Splinter Cell Conviction is an odd game to me. I really enjoyed it, it’s really fun, I'm going to get a lot of replay value out of it, and it's pretty much exactly what I had been hoping for. But, at the same time, I have to question some of its final design choices. Think of this review less as a straight up “review” than me trying to figure out how I feel about a few things (read: the light meter).
I came into the story of Splinter Cell Conviction feeling like both a fan and a noob. As soon as it began, I realized that, despite playing and enjoying all of the past Splinter Cell games, I had never actually finished one. Why not is a bit of a mystery even to me. So watching this story unfold was pretty interesting. I knew all the characters, at least vaguely, but wasn't aware of some of their ultimate fates (like Lambert’s). The fact that I enjoyed the story, I think, illustrates that it will definitely be rewarding to have played the other games ahead of time, but this could easily be your very first Splinter Cell game and you won't feel like you've missed out on a great deal. Plus, if story doesn't matter to you (and it often doesn't to me) and you just want to creep around and shoot dudes, then you're in luck.
Creeping around and shooting dudes is what Conviction does best. The new tools the game provides to do so are a very welcome addition to the series. First and foremost, personally, is the new cover system, which works exceptionally well. Having just come off of Mass Effect 2 before this, I can safely say I prefer Splinter Cell's cover mechanics and wish more games took advantage of it. It's not a wild reinvention of "hiding behind stuff," it's more how smart the whole thing is. Left trigger to crouch down and lean against the nearest object to you (or to dive, slide, or roll to it, if you're a few feet away). However, you don't attach to that object. You can keep holding the trigger down and creep away if you like. You never feel stuck to anything. In addition, moving from cover to cover is really simple and effective, with clear and helpful on-screen cues. And shooting from behind cover is perfectly intuitive. Since you'll likely spend most of Conviction crouched down behind something, such a well-designed cover system is exactly what the game needed, and at no point did I take it for granted.
The replacement of night vision goggles with sonar goggles is also a good move. Since I tend to shoot out every light in the place before approaching enemies, all night vision really does is turn the game green. Night vision is definitely a cliché in video games these days, and it's nice to have something a little different. The sonar goggles are a little like Detective Mode in Batman: Arkham Asylum, just without skeletons walking around everywhere. You also won't spend the entire game wearing them.
There's actually a great deal I like about the sonar goggles. First off, they're not really constantly on. They send out a pulse which blankets your environment, illuminating enemies and traps. But they only stay illuminated for a few moments, after which the images fade and another sonar pulse is sent out, leaving you in total darkness for a few seconds. This keeps you on your toes since moving enemies can suddenly be a lot closer to you than you just thought they were. The goggles are also sensitive to your own movement, which is neat. You can't just run through your environment wearing them. Any walking or running around causes the image to distort and glitch up. You have to use the goggles sparingly and intentionally, planning carefully. They are a tool, not a crutch.
The ability to "Mark and Execute" targets is also super fun and satisfying, but it's not necessarily as integral to the gameplay as I expected it to be. This is a good thing. The system had the potential to make things too easy and make Fisher a little too superhuman. The game requires you to do a close-up, and-to-hand takedown of a dude before you have the ability to headshot the rest of the room automatically, and the personal takedowns are a little harder to pull off than one might expect. Often, with too many guys around, you simply don't have the opportunity. This makes Mark and Execute much less of a "noob tube," as it were. In practice, it's actually something you work for, then conserve for just the right moment. I found myself saving them for nearly entire levels at times before I finally found that moment, that environment, that was just right for a good Mark and Execute. And, at that point, oh boy is it satisfying. (Also satisfying is a set piece later in the game involving Sam being even more pissed off than normal which makes really enjoyable use of the mechanic.) Sometimes, though, you’re surrounded and out of options, and at that point, Mark and Execute is helpful as well, even if you’re not taking down the maximum number of guys at once. It’s great, I love it, great idea.
