Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction - Deniable Ops Insurgency Pack Review
Source By GameSpot
Splinter Cell: Conviction's first substantial downloadable add-on may be "just" a map pack, but boy is it a good one. In fact, if you enjoy Conviction's excellent cooperative modes, the Deniable Ops Insurgency Pack is a must-play. These four standalone missions are even better than those included with the main game, filled with numerous nooks and crannies in which to hide, winding pathways and corridors useful for flanking, and dramatic opportunities to bring down your vocal foes. Those occasionally dimwitted enemies can get confused in these intricate environments, but bewildered combatants and other minor complaints only slightly soften the impact of this excellent addition to Conviction's outstanding co-op play. This pack may sell for 800 Microsoft points ($10), but it is too good for Splinter Cell fans to miss.
Like the maps that shipped with the main game, the Insurgency Pack's maps are extensive three-part levels that you can use in Face-Off, Hunter, and Last Stand modes. (And as in the main game, you will enjoy the latter two modes in single-player as well as in two-player co-op.) The missions are set in four distinctive American cities--San Francisco, New Orleans, Salt Lake City, and Portland, Maine--and all four do an impressive job of bringing the spirit of those cities to Conviction's stealth/action gameplay. For example, the last stage of the San Francisco map takes place on a bayside dock cluttered with cranes, crates, and pulleys, a sight you would reasonably expect to see at that city's piers. The Portland map opens with a nighttime glimpse of Maine lighthouses and a sojourn through a courtyard and into the bowels of a prison. These areas and the others (a New Orleans mausoleum and a Salt Lake City laboratory are particular standouts) are brimming with dark shadows, winding pipes, alternate staircases, and creepy crawlspaces. The spotlight is on Conviction's cooperative flexibility. These maps are more complex than you may have expected, leaving you plenty of room to decide how to take down your enemies. You could leap onto the shipping containers and shimmy around them in the San Francisco level, for instance, or hide under enormous industrial vehicles and pick off your enemies one by one. And this flexibility leads to awesome moments characterized by the excitement of a well-timed dual execution, or a narrow escape from a tense showdown.
Even Conviction's lone competitive mode, Face-Off, shines in this new content. Here you might miss the delights of co-op play--dual executions, rescuing your teammate from choke holds--but the complexity of these maps enhances the tension when you have another player stalking you. Because there are so many places to which you can escape, heading toward the ghostly image indicating your opponent's last known position could turn you from hunter into the hunted: he or she may very well be waiting to ambush you, using that ghost as a lure. You'll still get quite a bit of bang for your buck even if you just intend to explore these maps on your own. Solo Hunter mode can get intense in the more claustrophobic areas, particularly if you break stealth and reinforcements stream onto the map. Unfortunately, whether you play on your own or with a friend in tow, your computer-controlled opponents seem to have a tougher time in these elaborate setups. You can occasionally use choke points to take down enemies one by one as they barrel down hallways, oblivious to the rising pile of bodies directly in front of them.
Any other nit you could pick with this add-on--the way the black-and-white effect might make it difficult to see what's going on, for example--is a carryover from the main game and barely affects the incredibly high quality of what's on offer here. The Deniable Ops Insurgency Pack is a tremendous bit of downloadable content, and a great reason to make Splinter Cell: Conviction your go-to cooperative game.
Until last night, you had never fired a gun before, but priorities tend to change when you're being hunted by unholy creatures of the night. In Alan Wake, darkness is your most fearsome enemy. The shadows are home to monsters who shun the light, growing more powerful as they slink through the jet-black unknown. You hear a noise behind you and spin around to examine your surroundings, pointing your flashlight from tree to tree, scanning the ground while you ready your trigger finger for the imminent attack. The world of Alan Wake is one of fear and tension--a place where it's perfectly acceptable to be afraid of the dark, because if you're not, you'll be enveloped by the evil forces that dwell just beyond your field of vision. The foreboding atmosphere that permeates every inch of this wilderness never lets you forget the dangers that await the unprepared, but the feeling of dread that defines the early portions dissipates as you get deeper into this moody adventure. Alan Wake doesn't offer enough surprises to keep you unhinged, but the storytelling is so enthralling and the combat is so frantic that you'll be sucked in until the thrilling conclusion.
