Re: Games Discussion Thread
So I haven't been on this weekend because Splinter Cell Conviction came out. Here's a tip for you guys, play this game in short bursts. You'll get way too sucked into it otherwise.
The Last Known Position concept they had going is pretty funny, but kind of unrealistic. What happens is when an enemy spots you and you successfully get away from them, you'll leave an after image of yourself that represent the place that enemies last saw you. They'll start shooting at that area, then close into the position. But after they get there, they just kind of hang around there instead of actively hunting you. Don't get me wrong though, that makes the game much easier, which you'll need. You've got a lot of people to get away from sometimes and this is the only way you'll get out.
The Mark and Execute, when you first use it, seems like a insta-kill button at first, but you'll realize later on you don't really use it as much as you want. At least, I didn't. The way Mark and Execute works is that you get a melee kill on someone, stealthily or otherwise, which allows you to mark a couple people for an instant kill. The number of people you can mark is based on your weapon, which you can upgrade by doing various challenges. When you use your Mark and Execute, you lose the ability to do it again until you melee another person. But the problem with me is that I'm too used to the old Splinter Cell formula, where you sneak all the time and melee every person in sight and rarely ever use your gun. One thing that's really helpful though is that when you mark a person, an arrow appears above their head. Even if you haven't melee'd someone yet, the arrow will still appear, which kind of acts like an enemy pinpoint for you.
The story. Man, I didn't even listen to the story. I was too busy waiting to sneak around and kill shit. It's awesome. I think it's something like Sam is trying to find his daughter's killer, found him but the guy is actually tied in with Third Echelon and blahblahblah.
You get a ton of weapons to play with this time, but interestingly enough, I found that the old Splinter Cell gear actually worked the best (The Five-seveN and the FN2000). You can upgrade every weapon by doing challenges that you can check in your main menu. These challenges range from easy, such as mark and execute at least two people five times, to hardcore Splinter Cell, like finish a level without retrying and without firing your gun or getting spotted. You get points when you complete a challenge, and you upgrade your weapons. The problem though is that they only allow you to upgrade the weapons with the things they give you. What that means is that you can't fit the AK with a silencer because that's not one of the choices.
They also have a couple cool extra weapons. The silenced shotgun from the preorder is... It's not quiet at all. All it did was give the shotgun more range. You can go on Uplay, whatever that is, and unlock the SCAR, which is decent but not really helpful. Then there's the weekly content they said they'd be adding in. This week it's some machine pistol I never use because they're too loud.
The multiplayer is like the awkward brother of the campaign. It shares many of the aspects from the campaign, and yet it's completely different. You can do everything Fisher can do, but now you have a friend who can do the same. But the problem is in multiplayer you barely ever sneak now. Unless you get an automatic game over for being spotted, you're almost always being caught by enemies and you end up having World War III against literally dozens of guards. Not that it matters, because it's still fun in a more traditional co-op shooter.
My main gripes are the controls and the length of the game. The controls are really different from what you're used to with shooters. You press the left analog stick to reload you press the left trigger to go into cover. You can't even ready your weapon. You just point your gun at any point and press the right trigger to immediately fire. And I also wish they put the grenade button (X) a little farther away from the action button (A). I've thrown a grenade at myself more than once just because I was trying to look under a door. The length of the game is another problem. Maybe it's because I went on a gaming marathon with it, but that was way too short to play on Normal. You'll die a couple times along the way, but it's not too difficult. The game just makes you want to replay over and over.
Meanwhile the online is kind of interesting. If you don't have a headset, you and your partner are basically screwed. No communication = "What's he planning on doing and how can I help?" And if you ever think you're bad at being a spy, trust me. There are people that are a lot worse.