Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Mixed reactions"

I confess my short experience with the Splinter Cell series is bound only by the two first games (SC and SC: Pandora Tomorrow). My interest in it from the stealh genre perspective soon vanished when I discovered the simply astounding Metal Gear Solid 3 that imediately took my attention from the SC series to the MGS series. So many years later I found myself a really cheap copy of SC: Conviction for the PC and decided to revisit this old series of mine. I must say I enjoyed it more then I expected after all the (somewhat deserved) bashing that this game had on several gaming forums I use to visit. I never beat SC: Chaos Theory, supposedly the best in the series, or SC: Double Agent, so I went to Conviction without prior knowledge of what happened in those games. Even so, I found myself following the spy drama very closely and became interested both in the characters as in the script. It was decent for what it was, though I could see the "twist" by a mile.
Gameplay wise, the game is rather easy, thanks to a "mark and execute" mechanic that lets Sam Fisher (the protagonist) clear up entire rooms full of enemies with only a button press. Sure its not as easy to use as it sounds, as you can only use it after you take down an enemy silently, but thats also not an hard task to do, due to the rough A.I. thats all over the place. Or they see you from a mile away, or they dont see you when you're right next to them. I must confess though, the easiness of the game mechanics sure helps the player to feel like a complete badass when he quickly clears several areas of enemies in a row without much of a sweat.
I cant say much how the game fares graphically as my computer isnt really a top tier one but I must say even on low settings the game hold up very well visually. The artsyle is rather weak though. Ubisoft could come up with more interesting environments than the beaten to death industrial sites or tight buildings, thought these are kinda what one would expect from a serious game like it.
Overall, I did take some enjoyment out of SC: Conviction, both thanks to the well crafted drama and the gameplay elements that, thought making the game a very easy one, manages to make me feel like a complete badass. I still have yet to beat all the Deniable Ops missions (that can be played cooperatively), but they sure add a few more couple of hours to a relatively short game. As it stands, Conviction definitely gets a recommendation for all the stealth/action fans out there from me.