CES 2010: Splinter Cell: Conviction Hands-on
We suit up as Archer and keep to the shadows in the new Deniable Ops mode.
January 7, 2010 - It's almost here. Sam Fisher's next stealth-action romp, Splinter Cell: Conviction, will ship for Xbox 360 on February 25. To celebrate its impending release, third-party Ubisoft brought an updated build of the gorgeous title to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. And unsurprisingly, we didn't hesitate to go hands-on with Conviction again.
Over the course of the last year, we've seen several unique areas of the project, including missions starring franchise hero Fisher, as well as new cooperative modes featuring altogether new spies. At CES, Ubi pulled back the curtain on yet another variation. The publisher put a controller in our hands and challenged us to try out the first map in the game's Deniable Ops mode.
Conviction is three games in one. First and foremost, there's Fisher's story of revenge against the Third Echelon after he learns that his daughter's death was no accident. Second is the new cooperative-only prologue -- a four-mission story (which transpires weeks before Sam's rampage) featuring American agent Archer and Russian spy Kestrel working together to find and disarm missing EMP warheads. And completing the package is Deniable Ops, which borrows the four missions from the prologue, adds two new maps, but dramatically alters the gameplay dynamics.
Deniable Ops is itself divided into four unique gameplay styles. Hunter, Infiltration, Last Stand and Face Off, all of which except for the latter can be played alone.
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Hunter offers very traditional seek-and-kill gameplay. Various soldiers litter maps and you must dispose of them any way you can. If you break from the shadows and stealth, you will need to take cover as enemies aggressively attack. You're not indestructible so it's always smarter to stay silent and play strategically. In Infiltration, the same rules apply, but if you're discovered by enemies, it's game over.
Last Stand is a survival mode. The agent (or agents if you play with a friend) must protect a level object like an EMP warhead as enemies try to set it off. You must continually defend the object and simultaneously develop patterns to distract the enemies.
Finally, Face Off is a full-blown adversarial mode. Spy versus spy. In an attempt to add a unique layer to what is otherwise straight deathmatch, the developer has kept enemies on the maps and they're hostiles. So you'll need to worry about your agent component in addition to standard foes. This naturally makes for some potentially satisfying situations as you use enemy AI against your human opponents. For instance, if you spot an agent hiding in the shadows, you can throw a grenade in the general direction and divert the intelligence their way.
The game level demonstrated at CES was called Saint Petersburg Banya, a mixture of warehouses and cathedrals blanketed in enemies. We played as Archer. It didn't take us long to familiarize ourselves with the controls, The analog sticks handle movement and camera. D-Pad up toggles the agent's sonar goggles. Left and right cycles between your two weapons: a light and a heavy. A pistol or machine-pistol run standard. Heavies include everything from the assault rifle to the shotgun. Right trigger shoots. Left trigger sticks to cover and executes slides while running. A button opens doors and jumps. B handles hand-to-hand combat. X throws various gadgets like grenades and EMPs. And of course Y is used to setup and trigger mark and execute maneuvers.
Every button is used and as far as action games go, it's a complicated setup, but it is nevertheless a sensible layout and moving your agent about the world, hiding in the shadows and planning kills will all come to you quickly. Novices will probably want to keep their sidearms handy just in case their stealthy infiltrations go awry. However, according to Ubisoft, all of the missions in Deniable Ops can be completed sans guns. It won't be an easy undertaking given that enemy AI grows more difficult and the patterns and layouts of foes change dynamically with each new play-through.
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