A vivid imagination can be a dangerous thing. Alan Wake has been suffering from writer's block ever since he released his most recent best-selling novel two years ago, but he soon realizes there are much worse things than being unable to put pen to paper. A story he's written but has no memory of has come to life, flooding a quiet mountain village with demonic creatures that torment his every waking hour. The dark forces that populate this night-time adventure should be familiar to anyone acquainted with the horror genre, but the unique storytelling gives this game an identity all its own. The acerbic protagonist relays his thoughts on the outlandish events happening all around him through incisive yet oddly poetic prose that breathes believability into these supernatural events. Alan Wake's brash nature makes him unlikable at times, but his unwavering focus to save his wife at all costs makes it easy to empathize with him.
The most interesting aspect of the storytelling comes in the form of optional collectibles you find as you wind your way through dimly lit forests. Pages from your unpublished manuscript lie just off the beaten path, and it's in your best interest to snatch these up even though you have to venture deep into the deadly forests to do so. These passages frequently foreshadow events, giving you a snippet of something terrifying waiting for you around the bend. Other times, they fill in details tangential to your own quest, giving you a peek at what other people in the town are up to. These pages flesh out the story in fascinating ways, but there are even more elements tucked away if your eyes are sharp. Abandoned TVs and radio sets can be switched on to trigger brief expositions that give you another look at what is going on just beneath the surface. The television show is particularly intriguing. Modeled after The Twilight Zone, these creepy scenes contains all the twists and moral lessons the classic series is known for.
The excellent combat builds on the fantastic storytelling, ensuring there is never a dull moment during this roughly 12-hour adventure. Alan Wake has a handy way of dealing with dark-fueled creatures: shine a flashlight on them. You carry said light source in your left hand, and you use this to weaken enemies who dare to challenge you. By pointing it at them for a few seconds, you destroy the darkness inside of them, making them vulnerable to your firearms. This mechanic is not only original, but also leads to thrilling situations. When you're surrounded by a gang of growling beasts, you have to choose one individual at a time to spray with your life-sucking light, and balancing your aim to keep all attackers at bay is exciting. If baddies get too close to you, you can duck out of the way at the last second, triggering a slow-motion dodge that lets you quickly retaliate before they have a chance to attack a second time. Because there is so much ammunition sprinkled about and your health regenerates after every battle, you'll rarely succumb to their aggressive advances, but each encounter is still exhilarating.
Exploration is as important as combat when trying to make your way through these haunted woods. Going off the beaten path is the only way you can find the missing manuscripts and television sets, and there are hidden weapon caches that aid you in fending off this unrelenting horde. Aside from your standard pistol, you can nab a hunting rifle and a shotgun, which make short work of poltergeists at close range, as well as a few explosive weapons that quickly dispose of anything that fears the light. Toss a flashbang grenade into a cluster of foes and watch them melt away into nothing. There are also little touches that add to the tension. Rapidly tapping X reloads your ammunition more quickly, and your frantic button taps mirror Alan Wake's movements as you both try desperately to stay alive. At times, you'll find generators that, when activated, energize nearby lights for you to take shelter in. But starting these up requires a few precise button taps that can be mighty stressful when an axe-wielding ghost is breathing down your neck.
The prologue starts things out with a heart-racing encounter. Seemingly alone in the woods after a brutal car crash, you make your way slowly through the foggy forest to the lighthouse oasis on the other side. Of course, a peaceful walk in the woods soon takes a deadly turn, and you find yourself sprinting for your life toward a cabin, barricading yourself inside moments ahead of the imminent danger. This electrifying scene sets up the tension that hovers above you at all times, but sadly there are few instances during the rest of your quest that match this confrontation. Alan Wake's moon-lit wanderings become predictable just a couple of hours into the game. There are a few different takes on the core action, such as escort missions and a novel twist on the classic turret sequence, but not many genuinely surprising or completely unexpected events. Because the storytelling is strong and the combat is rousing, the game never becomes stale. But the lack of memorable moments weakens the impact of the chilly atmosphere, and you're rarely startled despite the supernatural events happening all around you.
Thankfully, the eerie forest you spend most of your time in is so well realized that you'll hardly notice you're doing the same thing for much of the game. A cloud of fog blankets the forest, adding an extra shroud on top of the suffocating darkness. The thin beam of light produced by your flashlight offers a glimpse at what's hiding behind the pitch-black cover, but it cannot produce enough light to ever make you feel safe. Enemies circle around you like wild raptors, luring you into thinking they're coming from your front side, and then when you least expect it, you'll find an axe implanted in your back by a demon who snuck up behind you. Foreboding music increases this desolate feeling. The subtle score that underlines your quest for survival keeps your nerves on edge and your neck hair raised. The slight awkwardness to Alan Wake's movement is easy to ignore once you become entrenched in this gripping adventure. The mood is so beautifully represented and consistent throughout the game that you'll be hard pressed to tear yourself away.
