Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction

Review from Cormac - Wednesday, 09 June 2010 @ 10:35pm

I'll get it right out of the way and say that this was my first experience with a Splinter Cell game. I have this prejudice that anything with Tom Clancy's name on the cover could be faithfully retitled "How America Saved the Day." I say 'prejudice' because this opinion is based on a total of zero novels, zero movies and now one game. In which America saves the day from some other Americans. Which I'm aware is me giving a bastardised plot summary in order to fulfil my own means. Ok then? Let’s begin.

The game plays like Arkham Asylum meets The Borne Supremacy, which is fitting because it also has a bit of a Dark Knight Returns feel to it. We play a grizzled old Sam Fisher who spends the first hour of the piece insisting he's out of the spy game. From there on it's the general save the president affair but the story's execution makes up for it.

While a lot of the story telling is done through cut-scenes, there is also the projection system. This exists mostly to display objectives rather than incorporate them into the streamlined user interface, however, it also works to provide in-game flashbacks to keep curmudgeons like me in the loop. Basically mission goals will be projected onto the environment or short scenes will play out on a wall when a character's name is mentioned. It's surprisingly effective and gives the game unique feel. There's a standout sequence during an elevator ride as Fisher goes to face a few demons. It's a few flashbacks foregrounded by a set of familiar goggles floating on a rough sea, slowly building tension until the ring of the elevator finally brings Fisher back to earth. Simple, maybe even a little cliché, but effective. Things only get awkward when the game starts projecting which emotion Sam's meant to be experiencing. Projecting "ANGER" on the wall in big illuminated letters does more to break the mood than build it. To be fair, it almost works during a turning point in which the walls get so smothered in thoughts and emotions that it portrays the sense of our man getting overwhelmed for the first time in his adult life. Still I would argue that the scene itself was enough to illustrate this, not to mention that double dipping this feature with mission objectives hardwires gamers to think that every word is important.

Which mansion? That mansion?

I've already mentioned that the user interface is quite slick. It's gives the player a lot of information about their surroundings without overcomplicating it. If you're concealed, the colour washes out, if you're in plain sight, full colour. No glowing gems or shadow metres. If you're discovered and make an escape, a silhouette of your last known location appears. Enemies will move on that position, allowing you to manoeuvre around them. Rather than a detailed radar, when enemies become aware of Sam, a thin white circle appears with an arrow pointing towards targets. The arrow grows sharper and the circle turns to red indicating how aware of you they are. It's completely self explanatory and is exactly as intuitive when multiple targets are involved.

It was my understanding that pervious Splinter Cell titles involved only killing when you could get away with it, and even then concealing the body. That's out the window. Sam’s a hunter of the deadliest beast of all: man. Often you can't actually progress without killing everyone in the room. Thankfully the combat system is equally polished and is still based on stealth, it's just predatory stealth, rather than avoidance. Controls are obscure but effective once you get used to them. If you're the type who still screams "BOOM! HEADSHOT!" every time then you'll be sounding horse after the first few hours of play. The auto-aim system has a serious hate on for people's heads, which highlights one of my all time pet peeves: games grounded in reality that feature enemies who can take multiple shots to the head simply because they're wearing a helmet. If nothing else, it's an encouragement to utilise the execution system, which is basically similar to the V.A.T.S. system in Fallout 3 only it kills every time and requires hand-to-hand kills to use. It's an interesting idea that becomes a core part of gameplay and surprisingly strategical. Say you mark everyone in the room, spare one guy. Then drop from the ceiling onto him Batman style, recharging your execution points, then just hit Y, thereby clearing the room in about 4 seconds. Again, it's simple, but feels genuinely bad-ass.

Everyone was too polite to point out that they left their headlights on.

