Splinter Cell: Conviction
Continuing backward through the Splinter Cell series, we come to the second most recent release from Ubisoft, Splinter Cell: Conviction. Up until the release of Blacklist, this was easily my favorite of the series. It was cinematic, offered a new-fresh look at the series without breaking from the formula too much and was considerably easier to control compared to the previous title, Double Agent.
Some would say Conviction strayed too far from it's roots as an espionage action game and I'd tend to agree. But for me, it felt like a trivial issue easily forgotten among many new advances in gameplay. Splinter Cell games were always some of the most fantastic on any console, always pushing the graphical limits and really showing you what each one was truly capable of. Conviction stepped it up from Double Agent by a large margin, of course, it was released 4 years later and DA was one of the first titles on the Xbox 360, so it was expected. I'll always remember one of the opening sequences that starts as a cutscene where you find yourself interrogating someone in a bathroom. The switch from cinematic to gameplay was so seamless and the real-time rendered cutscene looked so close to a pre-render that I was caught off-guard and the game was sitting, waiting for my input. This would not be the first time I've had that happen on the Xbox 360.
Conviction pushed this fantastic new feature where mission notes and hints were 'projected' onto the walls and other surfaces as a way to keeping you immersed in your environment without forcing you to open a text window. More and more menus were eliminated and controls were simplified to compliment. Conviction also added this incredible target marking system. The idea was that you could 'mark' your enemies as you watch them from the shadows and watch as the markers still show after the target walks behind a wall or other obstruction. After earning a 'takedown' by silently incapacitating an enemy, you could press a single button and Sam Fisher would quickly gun down each of your marked targets in range, up to 4 different ones at once depending on the weapon. Very handy in a pinch, strategically, or just for the cinematic look of it all.
Splinter Cell: Conviction felt like a long time coming for me. Ubisoft announced it shortly after Double Agent's release and showed of a short sequence of gameplay and some new designs. Sam Fisher looked like he had been out of it for a while. He was disheveled, with his long hair, he hardly looked like himself. He had a backpack and was out in broad daylight in a park. Ubisoft was showing how they were going to make a big change and instead of hiding in the shadows, his new thing was that he was going to blend in and hide within crowds. Tailing a target and then eliminating it. If this sounds familiar, it's because it's because it's pretty much how Assassin's Creed turned out when it was released a short while later. After which, Ubisoft decided to rework Conviction completely and push it back a couple of years. I guess the two titles ended up becoming too similar to release so close to each other.
Splinter Cell: Conviction I actually played through again very recently. After completing Blacklist, I started making my way back through the series and even repurchased the first three games in an HD remake. And though Conviction didn't look as great as I remember in comparison to Blacklist, it sure was a unique title out of the lot and even going back I enjoyed the hell out of it. Not to mention, nothing compares to the scene in Conviction where Sam snaps and walks his way out of Third Echelon, seeing red as D.J. Shadow's Building Steam with a Grain of Salt plays in the background as he takes down anyone in his way without a second thought.
Some would say Conviction strayed too far from it's roots as an espionage action game and I'd tend to agree. But for me, it felt like a trivial issue easily forgotten among many new advances in gameplay. Splinter Cell games were always some of the most fantastic on any console, always pushing the graphical limits and really showing you what each one was truly capable of. Conviction stepped it up from Double Agent by a large margin, of course, it was released 4 years later and DA was one of the first titles on the Xbox 360, so it was expected. I'll always remember one of the opening sequences that starts as a cutscene where you find yourself interrogating someone in a bathroom. The switch from cinematic to gameplay was so seamless and the real-time rendered cutscene looked so close to a pre-render that I was caught off-guard and the game was sitting, waiting for my input. This would not be the first time I've had that happen on the Xbox 360.
Splinter Cell: Conviction felt like a long time coming for me. Ubisoft announced it shortly after Double Agent's release and showed of a short sequence of gameplay and some new designs. Sam Fisher looked like he had been out of it for a while. He was disheveled, with his long hair, he hardly looked like himself. He had a backpack and was out in broad daylight in a park. Ubisoft was showing how they were going to make a big change and instead of hiding in the shadows, his new thing was that he was going to blend in and hide within crowds. Tailing a target and then eliminating it. If this sounds familiar, it's because it's because it's pretty much how Assassin's Creed turned out when it was released a short while later. After which, Ubisoft decided to rework Conviction completely and push it back a couple of years. I guess the two titles ended up becoming too similar to release so close to each other.
Splinter Cell: Conviction I actually played through again very recently. After completing Blacklist, I started making my way back through the series and even repurchased the first three games in an HD remake. And though Conviction didn't look as great as I remember in comparison to Blacklist, it sure was a unique title out of the lot and even going back I enjoyed the hell out of it. Not to mention, nothing compares to the scene in Conviction where Sam snaps and walks his way out of Third Echelon, seeing red as D.J. Shadow's Building Steam with a Grain of Salt plays in the background as he takes down anyone in his way without a second thought.
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