A demo for Splinter Cell: Conviction hit Xbox Live Marketplace today and I decide to take an early lunch to check it out. I enjoyed the previous Splinter Cell games but I was just planning to get to Conviction whenever I can find it for a good price.  However, after playing the demo I’m seriously considering getting it the day it releases (April 13th).  The demo starts with an intro cut scene giving you a little background from the perspective of Sam Fisher’s enemies.  It was an interesting take on filling you in on what you might need to know about the main character.  After that you play through a scene where you interrogate a guy to get the info you need for the next mission.  In many games this would just be a cut scene, but in Conviction you have control to move around and control the beating you give.  The environment reacts realistically with walls getting damaged and other people in the area running away scared.  While you get info from the interrogation it is not only the audio of what is being spoken, but on the walls it plays clips of the things being described.  It is one of the more unique ways I’ve see a game have what is essentially an interactive cut scene.  I really like how it worked and hope that you get more stuff like this in the full game.

Once you finish the questioning you get a full mission.  Lets see if I can cover everything in this level. You start outside this building and have to take out a few guards. Then get inside, disable a bomb, free some prisoners and escape. It took me a few tries to get through it all, but there is a check point system that was really great.  You never see an icon that the game is saving or anything, but when I was spotted and killed it respawned me to the room right before the one where I made the mistake.  It was pretty much the perfect spot to restart because all the previous work I had done before messing up was still finished and I could just retry the part that got me killed. The mission was about 15 or 20 minutes long with multiple ways to approach just about every area of the level.  There are multiple way into the building, once inside there are various rooms to work through and ways to approach the goals.

Splinter Cell: Conviction has a Mark & Execute feature that is really fun. After you take out a enemy with hand to hand combat you get the ability to mark two enemies and then hit Y to have Sam take them both down.  I really like this because sometimes you get to an area where you can see the enemy perfectly but just not quite get more than one lined up at a time.  With the Mark and Execute you can tag two people on opposite sides of a room, as long as you can see them both, and then take them both down cleanly.

The graphics in Splinter Cell: Conviction look really good. Even though there are a lot of dark areas there is still a great level of detail. One design choice I really like is that they use the various walls and cover objects to write the mission objectives on. Instead of starting a mission with a set of goals listed off you just get put into the game and then find out what you need to do as you go.  They also put instructions on how to do things are on the items related to them. So, the jump icon is next pipe you can climb and the cover indicator is next to the cover.  It seems like this would take you out of the game, but I found it much more immersive than just giving a generic tutorial or popping the icon up in the middle of the screen like many games do.

Like I mentioned, I’m really looking forward to Splinter Cell: Conviction after playing the demo.  The demo does not give you a lot details about the overall story plot, but what it does give you seems like it will make for a great game.  If you’re even a little interested in Splinter Cell: Conviction I would recommend downloading the demo and checking it out.  You can add it to your download queue here.