The cover system is functional enough for stealth gameplay, however there’s a flashback section in Iraq that works well within the story, but mostly just serves to highlight flaws in the combat system. Enemy AI doesn't help either. It starts thick and gets thicker. I'm used to enemies in steath games yelling the odd "what’s that" to let me know I’m being to noisy, but I'd swear these guys want me to know where they are. It just get’s weirder when their dialogue get's level specific too. Apparently Michael Cane never stepped in to tell them that they’re all anonymous henchmen doomed for failure; they all seem to think that they're the special one who’ll save the day, which they articulate in exquisitely unnecessary detail from the best lit area of the room. There are hints that the guys in a familiar frogsuit and goggles combo will be trickier, but they're exactly as predictable and just have a layer static over their inane dialogue.

The co-op campaign is functional and enjoyable, if not completely realised. It makes for a good night in but feels a lot like a buddy movie gone horribly wrong. You play as either the all American hero, or the drunk Russian. At least he seems drunk if you player-2 doesn't quite grasp the whole stealth thing anyway, in which case you'll have to run out and patch them up to keep playing. That system is where most character development lies actually, especially as we can't see either character's face though most of the campaign. In the opening levels, the reviver will be give the revived a surly "be more alert" or something similar. This message becomes sweeter as the game moves on, to the point that the characters are genuinely concerned for each other's safety. Aside from that, there are the usual events where both characters must press A at the same time to get a door open or chance a light bulb or something, but for the most part the second player doesn't seem particularly necessary. Stealth sections where two viewpoints are needed or fire fights requiring strategic splits could have made this a much fuller experience. In fact, the whole healing system means that the best idea is for the two players to never split up and basically follow the one path that a single person could carry much more cleanly.

Careful where you point that thing, Action Man.

If you're wondering, as Matt was, why this review is so late, don't go blaming The Mana Bar (located 420 Brunswick st, Fortitude Valley, open till midnight 7 days a week), it's mostly my own laziness coupled with my initial save getting corrupted about an hour from the end. Thankfully my character profile was in tact, so the second play-through was quicker (once I stopped feeling discouraged), which leads me neatly into the weapons system. At certain checkpoints you’ll find weapons cache that have the same magical properties as many in-game private stashes. Pick up a gun once, it enters the weapons cache whereupon you can upgrade it based on a points system. So basically I re-entered the game with a pack of fancy pants weapons from the opening level.

Here's another reason this review is so late: trying to find the best way to say that this game doesn't reward the player for hurting people. Simple elements of persuasion indicate that it should. Allow me to mother-fucking elaborate:

This is probably best illustrated by the deconstruction of the first interrogation scene. No it's not the first torture scene, America doesn't torture people, remember? Anyway, the target knows things that Sam wants to know, he therefore:

1. Puts the man’s face into a urinal. Both making him bleed and covering his face in other people’s pee.

2. Smashes the man’s face into a mirror, followed by a hand basin. Turns out this doesn’t make him come clean. Bud-um-tish.

3. Smashes his face through a cubical door. There is someone in said cubical. He's exactly as terrified as the insurgent at this point and would probably tell you his own mother’s darkest fear.

That feels like an interrogation scene. Now, consider that pushing B anywhere gets the same result.

1. Sam punches him in the ear, like it’s his first night at Fight Club.

2. Sam backhands him and head-butts him.

3. Sam backhands him and head-butts him. Again.

I can almost see Ubisoft's thought process here. Forcing the player into scenario A could seem like rewarding malevolence. Unfortunately they've undone themselves herein, because now the interrogation animations exist entirely for the heck of it, and as such are malevolence for it's own sake. Moreover, during the first instance Sam Fisher is a hard-case who knows things that would break a lesser man, while his target is a broken shell of what used to be a gang boss. In the second instance, Sam is a generic videogame macho-man and his target probably would have given him the information if he'd just asked nicely the first time. I don’t think a trailer of this game exists that doesn't show of these scenes, so it's just odd that it grew all coy at the last minute.

Pros

A very polished package of stealth gameplay and interactive storytelling. Fantastic characterisation.

Cons

Co-op campaign and interrogation scenes aren't completely realised. Main campaign is short and lacking in variation. Obnoxiously extroverted enemies who probably just need a hug.