Splinter Cell… Hmm…
I’m not terribly thrilled with what I’ve seen of Splinter Cell Conviction so far: I’m hoping it becomes more enticing closer to launch.
I took a look at some of the trailers for the game on IGN the other day, and the first thing I couldn’t help noticing was the poor graphics. Okay they aren’t terrible, but when you put it up against other games being released at the moment, the graphics really are sub-par. Sam’s head looks to be oddly shaped many times through the trailers, and textures look a little big for what these seventh generation consoles. The other thing of note was the minimalistic approach to the environments: though many of the scenes in the trailers there was a decided emptiness that wasn’t as engaging as it could have been.
The first thing my SO said was that it the ‘same old storyline’, and she’s pretty much right. It feels like a very cliché storyline that’s being trotted out as the reason behind Sam Fisher’s new found aggression towards the bad guys. The events of the game take place around two years after the previous Splinter Cell game, Double Agent, and in the intervening years Sam’s daughter, Sarah, has died. Sam finds out in the early stages of the game that her death was no accident, so now he’s rogue Sam Fisher, and he’s after the bad guys whilst Third Echelon - his former employer - is after him.
He’s pretty much got a no-holds-barred approach to taking down anyone in his way to finding out the truth behind his daughter’s death, and this is a fairly new approach for these games. In previous titles Sam was often hamstrung by directives issued from Third Echelon, often making levels irritating because you couldn’t do kill or couldn’t be noticed or some other action. However, now that Sam’s rogue, that shouldn’t be an issue.
So I’m still hoping for a great Splinter Cell game, but I’m hoping for three things. One, that the writing is good if the storyline is going to even approach the cliché. Two, that the graphics are improved before release, and three, that Ubisoft has ditched their terrible DRM.
