Splinter Cell: Conviction - PC Version
by Guest Reviewer Barry “Bahger” Isaacson

"Splinter Cell: Conviction was released for the PC two weeks after it came out on the Xbox 360.
This seemed to reinforce widely-held suspicions that the PC version would be at best an afterthought,
at worst a travesty of a smart, tactical video game that built its core audience amongst PC gamers."

http://www.simhq.com/_land3/land_151a.html

Can someone explain to me what does a review of a game like Conviction do on this site? But then again, I was already baffled when the CoD: Modern Warfare review appeared. Maybe it's just me but I somehow can't make the connection between Conviction (or the likes of CoDMW) and the "Sim" in SimHQ.

I can't comment on the review itself because I stopped reading at the point where it mentions the last known position as "gameplay innovation".

Time to expand your mind... if we just covered sims, we would be a dead site.

Great job Bahger.

Thank you, Magnum.

If SimHQ can cover "pure" simulation products as well as it does and still expand its remit to include other forms of tactical gaming (and SCC is, for all its quirks, a genuinely tactical game, especially in coop) I do not see the harm in that. However, I am sorry that my review did not address Malleus' high standards in these matters.

I've been playing sims on and off since Sublogic's Flight Simulator 2 and F-15 Strike Eagle but I still consider myself a gamer and I like to get the opinions of people who share similar game interests on stuff other than sims, so I'm glad SimHQ doesn't stick strictly to sims when it comes to reviews.

Hell, the "Got Game" series was pretty good and deserves a revival. Where's ConManly now that we need him?

Nice work, Barry. I appreciate the heads up on the slowdowns and the sketchy MP for the PC since the constant internet connection futzes with it.

I don't care how much better it would look on a PC with DX10. I want the game to run as seamlessly as possible and for something as simple as an internet connection screwing with my gaming experience is laughably silly.

pfunk

Thanks, PFunk, glad you read the review and found it useful.

I cannot imagine how frustrating it must be trying to play this game while dealing with momentary Internet outages on a PC with only a wireless connection to the Web; at least my desktop is hardwired.

Having said that, I have not experienced any outage-induced disruptions of SP or MP in a while now; maybe they have quietly made the system more tolerant of momentary drops.

Nah, don't mind me. I'm a close-minded reactionist when it comes to games. It's just that IMO Conviction is the weakest SC, and it kinda bothers me that this site joins the SC review wagon with this one. Not that I expect the series to get any better in the future. The earlier ones would've deserved a review here a lot more.

Having played them all, I disagree. I would not have offered to review SCC for SimHQ if I hadn't played it pretty thoroughly and judged it as being of interest to tac gamers and a valid addition to the series.

The earlier games were good and the Spy vs Merc MP a gaming classic but the truth is that those games did not have to be designed with consoles in mind as a business priority. Given the realities of the marketplace, whether we like them or not, it is remarkable to me that SCC is as good a game as it is (DRM and connectivity nonsense aside). I would not have jumped through all the insane hoops that I did, opening ports, fiddling with my AV, tearing (what is left of) my hair out, if the coop was not really good. And it is. Above all, the "Infiltration" coop mode, that only becomes available after you complete the SP game, or otherwise acquire 40 dopey Uplay points, is for hardcore "classic" SC gamers. It has lasers that can only be seen with the sonic optics, security cams, turrets and all sorts of tripwires. It requires patience and coordination and is, in itself, a worthy addition to the series. I recommend you try it.

Good review old chap!

As Bahger's regular tac-sim chum, I can confirm that the co-op is indeed 'a hoot' and extremely good fun when you get into the swing of it. Apart from a few 'banging head against the wall' sections =- it also appears to be more not 'easier' but forgiving of cock-ups than earlier SCs. You can improvise a fair amount, and not feel you have failed it because the designers wanted you to 'knock out guard no4 at that exact spot'.

However - making the MP connection stuff a dice-roll is beyond parody. You would think that in 2010 the idea of having to get someone to manually configure a router would be ancient history....

I agree here sorta. While reviewing SC is more than fine as far as it being on SimHQ, Conviction in and of itself is garbage and the worst of all the SC games (IMHO of course). SC had a really unique gameplay offering that others out there lacked, and it seems to me that the developer is trying to get a piece of the "Modern Warfare" pie. I cannot agree with alot of the review as it seems to be a "look for the best and you'll find it as I did" type of review. Nothing wrong with that, but to leave out how badly different Conviction is as compared to what made previous SC titles great is an oversight.

I love the Warfare games, don't get me wrong. But, I did not want the SC version of it.

It is refreshing to read reviews outside of flightsims though! :-)



-Outlaw

I may be guilty of glass-half-fullism, Outlaw. The funny thing is that I had owned "SC: Double Agent" for about two years before being able to play it, having got a new PC, which I did about a month before SCC came out. As familiar as the gameplay was from previous titles in the series -- which I played extensively and enjoyed greatly -- I found it outmoded and lacking in excitement. It seems obvious to me that the formula needed to be overhauled, not just because it was getting tired but because, like every other mainstream game, the series has migrated to consoles, which always involves a simplification of control inputs and an emphasis on action compared with the more nuanced gameplay in "golden age" product designed specifically for the PC. Given all this, I felt it was really quite notable that not only did Ubi not screw it up "Conviction" completely, they actually came out with a game that has some design integrity and depth of gameplay underneath the action dynamics.

I do understand your point. I loved the original Rainbow Six games for the planning interface. More even than the mission execution, I loved to plot routes and go-codes so meticulously that the mission could play out to a successful conclusion entirely under AI command. However, the interface required for this, let alone the attention span required of the player, is simply not feasible in this console-driven age for gaming. The same goes for many aspects of pre-Conviction SC gameplay, which involved a lot of hacking mini-games and menu-driven stuff that cannot be reconciled with console conroller input limitations. I just don't have it in me to get mad about the "Vegas" reboot of the R6 series because, like "Conviction", it's a coarser game but enjoyable, playable and better than I had expected; some pride of ownership had gone into the design.

Maybe I've dumbed down my own expectations in order to appreciate SCC, or I've been able to appreciate its virtues without prejudice. Or some combination of both. I do understand your point, though and know that a lot of people feel the same way.

Yeah, the crux of the problem. If I don't compare SCC to the previous games, it's actually decent. But I can't make that leap.

By the way, you are obviously right about the simplification and the emphasis on action, but that has nothing to do with "migrating to consoles" in this case. Splinter Cell was born on the Xbox, it was never really a game "designed specifically for the PC". The first SC had graphics problems on every card except Gef3/4, the second had shadow smoothing issues, and the PC port of Double Agent was simply a hack job. Only Chaos Theory had a proper PC version.

I think it's more to do with this...

... and of course the aim to sell more of the game.