Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction

The gameplay is better then the story

When you think about the stealth genre in gaming Splinter Cell is one of the games that will immediately come to mind. Conviction is the second installment in the series on the Xbox 360 (fifth overall if you are counting the games on the original Xbox) that is based on Tom Clancy’s character Sam Fisher. There are books based on the character as well and just like the games they are not written by the author. Tom Clancy died in 2013 and Ubisoft keeps pumping out games with his name on them. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t any good to play. There is a cool factor to playing Sam Fisher with all his gadgets and abilities.

In this game the co-op was the most enjoyable aspect for me. It was a good deal of fun working with a partner, marking enemies, and then timing your shots to take out opponents at the same time. Communication was key as you moved in the shadows, took out light sources, and triggered personal EMPs to escape your enemy’s gaze. This part of the game is also a stand alone operation. It is not connected to the single player campaign as you get to play with two completely different characters (Archer & Kestrel) outside of the Sam Fisher storyline with its own plot. In co-op the US and Russia each have an operative that ends up working together for a common goal in thwarting the black market sale of specialized EMP warheads.
In this portion of the game you will end up playing on multiple maps in different instances and circumstances. Beyond the co-op story there are a few game modes like Hunter, Last Stand, and Face-Off with degrees of difficulties tied to achievements that will prolong the fun with your co-op partner.

Built into the game is a challenge system that gives you points for completing certain tasks like killing an enemy without them noticing you an x amount of times or marking enemies in another room by slipping a camera under a door as examples. Some of the challengers are tiered with three levels to complete them while others are one shots. The points are then used to buy upgrades to all the guns and gadgets you pick up throughout the game. Points can be accrued in any game mode, in co-op, or in the single player campaign which is nice. This way you are not forced into a boring redundant mindless task you have to execute over and over. You will have a lot of choices to get challenges done. A lot of challenges will come to you naturally as you play through the game.

The single player campaign is a little typical for a Spy/Espionage type of story. It’s one of the things that I dislike about the genre across all aspects of entertainment. There can never be an adversary in a traditional black and white world. Instead there are always elements within that organization that becomes the problem in the story. There is always a mole or a double agent. Maybe that is a reflection on the real world or maybe it’s the writer’s attempt of hitting you with an OMG gotcha moment. The gotcha just doesn’t work because practically every plot has this trope as part of its story in some form. For it to work you would need to be able to surprise the audience which is not happening because it is so common. So, Sam Fisher is out of Third Echelon, but the President of the United States is in danger. To pull him back into service he is promised important information regarding his daughter that was killed in a car accident and simply enough there we have our story for the game. All the cliches aside you can still play the game and find enjoyment out of it through the game play which is done well.