Now Playing: Splinter Cell: Conviction and Assassin's Creed 2 preview

This week, I checked out Ubisoft's two latest games Splinter Cell: Conviction and Assassin's Creed 2. You wondering wot they are like?

Here goes.

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Splinter Cell: Conviction. The game is frighteningly fast compared to the turtle-pace of the original trilogy. Just five minutes in and things are already going kablooey. There's a definite sense of constant locomotion; you do what you must to get pass the guards, get into the building, and keep moving forward. Improvise as you go. You never come to a complete stop, nor back-track. In one sense that makes the game mighty linear, but heck, Ubisoft has made a very good point with why Conviction is a tighter, shorter affair.

The majority of gamers just never finish their games (noobs) and the older Splinter Cells have been victims of this too (seriously, noobs, the lot of 'em). So Conviction is built to feel like a really awesome movie/rollercoaster ride. There is just never any player agency in carrying the plot forward. The game takes care of that so all you have to do is have fun in the little pockets/playgrounds, peppered with enemies and dark shadows and furniture and whatever.


Much of the game I've seen/played rocks. Cover works really well, so does the actual sneaking around bits. I was worried it was going to be too easy for the console crowd, especially in firefights, but it turned out to be quite the challenge when getting shot at. You die pretty easily, so you're really forced to think about your tactics rather than just go in guns blazing. That's Splinter Cell right there.

And interrogation. Ouch. Seriously ouch. Some people will be turned off by the torture bits, but never does it feel like Ubisoft put it in there for the sake of gratuitous violence. It feels like exactly what Sam Fisher would do. If I lost a daughter, I'd be that pissed too.

I don't want to go into too much detail here because I'd like to finish the game first, so expect a full blown review when the game comes out for PC at the end of the month (blasted console exclusivity). One last thing. The cooperative mode alone is worth the admission fee. Both you and a friend can have tons of fun whilst doing some really wicked two-man stealth operations.


Next. I played Assassin's Creed 2 (I know this has been out awhile, but its the DRM that's holding me back) and straight away, I can say that it's an immense improvement over the first title. In fact, it is so much more engaging that we can even forget that the first title ever existed, and just have this as the starting point. It gets newcomers up to speed with the story so far anyway.

The characters seem more lively like dumbass Desmond who tries horribly at times to do a Nathan Drake impression, and even Kristen Bell (no one remembers her character's name) had a makeover for the better. But most importantly, I like the new assassin protagonist Ezio Auditore. He's a smart, fun and mischievous kid. Loves his family and is a good guy. Unlike Altair who is a douche.


Some bad shit goes down that forces Ezio to grow up quickly. And when that bad stuff happens to him, Ubisoft has you hooked by the heart. You will empathize with the poor guy.

Action is fine. Pretty similar to the first game. In fact, I may venture so far as to say it has dumbed down a little. The first game had you on your toes when surrounded by enemies; needing to find openings and counter attacks. AC2 feels like button-mashing; just isolate an enemy and keep hitting till he's down. Swordplay doesn't seem as interesting as in the first game, but yes, I haven't gotten very far to say for sure yet.

Certainly a different beast altogether from Splinter Cell: Conviction which seems overly grim, but Assassin's Creed 2 holds its own with an immersive world. For sure, AC2 seems to be crafted with love and such attention to detail even if it is the graphically weaker game to SC:C.


In fact, I was so impressed with Assassin's Creed 2 that I was tempted to go buy a copy immediately myself. But alas, I'm just a poor boy from a poor family. No, really, I am a broke student. Have to decide whether to get this now or save up for Splinter Cell a couple of weeks later.

And then there's still the problem of the DRM. I have been convinced that Ubisoft really does not disappoint with their games, and it's understandable if they want to protect their hard work from piracy. But this internet-connection-only DRM is the worst of the worst. People are still struggling to connect to other Ubisoft games like Settlers 7. This is really working against Ubisoft's favor. Or have they given up on PCs, what with there being enough console gamers to make money from? I can't really say for sure. I have no solution. We'll just have to wait and see how Splinter Cell handles the DRM.