Above all else, Alan Wake’s gripping storytelling really sells the protagonist as a famous author. Every moment of this story is fraught with tension. Wake's narration is filled with as many questions as answers because he has no explanation for the strange events occurring all around him. And the missing pieces from the manuscript, radio program, and television show are doled out in such deliberate chunks that they slowly string you along until the full secret is revealed at the end. The clever storytelling ties in with the dreary atmosphere, building on the fear established from the very beginning with subtle use of lighting and a moody musical score. Unfortunately, the path you march down rarely offers any surprises, which makes your actions take on a by-rote feeling after a while. But the combat is so satisfying that it's largely able to overshadow this misstep. Alan Wake is a riveting adventure that will keep you glued to the screen until the very end.
The 2008 release of Prince of Persia took the franchise in an invigorating new direction, employing open-world design and a painterly artistic style to great effect. It breathed life into a series that had been treading water for years, but you won't see any of those new elements in The Forgotten Sands. This is a throwback to the superb Sands of Time, focusing on elaborate level design and the sort of acrobatic wonder that would make even the most agile monkey jealous. Unfortunately, the leap back in time is not entirely smooth. The early portions have a paint-by-numbers feel, offering no surprises for those familiar with the franchise, and the combat is shallow and lacks the flair the prince so often exhibits. But those missteps fade away once the prince gets into a groove. The intricately designed levels are full of surprising twists and the deft maneuvering required to pass the more challenging sections makes completing a particularly tricky room rewarding. A few problems keep The Forgotten Sands from reaching the level of its timeless predecessor, but playing through this gravity-defying adventure is still time well spent.
The story in The Forgotten Sands focuses on the sibling rivalry between the prince and his brother. At one point in their lives, they got along perfectly fine, but relationships tend to crumble when demonic possession rears its head. Although the story is ho-hum cliche, there is a certain charm in the manner it's told. The prince narrates the events during the action, and his personality interjects some lighthearted fun into the proceedings. Thankfully, this is not the dour prince who appeared in the previous game in the franchise, but rather the good-natured fellow from The Sands of Time, and his quips add to the experience. Unfortunately, the prince's personality is not the only thing borrowed from The Sands of Time. The opening level, in which you try to break into a castle under attack, borrows heavily from the opening sequence of its predecessor, and it seems as if the predictable level design is a portent of things to come. The Forgotten Sands does break free from its inspiration after a few hours, but that doesn't excuse the forgettable introduction.
The removal of the open-world design means that The Forgotten Sands is entirely linear, but this turns out to be one of the game's strengths. Each of the stages builds on what came before it, continually blending new techniques with your core abilities to create something special. Like in previous games, the prince starts out with the power to run along walls, leap between posts, and slide down dangling banners. But there is so much more to making your way from one point to the other than that modest list indicates. Your original moves are tweaked throughout the game, twisting the basic concepts to produce something unique. You may get in the habit of running along a wall and jumping off with casual ease, but when a quickly closing door forces you to speed things up, you need to approach this basic maneuver from a different angle. This reinvention of established themes keeps the platforming sections consistently thrilling.
However, the thing that really pushes these levels to new heights is the moves you unlock during the course of the game. The first and most widely used is the ability to freeze water. Waterfalls and leaking spigots can be frozen with the push of a button, creating walls and pillars of ice for you to climb upon. Initially, these water-based puzzles provide only an aesthetic twist to the standard platforming, but once you understand the basics, things become a lot more interesting. You often need to freeze and unfreeze water in midair, making it possible to leap between geysers that are not synced or crash through a wall of water that was frozen solid just a moment earlier. You unlock new abilities as you go through the adventure, and these are all mixed seamlessly together to keep you continually on your toes. And because many of the puzzles require you to adapt on the fly to new obstacles with pinpoint precision, it's an empowering feeling to make it past a particularly difficult stretch.
Aside from the impressive acrobatic abilities you must exercise, there are a fair number of puzzles as well. These are generally of the turn-the-crank variety, and though they do put a kink in the swift pace, it's still satisfying to solve their ancient mysteries. Problem solving crops up during the platforming portions too, and though it's always fun to figure out exactly what needs to be done to reach the other side, the limited camera is sometimes the biggest obstacle you have to overcome. The view is frequently zoomed in too far and strips away full control, making it impossible to tilt the angle to get the best view possible. This is especially troubling during portions of the game in which perspective is paramount, making it difficult to tell in which direction a waterfall is draining or from which wall you need to leap to grab onto a pole. There are only a few times during the game when the camera is a serious problem, but those sections chip away at the goodwill fostered by the excellent level design.
