Be Excellent To Each Other

I have this, it's £30 in Asda. I was attracted to

• More action-orientated gameplay than previous games. I found the trial-and-error stuff tedious, which is also why I've never gotten on with any of the Hitman games either.
• Short single player campaign (~5-6 hours, they say; maybe I'll complete it for once!)
• Online co-op campaign
• Multiple online co-op humans-vs-AI game modes

Anyone else getting it?

Not in the near future, but probably somewhere down the line.

I've never got on with the Splinter Cell games and I've heard that this one is complicated.

I should probably give the demo a go.. but in the mean time.. is it complicated?

But if everyone starts bumming it hard enough I'll probably be tempted, then trade it in again a week later.

I played Pandoras Box and I enjoyed it up until a really twatty bit.

Based on the demo I won't be buying this, the "mark and execute" feature seems to have made it stupidly easy to actually do well at it.

I've always liked the idea of the Splinter Cell series, then I play the actual game and find it awkward and annoying. Hopefully this one will be different, but I don't really have time right now to give it a go.

Likewise, I've found the previous versions of SC to be fiddly and quite frankly rubbish but the demo is splendid, unfortunately my local supermarket didn't have any in when I did my shopping but I'll probably pick this up next week.

i loved splinter cell series, especially 1 and 2

this is just a cartoon shitty version though based on the demo

I fucking love Chaos Theory.

Didn't like 1/2, the oxbox version of Double Agent was OK, but Chaos Theory is the shit. Brilliant levels, phenomenal music, brilliant looking (one of the best looking oxbox games I think).

I'm not convinced Conviction will be all that good. Looks to me like they have made it a lot easier, made it a lot more automatic, and taken out a lot of what I loved about Splinter Cell, and turned into more of a typical shooter.

Examples:
The pistol now has infinite ammo
You can't/don't need to move bodies
The mark and execute feature means that you don't really have to think about how to clear a room at all.

I'm not averse to change, but it really looks from what I have seen to be change for the worse, and the fairly rubbish demo didn't do much to change my mind.

I am only getting it since it can be sold for the same price I get it from. Ordered it yesterday, so should arrive tomorrow morning hopefully.

The only one I played was the original. Which I thought was excellent, until I played something better.

So for about 2 days, it was excellent.

I had that exact thing with John Smith's Extra Smooth when I was about 15.

Well I really liked the concepts of the first 3 splinter cell games. didnt play the 360 one as i think this really works better on PC controls.

This new one just feels wrong, for the reasons given above.
- no need to hide bodies at all. how dumb is that?
- the peice of piss way to kill 3 guys at a time, which appears to be infallible.

I also dont like the new cover system.

To be honest, even though I didn't like the awkward complexities of the original games, it seems a little silly to remove the hiding of bodies thing, because that was fun.

It was fun, and also essential to the beleivability.

It seems like this game you just need to murder every single enemy rather than say, hide a couple of corpses and get around the rest.

It's part of the Big Plan(TM).

By the year 2017, all games will be FPSes with no objective other than to kill everything. Even X-Com is a chuffing FPS now.

Thing is you could do that in the older games too, if you really wanted to. It was one of many options.

What, kill everything? Yeah, but you had the choice!

Exactly, that's my point. Changing it into a game where you kill everything seems strange to me when the previous games could have been about killing everything if you wanted.

Yep!

I'm enjoying this so far. The mission-objective-text-projection thing is neat, as is the cover mechanism, and the black-and-white-when-in-shadows thing. Personally, I prefer the much more fluid feeling to the game than previous Splinter Cells, as I found them too fiddly and clunky. It's still miles away from becoming a kill-everyone FPS. It feels quite close to Batman: Arkham Asylum in the balance of stealth and action, in fact.

SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP.

I think I've bought every splinter cell game and never played them for more than 4-5 hours before giving up.

