A week or so ago, I was alerted (via Major Nelson’s blog on my RSS feed) that there was now a demo for Splinter Cell: Conviction available on the Xbox 360 marketplace. Now, this got me very excited. In fact, the only thing I like more than dressing up in a full neoprene suit and skulking about with night vision goggles on, is sitting at home controlling Sam Fisher as he does the same.
I massively enjoyed all of the recent games, particularly the excellent co-operative mode on Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. The way the enemies would hear your characters communicating if you spoke into your headset too loudly was genius.
I downloaded the new demo. I played it. I scratched my head. I headed to the Ready Up forums all ready to vent my spleen, and was surprised at the reaction to the demo in the thread there. People liked it? Eh?
When I said earlier that I enjoyed controlling Sam Fisher, that was what I meant. What I was doing in the new demo wasn’t exactly controlling Sam Fisher. Aim at cover, press a button, and off he trots. I don’t even get to move the character now? And after I walked up behind an enemy who truly must have been the blindest man alive, it was just a single button press to kill him? What happened to the old school method of grabbing him, then being able to either drag him away, interrogate him, knock him out OR kill him?
And, once I’d killed him with a brutal tap of the red button, I was now granted the special ability… to control my character even less. Hide behind some cover (that is marked with an arrow in case you are dense), mark two more goons, and then press Y to execute them both. Bang, bang. Smooth. Look at the silky smooth gaming skills I displayed there, with a masterful touch of the Y button. I’m surprised I didn’t get an Achievement pop up saying “Executioner: Pressed Y ALL BY YOURSELF”
Now, of course, people will be saying to me, but it’s only a demo, cut it some slack. And I would, if I was moaning about the textures being a bit ropy or the clipping being off, but this is the core gameplay mechanic. This isn’t going to change before the game comes out.
To reuse a pun I used on the forum, this is (Sam) Fisher Price gaming. It’s My First Stealther. It’s Early Learning Espionage. As a gamer who knows his way around a control pad, this isn’t what I wanted from a new Splinter Cell, and you can colour me extremely disappointed.
But you know the worst thing, the thing that gets to me the most about this whole damned thing, the one thing that irritates me more than sand in a G-string?
I’m still going to end up buying it.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.