Outside of platforming, there are brief combat sequences, though these are sadly the weakest portions of the game. The prince has never been a particularly accomplished fighter, but the combat has always had enough style to overcome its shallow nature. However, in The Forgotten Sands, the smooth camera angles and nimble counter system from previous games are nowhere to be found, resulting in duels that require little more than mindless button tapping. You unlock new moves through an experience system, and it is fun to tweak your abilities to your fighting style. However, instead of giving the combat more depth, the added moves just make it even easier to dispatch of your undead foes. Once you unlock an ice attack toward the beginning of the game, even the most fearsome warriors quickly fall to your blade. In addition to being way too easy, the combat also suffers from technical problems. The choppy animation of the prince makes it difficult to string moves together and the inconsistent hit detection makes it a chore to line up a killing blow. Mercifully, there isn't a lot of fighting during the adventure, but what is there only serves as a detour from the otherwise fun experience.
There are challenge rooms to complete after you finish off the final boss, but because these focus on the forgettable combat rather than the exhilarating platforming, they add little to the overall experience. But where the combat falters in The Forgotten Sands, the platforming rises in its place, delivering the exquisite level design and breathtaking acrobatics for which the series is known. The prince's new abilities add unexpected wrinkles to the standard jumping and running, continually tossing in new ideas to keep you transfixed until the thrilling final sequence. Despite its slow start and shallow combat, this is another fun entry in the long-running franchise. Series veterans will once again marvel at the prince's uncanny ability to reach higher ground while newcomers will wonder why they took so long to tag along for the ride. The problems keep this from joining the ranks of the best games in the franchise, but this is still a good effort that surprises and entertains.
Sam Fisher is back, and he is not in a good mood. Of all the smart decisions made in crafting a new Splinter Cell title, this might be the best one developer Ubisoft Montreal made. Sam's angry and you hear it in every grunted line of dialogue, can see it in the brutal takedowns and interrogation moves and feel it pulsating through Sam with every step. That anger, that aggressiveness is built not only into the story but the gameplay changes as well. It was a huge risk deviating from the trial-and-error style that made the series famous, but it paid off. Splinter Cell Conviction is awesome.
The story takes place a few years after the end of Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Don't worry, if you never finished that game, you'll get caught up quickly as to what's going on. Sam's daughter was killed, he murdered his best friend Lambert, and he split from Third Echelon, the government agency he'd called home for years. With new evidence leading to his daughter's killer, a tormented and semi-retired Sam Fisher is called back into action. Turns out the people responsible for his daughter's fate are planning a major terrorist attack on Washington D.C. This is going to be one long day for Jack Bauer Sam Fisher.
Conviction sets itself apart from its predecessors with its pacing. You're always being pushed forward, so much so that I played through the entire single-player campaign in one sitting without even realizing I'd been up all night. Ubisoft pulled off a few magic tricks to make this happen.
There are no in-game loading screens unless you die. From the moment the game starts, you never sit around waiting for something to happen. Levels are loaded while you're watching slickly presented cutscenes. Fancy new projection technology integrates text into the scenery to point you towards your goal, and back story is shown with movies playing out on walls as you progress through a level. These things aid in keeping players immersed in the world, but the real reason things feel so fluid is the change in approach to stealth.
In Conviction, stealth is about speed.
Sam moves fast. Really fast. He can get in and out of cover quickly, shimmy across ledges faster than the Prince of Persia and beat a hasty retreat if he gets into trouble. Sam's codename used by Third Echelon is "panther," and that's fitting. In past Splinter Cell games, enemies were meant to be avoided; in Conviction, Sam is a hunter. He isn't avoiding enemies, he's stalking them.
Sam lurks in the shadows, finds his moment to pounce and strikes with deadly efficiency. There may be a dozen men, fully armed and with extensive combat training closing in, but they're the ones who should be worried. You feel like the ultimate badass thanks to some generous aiming assists that let you easily put bullets into approaching enemy noggins.
Rather than force players to eyeball a variety of meters to determine their level of stealth, Ubisoft made things very obvious. If you're in the shadows and impossible to see, the color bleeds out and things go black and white. The minute you're in the light, the color comes back. This easy sense of whether you are hidden or exposed enables you to move quickly through the environment and plan your route of attack on the fly.
