Sam Fisher is having a bad time of things. He’s been betrayed by the people he works for, he’s killed his best friend and worst of all he’s lost the one thing enabling him to keep his humanity: his daughter. Lesser men would have crumbled, but not Mr Fisher. He’s determined to get to the bottom of what happened to his daughter and he doesn’t care how many goons will have to be disposed of along the way.

 
Splinter Cell Conviction has been a long time in the making. So long in fact that the game actually went completely back to the drawingboard at one stage. Hobo Fisher and the ‘stealth in a crowd’ mechanic that was originally at the heart of the game were abandoned in favour of a more traditional Splinter Cell experience. The end result of this is a slightly schizophrenic but mostly enjoyable experience.

The story mode in conviction attempts to emulate a series of 24 or one of the Bourne films and playing through it engenders a sense of how it would feel to be someone like Jack Bauer. Sadly though the story itself is rather predictable and the characters, with the exception of Fisher himself, are eminently forgettable.

 
 
 
 
I’m pleased to report that the gameplay has been sharpened up from previous iterations. Sam now moves much quicker and the all new ‘mark and execute’ system is mainly a success. After pulling off a hand to hand kill Sam gains the ability to mark a set number of enemies, as determined by which gun he is using, and then automatically pull off headshots on each of them if they are in range. On occasion this does mean that bullets somehow manage to go straight through walls and into enemies heads which can pull you out of the experience somewhat. Despite that flaw in the system it is very satisfying to stalk an enemy and then instantly pull off headshots of his companions, clearing a room in seconds.

The cover mechanic has been updated and rather than the usual sticky cover system, like a Gears of War, conviction requires the player to keep the left trigger held in order to stay in cover and to use the A buttton to move between different pieces of cover. This is an extrememly intuitive system in practice and plays into the new faster pace of the game excellently. Now that I’ve experienced this mechanic it’s become one that I hope many other developers use in their games. It’s that good that any other cover system feels dated in comparison.

Whilst eventually Sam does have all of the usual gadgets from previous games at his disposal, on the normal setting it is possible to just run and gun through the game as you would any standard third person shooter. This is no more evident than in the flashback Iraq level which massively feels out of place in a Splinter Cell game. This level in particular highlights the schizophrenic nature of the game: it’s a stealth game through which you can play through without actually employing all that much stealth.

If you choose to take a more stealthy approach you will find that the game is much more enjoyable and lasts rather longer, but whatever your gameplay style there is something in conviction for you. Perhaps there was a conscious decision by the developers to try and get more people interested in their game by making it more of a shooter than a sneaker. If it was then the compromise really was not worth it as the game ends up somewhere in the middle of the two.

By far the best thing about conviction is the sheer stylishness of the experience. Graphically the game is superb, with the way in which objectives are conveyed to the player being a particular highlight. Having the objectives displayed on the environment as the player passes was an inspired idea and whoever came up with it deserves all the praise that they receive.

Unfortunately the single player experience is rather short. The game can be completed in around 6 to 7 hours on the normal setting (possibly even quicker if you run and gun it), which does leave you feeling somewhat shortchanged. Fortunately conviction does include a wealth of excellent multiplayer modes which add to the replay value of the package as a whole, however if you’re considering buying the game solely for the single player then I would strongly urge you to change your mind.

Verdict: 7/10. Try before you buy.