It’s been a long time since we last sat down in front of Splinter Cell: Conviction; so long, in fact, we’re beginning to wonder if we really saw it at all. Did we really see Sam choking policemen, battering terrorists with chairs and putting foes through tables? Does Sam really have a beard now? Yes, we did and yes, he does. With every delay a fresh torture, we’ve been kept waiting an age to get our hands on Sam’s latest mission, and are instead left to reminisce about what we saw months ago.
Two years on from Double Agent and Third Echelon has become a bloated beast, making them the absolute last people to call when Sam’s former team-mate Anna Grimsdottir is threatened - leaving it to the man Fisher once again to fix it all; this time in daylight.
Any suggestions that the mixed reviews for Assassin’s Creed might have contributed to the delay of Conviction are unfounded; the delay has been on the cards for a while and Ubisoft factored the bump into their November investors’ report. So what is the deal? Clearly a lot of problems need ironing out, but it’s safe to assume that some Assassin’s Creed staff have been shifted over to Sam’s game, so we’ll start to see their expertise put to work on a whole new brand of social stealth, and smarter NPCs wandering around the world.
