Splinter Cell Conviction Hands-On

Ever since its announcement in 2007, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction has become one of the most anticipated games of the stealth-shooter genre. Now (FINALLY!) it's on its way for release, due out April 16th, and before the official debut of the game I got the chance to try a ten-minute demo of things to come. Conviction's plot sees secret agent Sam Fisher trying to recover from his daughter's death (by taking revenge on her killers) while looking for rogue EMP devices which are being prepared to destroy the Earth. The demo saw Sam interrogate a criminal in a public loo, with the player being given plenty of possibilities to throw the criminal through urinals or even invade an innocent's privacy by throwing the man into a toilet- yes, Tom Clancy has injected some humour into an otherwise foreboding epic. Then, we attempted to infiltrate a huge warehouse, with the guidance of objectives cunningly beamed onto surfaces that Sam could see. The gameplay was brilliant, keeping a tense atmosphere as Sam sneakily slaugthered groups of enemies, although the idea of "Melee; Mark and Execute" could tire and become repetitive quickly, so the effect of Conviction's campaign mode remains to be seen. Despite this, the new entry in the Splinter Cell series seems to be a major improvement on its predecessors, and could be worth a buy in April!