Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction

I was new to the Splinter Cell universe upon playing this game, though I have gone back to play Double Agent and am playing through that currently. My newness to the series is probably what allowed me to enjoy it so much. If you are looking for the old style of gameplay, you may well be disappointed, but if so you are only preventing yourself from enjoying an amazing game. Conviction is far more focused on killing than Double Agent and I am assuming other titles in the series, which emphasized nonlethal takedowns and complete evasion. The Mark and Execute feature both facilitates and demonstrates this new emphasis. It also fits within the storyline. Ultimately, this makes the game more of an action title than Splinter Cell titles used to be, but what an action title it is. And don't get me wrong - stealth is still an incredibly important part of the gameplay, it is simply that you will have to effectively mix stealth and gunplay. You will still go down quickly if you try to take on several enemies, but now you can easily take on one or two. Many comparisons have been made to Batman: Arkham Asylum in this regard, and in regard to the combat in general, and this is accurate - you will enter an area with a number of enemies and, just as you had gargoyles, multiple entrances, and multiple levels in Batman: AA, you will have pipes, walls, ceilings, entrances, levels, etc to play with in Splinter Cell: Conviction. You also similarly get many gadgets to play with. These are awesome. In my first playthrough through the main campaign I didn't use them much, but they are actually thoughtfully implemented and there are limitless ways to use them. The EMP is a favorite, as is the very cool sticky camera, which you can get extremely creative with. This game seriously rewards multiple playthroughs, and each one will be completely different from the others if you approach situations differently, which is possible in almost every area. A lot of fuss has been made about this game's length. The main game is somewhere between 6-8 hours long, which isn't much, but as I said, the game begs for multiple playthroughs. I actually enjoyed it more the second time around, on the hardest difficulty setting (the various difficulty settings dramatically change the way the game plays too). Everyone also needs to understand that the co-op gameplay is an entirely new storyline with entirely new locations and characters. It is basically another entire game. This is easily another 4-5 hours and I actually liked it better than the main campaign. The areas in the co-op story can also be played in the various Deniable Ops modes, of which Hunter is the best. So, if you don't have a buddy to play along, you can still see the rest of the game this way - though I seriously recommend playing with someone on XBox Live - it is an amazing experience. The Hunter mode is all about tactical prowess, planning, and stealth though, and this is where I have spent most of my time after completing the main campaign and co-op campaign. I must have put 10-20 hours into this mode, and I have finally finished all of the extremely cool challenges the game has in store (called PEC challenges, they are something like the more complex challenges in CoD: MW2, but in my opinion more creative and varied, i.e. they aren't all 'kill something this way with this thing' or 'run this far,'). They offer a feeling of real accomplishment and many of them will actually give you ideas about how to effectively sneak around and whack baddies ('kick down a door to eliminate the enemy on the other side,' etc.) Some also take serious skill, like getting through an entire level with no detections. All in all, the single player and co-op stories may only add up to about 12 hours, but you will easily get 30+ gameplay hours out of this title (It certainly helps that Ubisoft is currently offering free weekly DLC for this title too). And every one of those hours will be incredibly fun. And that is what really matters - how much fun this game is. Call out whatever flaws you will, but like Borderlands six months ago - another outrageously fun title that nevertheless was picked apart - this game's few flaws are impossible to notice while you are busy grinning ear to ear with the gameplay situations and possibilities Splinter Cell: Conviction offers. I haven't enjoyed sitting down to my XBox this much in a quite some time. Definitely pick it up.