I also need to praise the level design. For such a linear game, it’s remarkably open. It’s likely, if you replay certain sections or maps, that you won’t approach things the same way twice. There are a really large number of different paths and options for you in each environment. Do you like climbing up high and taking out dudes from the ceiling, or pulling them out of windows? No problem. Do you prefer isolating guys from their group and taking them out in the darkness, hand-to-hand, one by one? Okay! Most levels will even let you sneak by everyone and accomplish things without firing a single shot, if you want to be really patient. Locations feel real and very little feels placed in the environment just for you to hide behind (unlike Mass Effect 2’s endless hallways of waist-high walls). It makes for a surprisingly open world for you to explore and experiment with.
The weapons upgrades are tied to a challenge system, which is fun. You'll get points based on completing various challenges, like taking down a guy who's investigating your last known position, or silently vanishing a certain number of times. It's nothing new to video games, but it's implemented well, if not quietly. Upgrading the stuff you use is definitely nice, but that does bring me to my first minor complaint. Why in the world would you use any other pistol than the upgraded Five Seven? Unlimited ammo, built-in silencer, four Mark and Execute marks, deadly accuracy, and a long range. You have a choice of plenty of other side weapons (submachine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, etc.) but this is my point: you will almost certainly pick the two weapons you like the best, upgrade them quickly, and then spend the rest of the game with them. I never felt the urge to upgrade or bother with other weapons because my main stash worked so well for me. Sure enough, I used the Five Seven and the M468 (a silenced assault rifle) pretty much the entire game. It would have been nice for the weapons to have a little more variety and with more incentives to use than just an Achievement for me to get and upgrade them all.
Probably the biggest point of contention for me in Splinter Cell Conviction (meaning, I'm totally split over whether I like it or not) is the light meter. Or, rather, the lack of one. In all the past Splinter Cell games, and in so many other games that involve being sneaky, there's an on-screen meter that lets you know how well you can be seen or how much into the shadows you are. Not here. Fisher doesn't have that stuff at the moment. Instead, when Sam is in the shadows, the world turns black and white. When the environment is in color, you're visible. Now, that doesn't mean an enemy is looking at you, but it does mean that if there was an enemy looking in your direction, he'd be able to see you. You're not just visible, you're illuminated.
Now, I am all for a minimal HUD and this game does that well. I enjoyed not having to look at the corner of the screen the entire game to see how lit up I was. However, this new way of doing things effectively makes this a black and white game with occasional splotches of color. When the world turns gray, it's totally gray, except for enemies. Everything is dark, things are hard to make out and distinguish from one another, and all that beautiful color (the game really is well designed and easy on the eyes) gets lost.
On one hand, the black and white mechanic is fantastic. When you are walking around in the dark in real life, the light receptors in your eyes that see well in darkness do not process color very well. We do only see vivid color in bright light. So that makes a little sense. And it's a really great, immediate visual indicator of how hidden you are. No HUD involved. Great.
But on the other hand, oh man, I miss the color! The game looks so nice and so much time was obviously spent on designing these environments. They feel very alive and I wish I could have spent more time seeing them as they were actually created: in color. It might be a minor thing, but I really missed that color sometimes, just like I did playing Arkham Asylum in Detective Mode (because WHY WOULD YOU TURN THAT OFF). Plus, even though, yeah, color in the dark is tough to see, everything, lit up or not, on screen turns black and white. That’s not how it works. If there’s a lamp on the other side of the room, that should still be throwing some color on things. Not so. I feel like they could have made Fisher himself, and what’s around him, turn black and white, while still preserving a lot of the color of the environment- stuff you’re trying to see- but I also don’t think that would have looked all that great in reality, and then you’re just left with a black and white Fisher the whole game. What’s best? I don’t know.
