Splinter Cell: Conviction

Format Xbox 360

Developer Ubisoft

Publisher Ubisoft

Genre Action

6 Comments

We're led on a fairly circuitous route through Ubisoft's Montreal offices - riding an elevator to the fourth floor, walking across the building, taking the stairs back down to the third floor and entering a room at the very end of the corridor. It's all terribly cloak and dagger, but Splinter Cell Conviction has been in development for twenty months already, we're the first people outside Ubisoft to see it, and they don't want the surprise spoiled by what we might see on a programmer's computer as we stroll by.

In game terms, two long years have passed since Sam last saved the world in Double Agent, and he's spent his days since living alone, chopping wood in a manly fashion and generally sulking about the place. But, as you'd expect, trouble soon arrives at his cabin door and - before he can even think about cultivating his beard any further - he's heading back to the government for a spot of 'slippery business'. Or at least he would have been, were it not for the fact that the modern day Third Echelon is all tied up in red tape and bureaucracy, Sam seems to have pissed everyone off... and gone rogue... and become an enemy of the state. Urgh. What a day.

Conviction's creators are keen to labour just how integral the story is to this, the latest Splinter Cell, but are less keen on spilling anything other than the above. But that's fine. Because it gives us more room to talk about the changes Conviction makes to the Splinter Cell formula. Like, shadows. You liked hiding in them during previous Splinter Cells, right? Bad luck - they're gone. All of them. And gadgets? You liked having dozens at your disposal on every mission. Well, they're out too.

FISHER-MAN'S FRIENDS
'In' is a new system that allows Sam to hide in plain sight and utilise every part of his surroundings as a weapon or means of hiding. As a fugitive, Sam operates both night and day in public spaces where dressing up in rubber and squatting in a dark corner is frowned upon. Dressing down in a hoody and jeans, Sam is able to disappear into crowds and hang with the regular folk.

Producer Dany Lepage explains: "Crowds are your shadows now - every civilian is like a pocket of shadow for Sam, except that shadow is moving and disappearing because people will get angry with you for following them. In Conviction you're going to have to act all the time." The game's civilians react intelligently and uniquely to what Sam does - snitching you out to the rozzers if you look a bit shifty or cussing at you if you steal their things. When bullets fly, some will run, some will beg for their lives and others will take cover, and like Sam they can use the objects that litter the environment however they damn well please.

We've heard it all before, of course - games that let you interact with 'anything' and use 'any' object - but Conviction may just be the first game to deliver on the promise. Sam doesn't have his toys from the get-go, but everything you see, from a desk to a bookcase to a biscuit tin can be picked up and used, and every tool you pick up is then a weapon if you hold it right. "Improvisation is the key to Conviction," says Dany, "You have to give players a lot of options if you want them to be able to improvise properly." The only objects in the game that remain immobile are the tables - you can hide under them or flip them over for cover, but you can't move them - apparently because the AI wouldn't know how to react to Sam hiding beneath a desk in the middle of a park.

Improvisation is a skill you're going to have to get to grips with quickly because Ubi have worked to make their AI almost frighteningly smart. No two games are the same, with enemies that navigate levels on ever-changing paths until an object or situation catches their attention. When searching for Sam, police and soldiers prioritise likely hiding places and will make intelligent decisions based upon where Sam was last sighted. Every decision an NPC makes is a two-step process - if fired upon they'll immediately react, whether it be to return fire or flee, and will then begin to formulate a more complete plan, flanking you or turning over a table to take cover. Like Sam, they can manipulate the environment to make their own cover and will intelligently figure out routes around obstacles you have decided to place in their path.

FREAKILY UNIQUE
As open and free as the world may be, there are still rules to follow. Aiming your gun at an innocent by-passer will see Sam firing over their head, spreading fear and panic rather than violence and death. Sam is a good guy, after all: "You're not just playing as yourself and imposing your own morals on the character", says Patrick Fortier, the game's Creative Director. "You're Sam Fisher and he isn't the kind of guy to go around killing cops and innocent people." Which makes sense.

Back to Dany Lepage: "In Chaos Theory, we didn't want to have to impose a strong character. We wanted the player to become Sam. In Double Agent, there was an intention to give Sam a stronger character and a stronger story, but it wasn't quite executed right. We're trying to do it much better in Conviction. Sam has always had all this cool technology, but he was cold. By the end of SC: Conviction, we will have built a new hero."

