together with the single player campaign’s, and includes an ending that I was not expecting — a rarity for someone who’s seen as many game endings as I have.
Game-play-wise, the co-op campaign plays along the same style as the single player, but includes scenarios obviously designed to encourage cooperative game-play. To the developer’s credit, these portions weren’t over done. There are just enough situations to force you to develop a strategy with your teammate — such as one player having to defend the other while he hacks a computer terminal or both teammates being able to ‘mark’ targets and execute stealthy group neutralization — but at no time do you feel tethered to him.
And though they weren’t needed, the Hunter, Last Stand, and Versus game modes are very fun to tackle with a friend over Xbox Live.
Icing on the Cake
In addition to being a fantastic game, Conviction also takes advantage of Ubisoft’s new UPlay initiative. With Uplay, simply put, you earn credits for performing specific in-game actions that can be applied toward the purchase of UPlay rewards — rewards that are offered both in and out of the game world.
For instance, with the points I earned playing the single player campaign through I was able to “purchase” both a Splinter Cell: Conviction premium theme for my Xbox 360 Dashboard and a very large, very accurate machine gun I could use in-game that came in very handy tackling the multi-player levels. Was this necessary? No, but I can help but be impressed by this addition level of fan service Ubisoft chose to build into their game.
Birds of a feather neutralize high valued targets together.
Final Thoughts
Splinter Cell: Conviction is the perfect example of how to get everything right with a game. Aside from a very few, very minor technical glitches I came across — such as mistakenly having Sam jump over a ledge when you were attempting to pick up a gun next to the ledge — it is a perfect game. My final score is a perfect-must-play: 10/10.
