Remember Sam Fisher from Third Echelon? Yup, that guy. He is back and gone rogue as he has been betrayed and dropped by the agency with only a few friends remaining while he hunts down the killer of his daughter. Conviction is the revenge story of a stealth expert who turns into a desperate predator looking to kill everyone in his way between him and his target. The game will take players to multiple locations and includes an interesting flashback mission and a showdown in the White House.
Conviction has changed up and modernized the control scheme, almost turning it into a third person action game. Ubisoft Montreal has added several new features including a text and video overlay guiding the player and telling the story, this makes for a more cohesive experience and reducing cut scenes and load times to a minimum. The most prominent feature of Conviction is the called ‘Mark and Execute’ – players are able to perform a hand to hand kill and unlock the ability to mark several enemies with an arrow and execute them with a push of the Y button. One can argue this is an ‘Easy Button’ but if used properly it turns the latest entry in the Splinter Cell series into the Jason Bourne game we never played. I should mention, it’s fun!
Conviction also has several multiplayer modes ranging from a separate CO-OP campaign to Versus multiplayer modes and challenge rooms. While Conviction is a refreshing reboot of a relatively outdated game genre I can not recommend a purchase due to the Single Player campaign which never quite reaches a proper climax and just falls short of a must buy. However, if you enjoy stealth games and multiplayer with a buddy over Xbox LIVE you should give this a go as there is nothing quite like it to date.
Rent It – Splinter Cell Conviction is a good game that can’t quite live up to the hype but is a fun play through.