PARKLIFE
The end will be a long time coming, too. Conviction is split into almost sixty 'episodes', each of which take around fifteen minutes to complete and is its own unique playground in which objectives can be tackled however you please. "People who only play a little will still see the story and the action progress," says Dany. "You can play for fifteen minutes and go off to eat or go out and still have a complete experience. In Chaos Theory you had to play for an hour to see that kind of progress." The first twelve episodes are spent with Third Echelon where Sam learns that the organisation has grown fat and useless. Stages spent with the spooks will be more constrained than later levels - teaching you the controls and how best to use the world, and then turning Sam against the men on top. The bulk of the game is spent with Sam as a fugitive, free to act as you please but lacking the power and resources that come with working for Third Echelon.

We took a look at two episodes from the campaign game; the first, episode 49, takes place in a park in Washington DC. An in-engine cut-scene sets up the story and your objectives, and then it's into the level with Sam immediately in danger, a group of policemen headed toward his location. Fight or flight are both viable options and neither method penalises you, but it's fighting that makes for the most dramatic scenes - Sam throws enemies against walls and hurls boxes in their faces.

The cops only have a rough idea of what Sam looks like, so once in the park, Sam can vanish into crowds or act like the little people by using various contextual widgets in the world; talking on a public phone, admiring a monument, listening to a lecture or relaxing tramp-style on a park bench. Distraction is another powerful tool, but you can only get away with so much: "Different actions have different values," says Dany, "pushing people and breaking things is a small value, stealing something is much bigger and shooting your gun is huge. There are really many different degrees of distraction." Too many 'big' distractions can lead to police locking down the area, evacuating civilians and calling in Third Echelon agents - heavily armed government nuts who know exactly what Sam looks like and how to fight him. Playing Conviction without crowd cover is like playing Chaos Theory with the lights on.

PAPER MASH-UP
The Newspaper Office, the second of the demoed missions, is what Dany refers to as an 'extreme situation'. Mercenaries have cleared a press office and are erasing files on computers and servers - these folks are armed to the teeth and are moving fast, so Sam is up against a fifteen minute time limit with four servers to hack and no crowd to vanish into. The level requires old-fashioned stealth to get by - ducking behind walls and dashing past when the coast is clear.

It's in the office that it becomes clear just how flexible the game's dynamic world is. Four servers to hack would normally make for four identical problems with four identical solutions, but here Sam approaches each differently. For the first, he remotely hacks the server from beneath a table while the mercenaries search for him. For the next, he drops his remote modem beside the server and heads off elsewhere to surprise the mercs when they come looking for him. The third sees Sam barricade himself in the server room using the objects that litter the place, and then fight his way back out, throwing a computer monitor at the enemies that break down the door. Finally, number four is in an open lobby and heavily guarded so it's shoot-out time - both Sam and the AI mercenaries flipping tables for cover, kicking chairs and diving left and right as the bullets fly.

So, it's been in development since the end of production on Chaos Theory, and while still far from finished it's apparently in a much better state than Chaos was at the same point in its schedule. It's already looking so good that Microsoft decided to drive a big truck full of money up to Ubisoft's door to secure it as an exclusive for the 360 and Vista, something that has worked out very nicely indeed for the team. "Being exclusive makes it a lot easier to develop," admits Dany. "We can play to the strengths of the platform. A simulation? Something that depends on AI? I would want to do it on 360. AI is about making decisions - that's something that can be significantly improved on the 360. It's about using new technology to create new kinds of gameplay."

THE SUM OF TWO YEARS
In terms of the game, it's definitely a departure from what we're used to, and we're going to miss hiding in the dark, but there's still something unmistakably Splinter Cell-ish about Conviction - in fact, even more so than Double Agent. Running around in broad daylight in the latter was a tough job, but introducing crowds and a world in which you can do almost anything has made for a very exciting proposition. The team admit that their Christmas release is 'ambitious', but - regardless of the game's final release date - everyone at Ubi and everyone at Microsoft is confident about the game... and having seen its high concept marriage of Splinter Cell, Hitman and The Bourne Identity in action before anyone else, we're feeling pretty confident too.

Tim Weaver