Review: Splinter Cell Conviction HD – Getcha Sneak On
August 25, 2010
Overview
Gameloft's Splinter Cell: Conviction HD allows you to once again jump into the tightly-laced boots of our old friend Sam Fisher as he sneaks his way into and of out many a sticky situation. In this iteration of the popular series, you’ll creep through a multitude of countries and cities, interrogating and subsequently eliminating various terrorist groups and mindless thug-types alike. The game progresses much like its predecessors, taking you on missions perpetually barked at you via radio from your cohorts back at headquarters, one after another after another. Sam reluctantly agrees to take on the tasks, and away you go.
Features
This game’s not exactly filled to the brim with features, but there is enough in here to get you by, sans all of the bells and whistles its console counterpart offers. It uses the on-screen joystick control style, with some pseudo-buttons on the bottom right corner which allow you to take aim, shoot, interrogate and so forth. All of these button locations, by the way, are completely customizable so you can put them wherever you want on the screen to fit your personal positioning needs accordingly.
Killing enemies can come in all kinds of fun variations, from using the semi-interactive environment to making use of the multi-kill feature. SC: Conviction packs in plenty of variety to keep the enemies guessing and satiate players’ quenches for those classic Sam Fisher murder tactics.
There are 11 levels for you to creep through in this game, giving you hours of game play, contingent of course on your playing style. You can run-and-gun through the game in much less time than it would take those casual stealth-mode stop-and-smell-the-roses types.
The Breakdown
The Good
This game offers some pretty solid graphics considering the iPad's limited graphical capabilities. Not too much texture or detail on Sam Fisher himself, but the environments were crafted with care, which helps immerse the gamer in the experience.
Playing feels natural. By now, most of us are familiar with the Splinter Cell series and this game melds beautifully with what we’ve come to expect from them. Controls are easy to pick up and play, and the missions are right on par with the types of objectives most of us are accustomed to. The on-screen controls work great for the most part, but at times not having actual buttons and joysticks makes certain scenarios somewhat cumbersome.
Music and sound effects in the game are great, and really do a nice job adding to the intensity of the precarious situations you’ll perpetually find yourself in. This goes along with the cut scenes in the game, which are well orchestrated and help gamers maintain interest in the storyline of Sam’s never ending quest for justice.
The Bad
The in-game voice acting is just abysmal. Enemies utter the same cheesy phrases time and time again when Sam is under attack. I remember this being a problem in the earlier Splinter Cell games, but by now I was under the impression they’d gotten a handle on it. I was mistaken. This can be quite distracting when you’re in a shootout and all you can focus on is how annoying your opponents are. More motivation to kill them, I suppose.
The source of most of my contention with this game arises when you’ve got an unsuspecting enemy in your crosshair. On the more precision-demanding occasions (ie: using the sniper rifle) occasionally the game won’t recognize when the aimer is on an enemy and as a result you must retreat to a more open area, allowing the game to register that the reticle is on them. This can be quite frustrating as you can imagine. On the note of killing, the game's multi-kill feature that was so prevalent in the console version was not nearly as useful as I expected it to be. There were dozens of occasions throughout the game in which the feature would've been the best way to clear the room, however the game did not allow me to use it. Bummer.
Another situation that begs the question “How could they let this fly?” comes into play when you’re between objectives. The conversations between HQ and Sam Fisher tend to glitch out (about 40% of the time for me), resulting in a silent conversation which requires you to read the text bubbles so you can understand what’s happening.
Also, the AI your enemies are blessed with is about as smart as a sack of potatoes. As long as you’re in a poorly lit area you can dance around the armed adversaries all day long undetected. They follow a rigid schedule of movements, traveling from A to B and back to A without a care in the world, almost begging to be accosted by Sam, or anyone for that matter.
The Verdict
This game could definitely have been a little more polished before it was released, but it holds its own in the action genre as a whole. It isn’t boring and maintains interest throughout. There is plenty of challenging gameplay to enjoy and enough ways to kill your enemies that you’ll have a fun little murderous rampage until the credits roll.
The qualms I have with this game are relatively negligible for the most part, but for the $9.99 price point it would’ve been nice not to have to worry about such avoidable issues. With an AppAdvice rating of 3 stars, this is a game worth considering. It's not going to make everyone happy, but dedicated fans of the Sam Fisher saga will enjoy themselves nonetheless.