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PostPosted: 13 Jul 2010 06:24 
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Joined: 25 Mar 2010 20:32
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Location: Austin, TX.
Ah yes, the good world of Splinter Cell. It has garnered a tremendous fan-base and is one of Ubisoft's highly acclaimed series. Splinter Cell: Conviction continues the story of rogue agent, Sam Fisher, and his quest to find out what his former agency: Third Echelon are up to and, more importantly, the truth about his daughter's murder. Sam Fisher is one pissed off agent and in Conviction, it truly shows. Now, before I start spoiling stuff, let's get down to the nitty-gritty.

Minimum Requirements:

- Operating System: Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7
- Processor: 1.8ghz Intel Core 2 Duo or 2.4ghz AMD Athlon X2
- Memory 1.5gb for Windows XP & 2.0gb for Windows Vista and 7
- 10gb of hard drive space
- DirectX 9.0c compatible card or greater with at least 256mb of memory
- A constant broadband connection
- Highly recommended: a 12-button gamepad with analog sticks

As you can see, the minimum requirements aren't that power hungry but do keep in mind that these are MINIMUM. Turn up all the settings as high as they can go and you'll really appreciate the look of Conviction. Even though it's using the outdate Unreal engine, everything looks absolutely crisp in Conviction. Everything has a nice shine to it, the shadows are where they're supposed to be, structures give off a realistic vibe, weapons have a nice reflection to them, physics are nice (a bit quirky sometimes), the facial expressions of the characters are awesome, and the way you can interact with your surroundings is superb. However, I did run into some clipping problems with the terrorists. There were times when I'd approach a closed door only to see a terrorist's weapon stick out of the door. That kind of threw off some sense of realism. That's one of the gripes but I'll cover the remaining gripes as we go on with this review.

Story:

Story-wise, Conviction is a nice way of ending Sam Fisher's story I suppose. While I say 'nice' it isn't as good as some of the endings were in most of my games. At start, it's a bit ho-hum but gets interesting at the final half. Don't misunderstand though, it's a good story that'll take some players on a great uhhh...journey but as for me, well; I didn't play ALL of the Splinter Cell games so that's why I didn't feel all hardcore about it.

Sound: Hmmm...sound-wise, I thought the sounds were great. However, the voice acting (especially Michael Ironside who voices Sam Fisher) could use a teeny-weeny bit of work. Mr. Ironside's voice acting was probably the weakest one but I didn't really mind it too much. To me, Sam Fisher wasn't voicing out as much emotion as he should've been, given his situation. Also, the Desert Eagle could use a boost in its sound. It didn't make me feel like I was shooting the Hand Cannon but more like a 9mm Glock. Something that I really noticed that irked me was that the terrorists love to insult you and this was disappointing because I could find them so easily while they were cursing and calling me derogatory names. I was hoping to fight some QUIET, SMART terrorists that know how to keep their mouth shut when on the look out for an agent lurking about in the dark.

Gameplay: The name of the game for Conviction is espionage; meaning you'll be spending most of your time under the shadows of darkness and keeping yourself quiet all the while taking your enemies down with silenced weapons (well 75% of your inventory consists of silenced weapons.) This is probably the reason why I decided to try Conviction out. I'm a sucker for espionage-based games (i.e: Metal Gear Solid, Syphon Filter) and I truly loved this aspect of Conviction. My favorite move in Conviction was the ability to throw people out of the windows or some high ledge. New to the Splinter Cell (well from what I've read) world is the ability to "Mark and Execute" enemies. Depending on your weapon's "marks," you can mark targets to execute a very nice slow-mo'ed combo. This is extremely useful when trying to clear out a room full of terrorists. But to actually get this ability to work, first you must take down an enemy with your hands. There are a couple of disappointing things about Conviction's gameplay and those are: 1) Controls act a bit quirky and thus, I hit a button and do the wrong move. For example, I was on top of a box with a pipe over my head. I wanted to get off the box and instead, my character jumped onto the pipe. It takes some getting used to but not a HUGE gripe; just a minor one. And 2) if you're in darkness, the screen goes black and white; letting you know you are in darkness and that enemies cannot see you unless they are equipped with flashlights or are in touching distance from you. While this gripe is very small, it does feel awkward.

Misc: Before I get to the good stuff in this part of the review, let me get something important off my chest about this game and Ubisoft. I understand that you (Ubisoft) are out to make money by creating enjoyable entertainment (video games) but we aren't going to spend our hard-earned money on a half-assed product. The point I'm trying to make here is the Xbox controller problem. When I first started Conviction up, the button mapping was all fucked up. To shoot, I had to press the Start button and cancel was the "X" button. I tried numerous ways to get this fixed and spent about a month looking on forums. While there was a great solution I found, 99.5% of the controls were working. The other 0.5% was the fact that it wouldn't let me shoot around corners. I would peek out from a corner and try to shoot someone only to find myself walking outside into the line of fire and getting my ass lit up. Fortunately, I found a forum post that helped me fix that 0.5% error. So now, Conviction is an enjoyable game to play. Another gripe that caught my attention was the DRM used for this game. To play this game, you must ALWAYS be connected to Ubisoft's servers (even for singe-player.) While some people might not be turned off by this, most are and/or will be. Personally, I don't have any qualms about it since my desktop is constantly connected. I hear the best part of Conviction is the 2-player co-op but I haven't played multiplayer yet since nobody has the game and Ubisoft's server for this game are a mess (from what I've read.) I love the fact that you can earn points for certain achievements you accomplish. These points can be used to upgrade your weapons and explosives. Speaking of weapons, there are plenty of them, each with a unique trait. The AI in this game isn't disappointing. The bots will hunt your ass down if they know you are in the vicinity. They will flank, lob grenades, use suppression fire, flashbang your ass to slow you down, etc.

Conclusion: While Conviction fits into a genre that I seriously love, I'm going to have to give it a 7/10. Here are the pros and cons:

Pros:

+ Espionage aspect is awesome
+ Stealth is a must in order to complete, resulting in nice stealthy kills
+ Sam Fisher beats the hell outta people like a true badass
+ Plenty of weapons
+ Story isn't dry and bland
+ Deniable Ops is a nice single-player mode if you want to just hunt terrorists out
+ Graphics are beautiful

Cons:

- Xbox controller issue (HUGE negative for me)
- DRM is a turn-off for many, not for some
- Chatty ass terrorists make espionage look like a freakin' joke
- Some clipping issues
- Controls can get quirky in some situations

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