Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction

If shitty daytime soap operas have taught us anything (other than comas are never permanent and don’t trust evil identical twins with moustaches), it’s that flashbacks rule. The same logic also rings true in games. Some of the best levels we’ve ever played occurred as memories from our playable character’s past. And whether it’s having blocky PS1 nightmares or having a budding bromance in Chernobyl, the following flashbacks totally bested anything from that show with the polar bears and smoke monsters.

On a cold morning in January 2008, Maxime Beland entered Ubisoft’s Montreal studio, swiping his way through layer after layer of security, and sat down to begin work on Splinter Cell Conviction. Beland had wrapped up his work on Assassin’s Creed in the previous November and would be joining his colleague and new Conviction producer Alexandre Parizeau as Creative Director on a project in trouble...

Splinter Cell: Conviction features much more than just a single-player mode, and this is likely where most players will be spending their time. This guide focuses on helping players survive the Deniable Ops game modes, and will give you some useful strategies. Denialbe Ops has four game modes and a number of maps to learn, so it will require a bit of effort, or perhaps a handy strategy guide, for a player to really learn the ins and outs.

How do we know it's coming to PS3? BECAUSE IT ALWAYS HAS! And we think we know when... 

Splinter Cell: CONVICTION, StarCraft CORRUPTION, Halo 2 CREMATION, and several other C-words make up this week’s podcast...

Sam Fisher's next installment is out this week and Ubisoft have decided to whet our appetite by releasing these ultra-violent co-op videos. While most people think the online co-op side of things is pointless <we're looking at you, Content Editor, Dave Houghton> it's hard to argue that these snippets show an incredibly entertaining bout of twosome action.

Enough chatter, let's watch these precision strikes right now...

The Splinter Cell: Conviction was released this morning on Xbox Live. It starts with a cutscene, moves into an interrogation, and finally turns you loose to carry out a mission in the field. You'll peek under doors, toss flashbangs into crowded rooms, and stalk solo enemies for quick, quiet hand-to-hand kills that earn you execution tokens.

Ubisoft’s latest social media campaign features @Real_SamFisher, which purports to be the Twitter account of the super secret agent himself. He’s kicking down the 4th wall to bring you into his tortured world and let you know how is revenge plan is coming along. Conceptually the idea is fine, except for the part about it being totally unbelievable and not making any sense at all.

Christmas '09 is cancelled, but early next year looks amazing.

Editors Brett Elston and Chris Antista snuffed out the raging nerd-flames that demanded they stay on the move at last week's Comic-Con and sat down for some some 'professional' discourse with some of this year's biggest developers. The entire collection of interviews can be heard in the TalkRadar Comic-Con special, but if you're picky, you can listen to any of the individual interviews here. Allons-y!