Hype Thread: Splinter Cell Conviction

One of the biggest surprises out of E3 2009 was a short gameplay demonstration for Splinter Cell: Conviction during Microsoft's press conference. They seemed to be modeling the game somewhat on one of my favorite television series, 24, in that the stealth is more action-based and less punitive than Sam Fisher's previous outings. I was still wary, though – I was bad enough at stealth games, which I knew from my time on Very Easy mode for the Metal Gear Solid games, so it pretty much fell off my radar as time passed.

It's been some time since then, and now Ubisoft has released a demo for the game on Xbox Live Marketplace. I was cautiously optimistic, so I jumped in. Immediately, I enjoyed parts of the presentation, like the interrogation, and the mission objectives being projected on walls. There was a lot not to like, though - the voice acting was pretty bad and in the wake of Heavy Rain and Final Fantasy XIII, the facial animation was kind of terrible. However, the biggest problem was my total inability to grasp the game's controls. I was never able to use the mechanics to stay stealthy and I was always getting spotted. Still, though, I wasn't deterred because it felt like I was so close to doing the incredible stuff of the E3 trailer.

Somehow, in my next play session, it clicked. I realized that they deliberately designed the lighting in the areas to facilitate escape in case the player is spotted. I saw the pipes you can use to climb and stay out of sight. I realized all the different ways you can use the right bumper to mark enemies for the game's new Mark and Execute system  - you can use your goggles to see through walls, or use a sticky camera, or just plain climb up onto catwalks and mark all of them without being seen.

I was quickly able to play through the demo in a multitude of ways, even on the hardest mode. I could either set up the executions by taking out enemies with melee, and executing all the enemies in the room that way, or I could separate them from one another and take them out with silenced pistol headshots. It was pretty simple once I got the hang of it.

I took some time today to see if there was any information I missed. I knew for one thing that the game's most popular multiplayer mode, Spies vs. Mercs, was not in the new entry, but I knew nothing else of the multiplayer. I was pleasantly surprised to see a really awesome looking co-op mode, called Prologue, added to the game. It's a separate story mode from the main game featuring two different characters and many added mechanics, such as a co-op version of the Mark and Execute.

Eventually, I deleted the demo from my hard drive because I was playing it so much. Since I'd never played any of the Sam Fisher games before, I bought Chaos Theory on Xbox Originals and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. It's not the same as what I hope Conviction will be, but it's still very enjoyable and it's giving me my stealth game fix for the time being.

2010 has been an incredible year for games so far, and even if the story is kind of hokey and the voice acting isn't the best in the world, I can't imagine Splinter Cell Conviction will let me down. I'm lucky that this game is coming out next month, because I don't think I could wait any longer than that for it.