Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Total letdown"

Splinter Cell Conviction was in development for some time and though it went through a number of changes the final product is an absolute insult to the Splinter Cell title, practically abounding all that made the series great in favor for a watered down version that is easily accessible for the action oriented player.

First and foremost let me share all that Conviction has taken out;

#1 Interrogations with random guards
#2 Knocking out/killing guards option
#3 Lock picking
#4 Hacking
#5 Computers files
#6 Less acrobatic maneuvers (wall split, jump, zip lines, crawling through vents, moving between narrow gaps, cutting through fabrics, etc)
#7 No middle ground for concealment (either your hidden or your not, back and white)
#8 Heat Vision and electronic vision taken out, all compressed into one
#9 Movement, they've narrowed down movement to walk/run/crouch, where as before you had several speeds
#10 Being silent is watered down to just crouching
#11 Secondary Objectives
#12 Stats after missions
#13 TONS of gadgets (at least 7 were taken out)
#14 Spies vs Mercs
#15 Hiding bodies

After playing through Conviction I realized that the very first Splinter Cell title had 2X more depth than this installment does, it is as far back a step as any step could ever possibly be.

Of course Conviction does offer something in return;

#1 Mark & Execute
#2 Last Known Position (though the irony is this was in before, just without the silhouette)
#3 Projected imagery which adds nothing to gameplay, it just looks cool
#4 A military desert storm mission

I have read that some believe Conviction allows more leniency, giving players more option to play the game the way they wish to play it. I have to respectfully disagree, if anything I find Conviction actually strains the player to be more lethal and aggressive than you ever had to before.
I found that it IS impossible to go through any level 100% stealthy, you are forced to use your guns (something that was always meant to be a last resort) to kill a few guards before you could proceed. The part where stealth apparently plays a role is in how you choose to kill every single living creature in your given area, do you become the loud-itchy-trigger-figure-lunatic, or do actually put on a silencer before you become Rambo?

The fact of the matter is there is no way to actually do the objectives with zero detection, or leaving a dozen shell casings for that matter.

Splinter Cell was a game always about stealth, zero detection, finding out ways to get in and out without so much as leaving a hair of evidence that you were ever there. There was never suppose to be a "guns blazing" option however Conviction allows players to easily breeze through the game with the option of playing it like COD.

Not to mention the incredibly weak story filled with Hollywood set pieces and cliche characters. That being said it is the only Splinter Cell title that has a personal story with one scene in particular that will leave you with goosebumps.

And as I've said before another one bites the dust, the one being a unique game that focused its gameplay on something other than shooting, a different genre that goes by the name of STEALTH! One day we gamers will be playing nothing more than shooters.