More impressions, based on 3-4 hours of single player and two hours of co-op:

The good:

• Either this game isn't quite as short as people have said or I'm not very good. I'm a lot less than half way through after about four hours of play, although reviews said it has a 5-6 hour single player campaign.
• It's not as gun-happy as Lace seems to think. I have occasionally alerted a guard and gotten away with it, but more often I die once there are 4+ dudes running around looking for me. I've also snuck through areas and left guys alive if they aren't in my way. You don't have to kill everyone. I tend to save the instant-execution attack for when I'm in trouble though, so maybe you'd feel differently if you used it every chance you could.
• The co-op campaign is ace, and hard too. Timing your actions so you take enemies down simultaneously, planning lines of attack to create crossfires, it's all cracking fun.
• The "interrogate" mechanic is good fun, if a bit gruesome. You grab some poor schlub and start throwing him around. You drag him up to some object and press B, and you do an attack that integrates with the object. So far, I've smashed guys into freezer doors, kicked their heads through urinals and sinks, smashed them into mirrors, rammed them into desks, and held them down on a hotplate.
• I haven't tried the other multiplayer modes yet, which all seem to be co-op types (i.e. human team versus AI opponents). I think this could be a lot of fun with a squad of Beexers.
• A co-op mission which required us to get through a level full of cops we weren't allowed to shoot. That was tense.

The bad:

• Some AI foibles. Like, I hauled a guy through the window, and his mate came to investigate. I hauled him through the window and then his mate leaned out of the next window along to shoot me. I moved to that window, hauled him out, later/rinse/repeat for nine guys. I also had one dumbass sit there and keep shooting at me endlessly through a bulletproof glass window. I waited for him to reload, ran around the glass wall, and snapped his neck.
• A (mercifully short) mission set during the Gulf War which put me out on a street in broad daylight, running and gunning with Iraqi soldiers. Suddenly, I was playing a second-rate Gears of War knock off, and it wasn't very good.
• If you're not into the multiplayer, you're not getting a lot of game for your money. But you're also leaving the best bit of the game unplayed, so you are presumably some sort of jive sucker anyway.

UPlay: hmm, this is interesting. It's a bit like Gamerscore, you earn points for doing certain things in the game. But the points are tracked across all Ubisoft games, regardless of platform. And, you can spend the points on stuff in-game -- so I unlocked a co-op game mode for 40 UPlay points, for example, and I can buy some custom guns too. What's really interesting is that UPlay points work across titles, so I could, for example, earn some in Assassin's Creed II on PC and use them to buy a gun upgrade in Splinter Cell: Conviction on the 360. Interesting concept.

Oh, I should add, no previous SC game has held my interest for more that an hour. Make of that what you will.

Miss Malabar has bought this. Obviously I'll be co-oping with her first, but may be able to join in some multiplayer games or something some time down the line.

Hey, you know what sucks? Suddenly hard parts of the game that are proceeded by 32 second unskippable cutscenes. Grrr.

Played the first level with Miss Malabar, and we're having quite a lot of fun so far. There've been plenty of stealthy sections, where we're practically forbidden to harm people (and in this current mission's case, forbidden to get spotted at all).

The accuracy of the pistols has left a lot to be desired so far, sometimes taking several perfectly lined up shots just to take down an enemy you thought you'd be able to kill silently. The guns are upgradable with the points you unlock from achieving various things in game, though, so I'm sure it'll get better.

I imagine having to hide bodies could make this a bit more interesting, but I'm not sure I could be arsed after the first couple. I quite like the pace of this so far, so I'm looking forward to having another crack at it tonight if we get time.

Played about an hour of this.

It really holds your hand compared to the other games, pretty much like I expected...

I'm playing this on Realistic and am up to level 6.

+ I like the way things are projected onto the scenery.
+ Seems a lot more stealthy than Double Agent.
+ Graphically a bit nice. The b/w thing works quite well...

- but not as well as the light indicator in the first couple of games.
- Mark and Execute mechanic feels a bit cheap.
- I hate all the weapons apart from the pistol.
- that Iraq level.
- seems to have more story than actual action. I'm surprised at how few guys I've encountered in the game so far. Apart from the tough bits where there are loads of them.
- Sam Fisher's voice is that of a 60 year old man and really sounds like it.
- too much success can be had by simply running through levels.

