Splinter Cell: Conviction revealed

wordsmythe wrote:
Asz wrote:

Why the hell does Sam look like an Emo kid? Who is fifty. WHY?

Gay... or European?

Worse than that, I'm getting a strong backpacker vibe from the photo. Sam takes a year off to "find himself" - throw some chairs, try a new hairstyle, grow a beard, maybe listen to some Fallout Boy and cry for a while.

The title refers to his conviction that the capitalist system is, like, *so bogus* man.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

I don't mind that Sam has hair or that he can throw a chair, but they should probably stop calling it Splinter Cell.

Exactly.

An action adventure based around being a fugitive (chase scenes, stealth, a couple of action packed sequences) could be fun. But it's not the gadgety sneakster that is Splinter Cell.

It's the same problem with Shadowrun. Forcing a popular franchise into a gametype that doesn't fit.

KillerTomato wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
Asz wrote:

Why the hell does Sam look like an Emo kid? Who is fifty. WHY?

Gay... or European?

Worse than that, I'm getting a strong backpacker vibe from the photo. Sam takes a year off to "find himself" - throw some chairs, try a new hairstyle, grow a beard, maybe listen to some Fallout Boy and cry for a while.

The title refers to his conviction that the capitalist system is, like, *so bogus* man.

I choose to imagine that he's actually Gabriel Knight. In the endgame, he'll bleach his hair and open book store in NOLA.

IGN has started a five-part series looking at Conviction. The continued analogies to Jason Bourne sort of make sense, but I highly doubt it'll be enough to convince hardcore fans that this game deserves to be a Splinter Cell game.

Conviction is taking the idea that the Splinter Cell franchise is just a series of stealth games and tossing it right out of the window. The gameplay mechanic of hiding in the shadows while patiently waiting for the perfect moment to get the drop on a terrorist has been scrapped in favor of a more active style of play.

...

You'll still be able press up against walls to look around corners, hide inside of cabinets or underneath tables, and peer through windows to survey the next room.

Alright. Cabinets. Yeah.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

You'll still be able press up against walls to look around corners, hide inside of cabinets or underneath tables, and peer through windows to survey the next room.

I have been searching for a Penny Arcade about a robot that watches you in your home and then breaks in and rapes you to accompany that little tidbit from the Splinter Cell devs, but I swear it must have been taken down.

I thought it was called "Rape as a Double Entendre."

Anyway, this game is still shaping up to be more creepy than sneaky.

In-game footage. Still looks like Sam's livin' the hobo life, stabbin' with his hobo knife.

Well this is one impressive looking game. I can tell that much.

Figures you're attracted to a hairier, fruitier looking Sam...

Must be all that fattening hobo cuisine.

Mr.Green wrote:

Well this is one impressive looking game. I can tell that much.

I disagree. The latest GT trailer looks boring and bland. The gameplay mechanics look very rigid and the game doesn't resemble anything remotely close to the Splinter Cell.

In my opinion, I think it's time for Ubi to put SC on the shelf for good. This series is dead...and they need to give it a proper burial and move on.

Wow.

I don't want to play that game at all.

They lost me completely when Sam shot a hot dog stand to make a fire as a distraction for police between him and the hot dog stand.

And that footage of Sam dropping a beeping cellphone to get a guard's attention, so that he can go back and watch the guard watch the cellphone? Brilliant.

SwampYankee wrote:

Figures you're attracted to a hairier, fruitier looking Sam...


You're just jealous cause he still has hair!

93_confirmed wrote:
Mr.Green wrote:

Well this is one impressive looking game. I can tell that much.

I disagree.

Yeah, except you're not disagreeing with anything I've said. I said it was an impressive looking game, as in graphics. The environments look huge, highly detailed with lots of stuff going on. Lighting is spot on and animations seem pretty fluid. As for determining the gameplay will suck from this trailer then I envy you guys psychic powers. Oh wait, no, I don't.

What strikes me is that when a dev plays safe and wants to stay true to a franchise they get slammed for lacking innovation and when they try to reinvent their franchise they get slammed for changing it. They just can't win do they?

Anyway, I wasn't as thrilled by night vision as some of you guys and therefore didn't hate the last game as much but it wasn't gold either. We'll see. The game is made in Montreal by great people like me. That should give you faith!

Well, if we're hair-splitting - I was disagreeing that the game "looks impressive". From the few vids I've seen thus far, there is nothing impressive with the gameplay, graphics, or otherwise that has me wanting to play this game.

The series has been heading in the wrong direction and continues to do so with each installment. As far as I'm concerned, they should change the title to Hobo Cell: Conviction and sell the Collector's Edition in a brown paper bag. R.I.P. Sam Fischer.

93_confirmed wrote:

Well, if we're hair-splitting - I was disagreeing that the game "looks impressive". From the few vids I've seen thus far, there is nothing impressive with the gameplay, graphics, or otherwise that has me wanting to play this game.

The series has been heading in the wrong direction and continues to do so with each installment. As far as I'm concerned, they should change the title to Hobo Cell: Conviction and sell the Collector's Edition in a brown paper bag. R.I.P. Sam Fischer.

Well I didn't mean to split hair. My initial post was really about the visuals but I guess I can see how "impressive looking" implied more. It's not my fault your language sucks.

