When an investigation into his daughters death leads to the discovery that he has been betrayed by The Third Echelon Sam Fisher (still played by the wonderfully gravel voiced Michael Ironside) goes renegade to exact revenge on his former employees. After many delay’s Conviction is finally nearing completion and this new version is a million miles away from the grizzled old homeless looking guy staggering around the streets of Washington D.C. which was so prevalent in trailers late last year.
Our demo starts with an incredibly dark and brutal interrogation – Fisher’s disarm of a bald-headed man in a men’s room transitions seamlessly from a cutscene to interactive as players get the chance to interact with the environment. And when we say interact we mean smashing our victims head off toilet bowls and splitting his head open on a mirror. Conversation complete, Fisher walks away as scenes play out in high contrast black and white on the walls of the level – right away you know ths is a very different Splinter Cell.
The first of two playable levels saw players infiltrating a town house near a busy market square in order to have another hyper-violent chat with a man who will help lead him to his daughter’s killer. Our playthrough was single mindedly direct – headshotting our way past the first guards, smashing through doors and clearing out rooms with the game’s impressive shotgun. The gameplay is smooth, weapons feel good and hand to hand combat is a joy but the whole experience did feel a little simplistic – just one more third person shooter with much more of an emphasis on action than before. Then we stepped back and let a pro show us how it was really done...
That’s the amazing thing about Conviction – the number of different ways to approach even the most simple of levels. A close up kill earns execute actions – something which we had no idea how to use. But our Ubisoft rep eased up to a doorway, used a piece of a broken wing mirror to spot 3 targets and marked them with the right bumper. Bursting into the room – a tap of the Y key unleashed a flurry of shots which brought all 3 enemies down before they could make a sound. These executes are also based on proximity – if you are close to 1 enemy and within shooting distance of 2 more you will kill the first with your hands and cap the others in style. This mechanic is worth the purchase price alone as it really makes you feel like a highly trained operative, able to handle any situation not only efficiently but also (importantly for a game) with flair.
As the reps playthrough continued we saw just one of a half dozen possible routes, diversionary tactics, contextual kills and all manner of ultraviolent goodness. Of course the level ended the same way (and still all too quickly) but the difference in journey was astonishing.