I love that. It's fantastic.
And far better than the odd blue tinted thing that Batman used for the visor, which meant you played almost the entire game in blue-oh-vision.I don't use it much. I tag all the enemies in an area (so I can keep tabs on where they are) and only use mark-and-execute if I'm in trouble or when I breach
a door.Do you have the silenced, scope equipped MP5 yet?God, yes.It's not the years, it's the mileage!

not tried that scoped MP5.

I got a DLC code for a silenced shotgun but not bothered as that sounds ridiculous!

I know what you mean about Batman. Army of Piss 2 had something similar but it required a cooldown period every now and again. The b/w thing at least reminds me of Saboteur!

The good thing is how easily befuddled the AI get. Feels like Sam's strength rather than the AI's weakness.

Oh, you should. It's bloody brilliant. It's the only gun I use apart from the pistol. It's the top-right SMG in the weapons drawer. You need to buy the scope.

Although the fucking dudes just will... not... shut... up.

Penny Arcade's strips about SC:C are spot on (one, two).

I bought an xbox because of SC, I really liked the look of it. Sadly, the main things I liked about it were taken out by the AI. Have either of the following been improved?
1) I am in a darkened room with NVG active, a guy walks round a corner and I shoot him (in the head) with a silenced pistol. Not only does this not kill him, he reacts instantly and starts shooting me from a long distance away without possibly being able to see me. I find this really annoying.
2) two guys walking down a path, I kill one of them, the other doesn't notice.

As long as you are on-target with your headshot, they die immediately. If you're in the dark with a silenced weapon, they either have to be right next to you, or swing their torch over you before they can shoot at you.

Depends on if it's dark and if the guy you kill makes any noise and if they are looking at each other.

Bullets make a noise when they hit someone, you know.

(on 'Realistic' difficulty setting) I have shot guys clean in the head only for them to flinch and shoot at me.

How the fuck do I unlock new weapons in this game? I'm on the third mission now, and I'm still stuck with the starter weapons.

You pick them up, I think. I'm not sure if you have to carry them to the next stash or just hold them once.

I'll try carrying them to the next stash. I did try picking them up, but dropped them shortly afterward.

You know what sucks? Suddenly hard parts of the game preceded by unskippable dialogue which, in turn, is preceded by your checkpoint.

Are we talking about the same area?

‘Fisher. I used to work here…’

Yes, we are. What I did:

Hide under the desk, pause a sec, cap the first guard without him seeing you. Leg it using flashbangs and EMP, melée if you have to. You have a little bit more time than you think.

oh god... that fucking bit. yeah I had checkpoint hell there also.

I did it after about seven tries. The game gives you far more of a sense of hurry than you need, you're right. I'm still having loads of fun so far, though.

Thing about that bit. I was just thinking "Why would he even talk to her, just walk past her, you'd have a couple more seconds that way".

I didn't have a problem with that section...the next section with the office and it's special lighting system has me tearing my hair out to the point I might just break the fucking disk.

Completz0red.

I didn't mind the undestroyable lights that feature heavily on the last level; it made me think more about stealth in terms of where people were looking rather than simply shooting all the lights out. I was also extremely glad of the mark-and-execute on the final level, don't think I would have made it through without it.

Final level spoils:

Just finished this. Excellent stuff at exactly the right kind of pace for me. Fairly interesting story, and the right balance of stealth and action.





Very impressed with this game over all. Still working my way through the co-op with Miss Malabar, which is also incredibly fun and, refreshingly, completely different missions from the single player, leaving both to be designed to suit their play-styles.

I took a different approach for that bit


Took a few goes though. I find remote mining a doorway, throwing a grenade through it, retreating, then triggering the mine when they come to investigate a successful tactic in general. Even more so if the room you are attacking in to has two doors, in which case you can go to the other one and get a kill while they are all looking the wrong way.

It did a great job of making me feel like a predator badass, which is about what you want in this sort of game I think.

Thoroughly excellent game, though I can't say how it compares to other Splinter Cell games after dropping most of them in a mix of frustration and boredom very quickly.

You certainly don't have to take out every villain in this, but good lord is it fun to do so.

Also: