Splinter Cell: Conviction E3 Preview

The ragged-haired Sam Fisher from when Conviction was revealed is no more. He’s sporting his original crew cut, and the game’s gone through some massive changes since it was first revealed. I can’t wait to play it later this year.

As far as basic gist goes, Sam Fisher is still on the run, but now he’s searching for the murderer of his daughter, Sarah. This sent him through a couple of locales, and it really showed just how different this Splinter Cell was going to be compared to the past four.

There’s still a bit of streamlining with information: you know you’re hidden in the dark when the game’s world starts to desaturate in color (so no light and sound indicators), but at the same time, guards and objects you can interact with still retain color. It helps your situational awareness as well as making you feel that you really are a capable spy on the run. You even have the ability to see your last known position relative to the enemy, letting you trick guards into searching areas you’ve long since abandoned. It’s all very impressive, and it made me wonder why it’s taken this long for someone to implement something so obvious in a stealth game. Once I saw it, it just came off as a massive DUH.

Though, stealth might not be the correct term. You still do need to make a conscious effort to remain fairly clandestine, but the demo had an emphasis on the game’s tag and execute feature, which, if you’ve played Rainbow Six Vegas, is a concept that should be immediately familiar. Before you breach a door, you can take up to the two of anything – make it be lights or guards – and once you make yourself welcome, Sam will automatically shoot down what you’ve tagged. It’s a little convenient, but it does again make you feel like a capable spy.

Besides the reworked gameplay, it’s doing some novel things to project the narrative - quite literally, in fact. Bits and pieces of the story will be projected right onto the game’s levels, where it’ll play and show your objectives, delve into Sam’s past and so on. It looked mighty impressive, and - again - it’s amazing how something like that has never been thought of until now.

Conviction is a mish-mash of new and old conventions. The “stealth” gameplay has been significantly reworked for something along the lines of Bourne-type stealth. Some impressive gameplay and narrative innovations make me want this game pretty badly. I’ve loved the series since the original, with Double Agent souring my time with the series. Conviction looks like a return to form.