Game reviews: Splinter Cell: Conviction

There’s always been a lot of natter about games being ‘cinematic’, a claim that usually involves jamming in hours of poorly animated cut scenes. Of late, titles like Heavy Rain and Alan Wake worked to get the mixture right, with varying degrees of success. Weirdly, the best attempt to blend the action flick with the action game comes from an unexpected quarter: Splinter Cell: Conviction.

The fifth title in a series Tom Clancy had nothing to do with but which nevertheless bears his name, Conviction is your classic military industrial complex espionage, featuring a gruff-but-emotionally-crippled protagonist who must thwart a plot to take down the president and avenge his daughter’s death, etc.

But Conviction doesn’t need to apologise for being a genre exercise, particularly when it performs it so well.

For a start, Conviction looks incredible. Environments plucked from around the world are beautifully recreated and lighting has been observed to the point of being filmic. Characters are as realistic as you’re likely to see and manage to avoid that terrible dead-eyed glare. Coupled with decent voice acting, the gulf between TV and interactive gaming is much closer to being bridged.

Creeping about in the dark unseen is the point of Splinter Cell, a series that caters for the sneaky bastard in us all. Instead of increasing complexity as it rolls out sequels, developer Ubisoft Montreal has concentrated on the core elements of stealth gameplay: being fun.

Gone are fiddly contextual controls, favouring instead a simple cover system that doesn’t lock players to a wall against their will. A ‘mark-and-execute’ feature provides a very satisfying method of lining up villains and offing them in one movement.
Gameplay is rarely interrupted, as mission instructions and cut scenes play out on surfaces in the game itself, a design innovation we’re likely to start seeing everywhere.
While Conviction is elegant and engaging, it’s also pretty easy. Enemies practically offer up their soft melonheads for the sniping. The single player section can be burned through in a couple of days, but there’s a lengthy co-op mode to keep you and a friend amused.

While the game might not have knocked the movie off its perch just yet, Splinter Cell: Conviction manages something no episode of 24 has ever achieved: making you want to play it twice. TG

PLATFORM REVIEWED: Xbox 360 PLAYERS: 1-2 RATING: MA GENRE: Stealth SCORE: FOUR