Sam Fisher is back, and he is not in a good mood. Of all the smart decisions made in crafting a new Splinter Cell title, this might be the best one developer Ubisoft Montreal made. Sam's angry and you hear it in every grunted line of dialogue, can see it in the brutal takedowns and interrogation moves and feel it pulsating through Sam with every step. That anger, that aggressiveness is built not only into the story but the gameplay changes as well. It was a huge risk deviating from the trial-and-error style that made the series famous, but it paid off. Splinter Cell Conviction is awesome. The story takes place a few years after the end of Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Don't worry, if you never finished that game, you'll get caught up quickly as to what's going on. Sam's daughter was killed, he murdered his best friend Lambert, and he split from Third Echelon, the government agency he'd called home for years. With new evidence leading to his daughter's killer, a tormented and semi-retired Sam Fisher is called back into action. Turns out the people responsible for his daughter's fate are planning a major terrorist attack on Washington D.C. This is going to be one long day for Sam Fisher. Conviction sets itself apart from its predecessors with its pacing. You're always being pushed forward, so much so that I played through the entire single-player campaign in one sitting without even realizing I'd been up all night. Ubisoft pulled off a few magic tricks to make this happen. There are no in-game loading screens unless you die. From the moment the game starts, you never sit around waiting for something to happen. Levels are loaded while you're watching slickly presented cutscenes. Fancy new projection technology integrates text into the scenery to point you towards your goal, and back story is shown with movies playing out on walls as you progress through a level. These things aid in keeping players immersed in the world, but the real reason things feel so fluid is the change in approach to stealth. In Conviction, stealth is about speed. Sam moves fast. Really fast. He can get in and out of cover quickly, shimmy across ledges faster than the Prince of Persia and beat a hasty retreat if he gets into trouble. Sam's codename used by Third Echelon is "panther," and that's fitting. In past Splinter Cell games, enemies were meant to be avoided; in Conviction, Sam is a hunter. He isn't avoiding enemies, he's stalking them. Sam lurks in the shadows, finds his moment to pounce and strikes with deadly efficiency. There may be a dozen men, fully armed and with extensive combat training closing in, but they're the ones who should be worried. You feel like the ultimate badass thanks to some generous aiming assists that let you easily put bullets into approaching enemy noggins. Rather than force players to eyeball a variety of meters to determine their level of stealth, Ubisoft made things very obvious. If you're in the shadows and impossible to see, the color bleeds out and things go black and white. The minute you're in the light, the color comes back. This easy sense of whether you are hidden or exposed enables you to move quickly through the environment and plan your route of attack on the fly. Shadows and light are just half the stealth equation. The other half is the cover system. The cover is not at all like Gears of War, where you're sucked against a wall. Squeeze the left trigger and if you are near an object, you'll take cover behind it. Release the trigger and you immediately disengage, or you can hold down the trigger and move away from cover with no problem. You're never attached to a surface. In fact, you can hold down the trigger when out in the open and Sam will crouch, doing his best to minimize his visibility. Should you be spotted, the best thing to do is retreat. Get out of sight and a white silhouette appears, marking your Last Known Position. The AI will focus on this spot, because it's where they think you're hiding. They'll unload some shots, maybe toss a grenade and then make their way towards the spot to see if they got you. On Realistic difficulty -- the only way you should play Conviction -- the AI is very sharp and won't be fooled for long. You can use the Last Known Position to your advantage. Flank your enemies when their attention is on your silhouette, then take them out before they realize what's going on. Using shadows and cover, you stalk your prey, and when you're close enough, you can perform a hand-to-hand takedown. There are dozens (probably more than a hundred) of these. They're an excellent reward for being sneaky. My favorite is shooting a guy in the leg and as he crumples downward, popping him in the chin with my silenced pistol. But the system isn't perfect. You bash in a door with the same button as a hand-to-hand takedown. Attempt to quietly kill an enemy near a door and you may end up kicking in the door and causing a ruckus. Occasional glitches aside, stealth kills look cool, avoid attracting attention and earn you the ability to execute. The Mark & Execute system is probably the most controversial change to the Splinter Cell series. You can tag or "mark" enemies, putting a big arrow over their heads and then executing them with the press of a button. So long as the mark is red, you are guaranteed a kill. As it's described, this would seem like a "win" button that would make Splinter Cell too easy. Far from it. You have to work to earn the right to execute. Use it once and you must perform another stealth takedown to activate the execution option again. More importantly, executing does not equal "stealthily execute." If you aren't careful, you can easily expose yourself to enemies when you enter execution mode. There are often more enemies than you could ever mark, so it's not as if you run through tagging and killing with ease. Conviction is a Splinter Cell game in name more than anything else. You could easily swap Sam Fisher for Jack Bauer or create an all new character and no one would give it a second thought. The gameplay is fast, and Sam has been transformed into the ultimate killer. It's an amazing game, but so different from its predecessors you might not recognize it. Despite a few questionable level design choices, Splinter Cell Conviction is a great addition to the series. There's no way I could go back to a stealth game as it used to be; I've been converted. The only reason to hesitate and pick this up is if you only care about the single-player story and want nothing to do with anything else Conviction has to offer. If that's the case, then there's not a lot of game to be had. And also, you're nuts. The best parts of Conviction are the experiences you have long after you've left Sam Fisher behind. 9.6/10

Come faster than promoted and functioned with out a problem

Amazing game

Seller shipped item quickly and in safe secure packaging. Very happy with purchase

Splinter Cell Conviction starts off a little after Double Agent. Sam Fisher is on the run from the authorities and is trying to clear his name while learning a few secrets and betrayals from his close friends. It is not at all necessary to have played the first four games before this one as they are all practically summarized within the first few chapters of this game. Unlike the previous Splinter Cell games this one takes a huge turn into an action shooter while somewhat retaining the stealth aspects. Most of the time, instead of avoiding your opponents entirely, you are more often then not forced to killed them or knock them out. I found myself caught in quite a few firefights. As well one of the chapters almost turns into an upright third person shooter. Conviction has also added a Mark and Execute system into the game allowing you to mark several enemies at once and instantly killed them when triggered. The Mark and Execute was enjoyable to use but also did take away some of the challenge within the game. Although the gameplay was very different from the games before it I found it to be very fun. In terms of story I found that it played out fairly well and had some very nice plot twists added within it to keep the players playing. Overall, if you are only buying the game to relive the previous Splinter Cell games I don't recommend it. Splinter Cell Conviction has strayed far away from its predecessors. I do recommend Conviction if you want to continue the story and play an enjoyable game at the same time.

Perfect brand new game