Seriously, I can understand and respect people very fond of the original being annoyed by the new direction they've taken. Personally all I care about is a good game. I couldn't possibly care less about his haircut and whatnot as long as the game is fun.

Well, it'z gotta b sumone's faullt mi langwhich sux.

I am very fond of the original two installments and just feel like the game has wandered to far way from it's roots to be called SC. I'll go pout somewhere now...

Mr.Green wrote:

What strikes me is that when a dev plays safe and wants to stay true to a franchise they get slammed for lacking innovation and when they try to reinvent their franchise they get slammed for changing it. They just can't win do they?

They can if they innovate while remaining true to the spirit of the franchise. If this seems excessively onerous, I would counter that, by its very nature, creating a successful game in the current industry is excessively onerous.

"Reinventing" is just an excuse to market a successful brand name on a completely new game. In other words, it's marketing gimmick designed to fool franchise fans into buying a game that might very well not appeal to their interests. Gamers have a right (maybe even a duty) to be skeptical.

I'm already playing the game in the future, I hope I have a flying car too.

I just liked the tone of the game better when you were sneaking around North Korean Missle Silos and whatnot.

If SC stops delivering that (as they seem to be from emo Sam stalking around college student center looking bright environments), someone will come along with a good stealth game and steal their mantle, as it were.

The real question is when. Starcraft Ghost could have been such a good game. They should scrap the current project and restart on a stealth Ghost game for the 360.

And I want a pony.

SwampYankee wrote:

I just liked the tone of the game better when you were sneaking around North Korean Missle Silos and whatnot.

If SC stops delivering that (as they seem to be from emo Sam stalking around college student center looking bright environments), someone will come along with a good stealth game and steal their mantle, as it were.

And I want a pony.

I'd say that Assasin's Creed will take over SC's spot as #1 the stealth-action genre. Not to derail this thread but here's new trailer from GT that looks pretty sweet.

EDIT - another SC vid hot off the GT press.

93_confirmed wrote:

I'd say that Assasin's Creed will take over SC's spot as #1 the stealth-action genre. Not to derail this thread but here's new trailer from GT that looks pretty sweet.

EDIT - another SC vid hot off the GT press.

The gameplay innovations of Conviction look like a lot of cross pollination with the Assassin's Creed team. I even like the idea of social subterfuge, but I don't need two of those at the same time. Give me shadows sneaky, and then give me social sneaky. I'll buy both. Hell, give me one game with both elements, but to drop the shadows entirely is unnecessary.

There was room within that vein to innovate. Start with Chaos Theory and use the newer hardware to keep pushing the open-ended level design initiated with that game. Drop me outside a non-linear complex with a goal and let me figure out how to get to it undetected. Or make good on the AI cooperative stuff that was halfassed in DA.

Mr. Green wrote:

What strikes me is that when a dev plays safe and wants to stay true to a franchise they get slammed for lacking innovation and when they try to reinvent their franchise they get slammed for changing it. They just can't win do they?

Chaos Theory wins. Innovation and sticking to the essentials. Two great tastes that taste great together.

For what it's worth, I continue to give Montreal the benefit of the doubt. They've earned a little trust with SC and CT, and I'm not going reject Conviction outright, but videos like this one chip away at the trust. Sure, the graphics look fine. I care about as much about the graphics as I do the silly hair: not much.

I'll start by saying that I would have loved more Chaos Theory.

That said, the problem with Double Agent wasn't that missions were outdoor in daylight, it's that the missions weren't good.

I can conceive of a great "Splinter Cell as 24" game, which Game Informer compared it to.

I think haterade is WAY premature, although I do agree in wishing for another great "classic" Splinter Cell from Montreal. At this point, haterade is (IMO) nothing more than a failure of imagination. Just because it's different doesn't mean it can't be even better than the other SC games.

I'm not going to play this game because right now it doesn't look very fun, not because they didn't make another traditional Splinter Cell.

Frankly, the demo movie made me roll my eyes.

This sums it up for me:

IMAGE(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o119/souldaddy109/samfi2.jpg)

If the next Splinter Cell features a hidden cheat mode where Sam Fisher breaks out a f*cking skate board, I'm converting to f*cking Scientology.

So this is essentially a throwing guys into stuff simulator? Sheeaah. No.

For the first time, all multiplayer and online features are being completely developed in Montreal.

What's my precious Annecy doing, then? The SC multiplayer is another example where innovation was coupled with a respect for the core gameplay with fantastic results.

Nice pic Souldaddy. Looks like Sam is at the mall for a moveon.org rally.

Will there be a scene or perhaps a mine-building type mini-game in which Sam dyes his previously hardcore salt & pepper hair into the emo brown mop he is sporting?

Eurogamer has previewers that aren't parrots, huzzah!

Looks like they're taking another page from the Assassin's Creed book by radically changing the control scheme to a more context sensitive set of Aggression, Stealth, and Interaction moves. Apparently this is a move to make the game more accessible, because producer Ferland's friends found the previous games too complex.

uh oh.

Apparently this is a move to make the game more accessible, because producer Ferland's friends found the previous games too complex.

Next in the series: Splinter Cell: Radical Rascal - master a collection of challenging mini-games during this journey into Sam's childhood!