Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction - Exclusive Pre Order Pack (Xbox 360)

Well, the title more or less says it all. This is a fantastic game that will grip you in it's vice-like chokehold and not let you go until you reach the end. But that rollercoaster journey is quite short. It took me maybe 2/3 days to complete, only playing a bit every day, on the hardest difficulty. That said, I am a seasoned gamer and Splinter Cell player, so maybe it will last longer for the less experienced. Plus, the Multiplayer options stretch the game out no end. You get a full second storyline in co-operative mode, which is almost as good as the main one, albeit even shorter. The other multiplayer modes like Hunter and so on are also pretty good with a friend, tasking you with various relatively simple objectives such as defending a certain point, eliminating guards and sneaking into a base undiscovered.

The storyline is really great, and the new Jack Bauer-esque spin they've given Sam Fisher is brilliant. The game is full of "wow" moments, and plays out like a fantastic action thriller movie, full of suspense, intrigue, double crossing, great characters, and explosive set-pieces. The final mission is the pinnacle of all this, and is bound to thrill you.

Overall though, I'm not sure this game is worth the money if you can't, or are unlikely to use the multiplayer featuers for whatever reason, like not having Xbox Live. So this game gets 4 stars with multiplayer, but take one away from that official score if you are only going to play solo.

I'm quite a big fan of SC so I was looking forward to this game. To say that I've played it without enjoyment would be a lie. Also to say that it is visually lacking would also be a lie, since it looks amazing, with incredible amounts of detail and cool lighting effects.

So with all the ingredients for an amazing game, where did it all go wrong? Well, in one word; ATMOSPHERE, or the lack of it. The previous games weren't so polished graphically and some of the movements were clunkier, but the atmosphere of those games was incredible. There are several reasons that this is not present in this game:

a) Help text is literally splattered all over objects in the game world, so you can be sneaking up to a dark building and in huge "60ft" letters will be instructions like "Plant the C4 explosive" or whatever. This element, more than anything else ruins suspension of reality and reminds you that you are sitting in front of a tv/xbox and not Sam Fisher lurking in the shadows. No way to switch this off that I can see.

b) Crouch/find next cover appears all the time again with white chevrons to guide you. Obviously levels are designed for this feature, makes the whole thing appear rather contrived (other games, like Mass Effect, have the same issue). Again it breaks the suspension of reality. No way to switch the chevrons off.

c) Absolutely insane amounts of swearing and shouting from the baddies. The level of profanity is quite embarrasing and I have to wait until the house is empty before playing this for fear of offending someone! Not believable - if I was a baddie trying to hunt down Fisher, the one thing I wouldn't do is shout my head off at top volume! Again, no way to switch this off.

d) Pointers telling you how far to the next stage in the game. Could be part of HUD, but you're not wearing one, so it's obviously another part of the game system that breaks the illusion. Again no way to switch it off.

e) Hiding in shadows makes the *whole* screen black and white. Huh, really? So if I'm dark, all the light parts of the scene go dark too? No way! Again, breaks suspension of reality and no way to switch it off. Also: dark does not mean black and white - there is colour in dark scenes, it's just very muted.

f) No thermal or night vision. These two are some of the best things about the previous games. So much fun to knock out the lights, switch on night-vision and wait for enemies in the shadows like a spider! I mean, come on - you're a covert op and you don't have these?! If you were Sam Fisher and you wanted to go into a dark building and sneak around you would CHOOSE not to have them? Forget the fact that he's an ex-official covert-op, as he would have access to equipment like this one way or the other.

g) Friction. The physics in the world is not quite right - objects seem to slide around a lot - for example the cones in the fairground level slide along the grass!

h) Levels seem to be constructed more for shoot-em up, rather than stealth. Part of the fun in the old games was just sneaking past all the enemies without a trace. That just doesn't seem possible on many levels - a lot of them turn out to be shoot-outs. One level in the current game came close to what I would like to think of classic SC (the 3rd Echelon Car Park), but that is all too brief. For once the baddies there weren't swearing! In that level you had to observe the guards, work out their patterns and sneak past them. Puzzle solving, fun. Absent from nearly all the other levels.

i) What happened to lock picking or safe cracking? That's missing here. That was fun.

j) Images and "mood words" projected all over the place. OK in the cut-scenes maybe, but please, not in the middle of the game.

k) Storyline. Personally I found the story confusing. I literally lost the plot half way through, and had to read a summary of it on Wikipedia for it to make any sense.

Well, that's enough. All of this adds up to something which is close enough to being a classic to be a real disappointment. If only you could switch off those things I found annoying (which would be easy if they'd thought of it during development) then it would suddendly make this a very different game. Generally the graphics are stunning, but that doesn't automatically give you a stunning game. I hope the makers of this game read my review and think about these points for the sequel: Keep the game engine, but make all that stuff above optional, and please bring back night and thermal vision!

I just love the game i've been a big splintercell fan and it's just a really good game. You should definately purchase it.

My xbox live tag is KwBonez if you wanna know more