The change from color to black and white is also super binary. There's no gradual desaturation of the color as less and less light hits you; you're either visible or not, color or no color, no middle ground. In a way, this is good, because where exactly do you draw that line where you're really not visible anymore? Straight up black and white? Then why bother with slow desaturation? Halfway in-between? How would you quantify that for the player? That seems like it would just lead to frustration. However, with as nice as the game looks and as quickly as it shifts between color and gray, and despite all the positives I've pointed out about the system, I had a really hard time not feeling like it was a decision made later in the design process. Like the light meter thing was just annoying and they needed to ditch it, but so much of the game was already built. It is at the same time a really great design move and a really poor, rushed one. I'm still conflicted over it. I never actually got completely used to it. When I liked it, I really liked it and was grateful for it. But when I didn't like it, I hated it and wished I could see things clearer.
In the long run, I'm going to give the color as a light meter function a thumbs up. Despite my issues with it, it's actually more realistic (game-wise), than any other method I've seen. And there's never any question about whether you're in the shadows or not, meaning much less frustration than in past Splinter Cell games. I don't even know what I'd do to improve it, seeing as how the alternatives (light meter/slow desaturation/etc.) are probably worse. Still, it’s tough to love, sometimes. I suppose I could run and gun through the game ("Hey, everybody! I'm Sam Fisher! Pew pew pew!”), but what fun is that?
I’ve heard talk about the AI being dumb. It’s not true. Now, granted, I played through the single-player on Realistic, so I can’t speak for the easier difficulty settings. But I found the enemies, generally speaking, to be pretty smart. After finding a certain number of dead comrades, they’d often retreat a little bit and hide, knowing I’d be coming through there. In other games, enemies will just run ahead mindlessly. If anyone’s approaching you in Splinter Cell, especially later in the game, they’re usually being pretty methodical and careful about it. They will flank you, but not as a cheap way to make the level more difficult. They don’t automatically know where you are; enemies will actively search for you and, I thought, smartly so.
But, what you have heard- in reviews and even in Penny Arcade comics alike- about the absurd amount of enemy chatter is totally true. These dudes will seriously not shut up. The ones that are actively hunting you are often pretty quiet, and I was sneaked up on more often than I want to admit. But, if they know you’re there and they’re a little ways from you, they will mercilessly, repetitively taunt you. Straight up taunt. It’s good, in a way, because it does let you know that there are still dudes around and it orients you a bit. They can also be pretty funny. However, the creators simply didn’t record enough of these guys, and you will hear the same stuff yelled at you multiple times throughout the game. Set aside the fact that bad guys who know someone like Sam Fisher is on his way to kill them would most likely shut the fuck up. It’s a little silly and could easily have been avoided, but it’s actually something you get used to and, ultimately, isn’t a big deal. If they’re going to keep yelling at me in the next game, though, I at least want the ability to taunt back. Like, tell knock-knock jokes and stuff.
I’ve only delved into a little bit of Deniable Ops, but it’s quite enjoyable. (UPDATE: I complained here about the lack of checkpoint in Deniable Ops, but, as it turns out, with a little more play, they're totally there. Why they weren't there the first couple times I tried it, I have no idea. They weren't, so now they were. Problem solved. Deniable Ops is awesome.)
I have yet to try out the Co-Op story, mainly because none of my friends have purchased the game yet and I’m a little reluctant to jump in there with a stranger (though I’ll probably end up doing that this weekend). The Deniable Ops missions are keeping me busy anyway, right now, and I’d like to play the campaign again.
Overall, even with a brisk story section, I feel like Splinter Cell Conviction has already given me my money’s worth, and I still have so much more content to explore. Nagging little issues aside, the game is extremely fun and exactly what I was in the mood for. Sneak around, snap some necks, bash some dudes into pianos, etc. It’s a much deeper experience than it seems on the surface, the new gameplay mechanics are overall really great, and it’s is definitely a game I’ll be playing a lot of this year and beyond.
Just don’t ask me about the light meter. I’m still struggling here.