Shadows and light are just half the stealth equation. The other half is the cover system. The cover is not at all like Gears of War, where you're sucked against a wall. Squeeze the left trigger and if you are near an object, you'll take cover behind it. Release the trigger and you immediately disengage, or you can hold down the trigger and move away from cover with no problem. You're never attached to a surface. In fact, you can hold down the trigger when out in the open and Sam will crouch, doing his best to minimize his visibility.
This is the best cover system I've ever used. Every other game needs to change, because I can't go back.
Should you be spotted, the best thing to do is retreat. Get out of sight and a white silhouette appears, marking your Last Known Position. The AI will focus on this spot, because it's where they think you're hiding. They'll unload some shots, maybe toss a grenade and then make their way towards the spot to see if they got you. On Realistic difficulty -- the only way you should play Conviction -- the AI is very sharp and won't be fooled for long. You can use the Last Known Position to your advantage. Flank your enemies when their attention is on your silhouette, then take them out before they realize what's going on.
Using shadows and cover, you stalk your prey, and when you're close enough, you can perform a hand-to-hand takedown. There are dozens (probably more than a hundred) of these. They're an excellent reward for being sneaky. My favorite is shooting a guy in the leg and as he crumples downward, popping him in the chin with my silenced pistol. But the system isn't perfect. You bash in a door with the same button as a hand-to-hand takedown. Attempt to quietly kill an enemy near a door and you may end up kicking in the door and causing a ruckus. Occasional glitches aside, stealth kills look cool, avoid attracting attention and earn you the ability to execute.
The Mark & Execute system is probably the most controversial change to the Splinter Cell series. You can tag or "mark" enemies, putting a big arrow over their heads and then executing them with the press of a button. So long as the mark is red, you are guaranteed a kill. As it's described, this would seem like a "win" button that would make Splinter Cell too easy. Far from it. You have to work to earn the right to execute. Use it once and you must perform another stealth takedown to activate the execution option again. More importantly, executing does not equal "stealthily execute." If you aren't careful, you can easily expose yourself to enemies when you enter execution mode. There are often more enemies than you could ever mark, so it's not as if you run through tagging and killing with ease.
Each weapon has its own unique properties, including the number of available marks. This is a great way to balance the game while adding a bit of strategy to how you gear up before heading into action. Do you take the low-powered Five-Seven pistol because it has the most marks (four) or do you up your firepower to another gun, sacrificing the marks?
Mark & Execute is a great addition and doesn't ruin Splinter Cell in any way. The only drawback is that sometimes you'll hit Execute and a targeted enemy will pass behind a wall. You'll still score the kill, but your bullet with defy physics and phase through the obstruction to hit your target.
All of these new gameplay elements are quickly explained in the single-player campaign. These things are so intuitive, that the tutorial is over before you know it. The campaign is a brisk and enjoyable five-hour experience that has only two odd spots.
Early on, there is a flashback to 20 years ago in Iraq. Out in broad daylight, all stealth is eliminated and Splinter Cell becomes nothing more than a third-person shooter. The other section that sticks out is an area where, if spotted, you fail the mission. What a bad idea. This is what Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory fixed five years ago. Who wants instant-fail gameplay?
While the single-player campaign won't take long to beat, even on Realistic difficulty, it's just one piece of the larger package. There's a ton of content in Conviction: a totally separate co-op campaign, Hunter, Infiltration, and Last Stand modes. Plus, there's an an in-game challenge system to test your stealth skills.
The co-op is well worth discussing. It is, after all, better than the single-player campaign. Offering split-screen, System Link and online support, you and a friend take on the roles of Third Echelon agent Archer and Russian Voron agent Ketrel. The co-op story is a prequel to the single-player campaign and has the two teaming up to hunt down some missing WMDs. While both Archer and Kestrel have the same moves as Sam, they must work together to make it through four unique environments.
Live together or die alone. That's the motto for Splinter Cell's co-op. If your friend dies, the mission fails. That means you must watch each other's back. Fortunately, you can heal your fallen friend before he bleeds out. And if your pal is careless and gets grabbed by an enemy, he can elbow his captor's face to gain a bit of separation before you cap him.
The ultimate joy of co-op is marking and executing enemies in tandem. Archer and Kestrel share their marks. So even if your buddy marks someone, if you have the angle, you can hit the execute button to take them down. When you both have line-of-sight on marked enemies, time slows down for a few seconds after an execution move begins. If your friend taps the execute button, he can join in. This often leads to double-shots to a villain's dome.
