There is one thing in life guaranteed apart from death and taxes and that is that you can never please everybody. Splinter Cell Conviction demo was released today with a few new changes to the series and from reading the forums there are generally two camps – those who love the changes and those who feel it is too far away from the other games and do not like it at all.
The real problem as far as I can see was that the series was getting old. It was stale and none of the previous games really improved that much on the previous before that. In a nutshell it was the same gameplay, different location each time and very similar storyline. Splinter Cell Conviction throws away the old rigid rule book and starts afresh with a new set of rules. He is no longer an operative in a silly black outfit and donning night vision goggles but is working alone in civvies to his own agenda.
Gameplay wise, Ubisoft have now implemented an quick execute option so you can tag and kill multiple enemies with a couple of button presses. I like this option. I have problem with some games sometimes in that my reactions are a bit slow so creating a set piece for multiple kills I think is excellent. It is not a given right either, so not to make it too easy, the execute option has to be earned by close up kills. If anyone complains this makes the game too simple then the easy answer is do not use it. You are not forced to use the tag-then-execute option, it is merely there for those who do want to use it.
Personally I love the new gameplay. It is very fresh and I love the fact that they have moved away from the dry old black-clad-super-spy theme to give us something new. This may be the recipe they need to bring back gamers who abandoned the series before because it was getting stale.
Roll on April, I will now submit my pre-order.
My friend Cat hates the changes and you can read her well thought out rant on here
http://carocat.co.uk/2010/03/21/splinter-cell-conviction-demo/
Cat gives more information about the changes although I do not think they are all negative things. Two very polarised opinions 
carocat says:
You preorder and I cancel mine, guess our tastes are very different!
beck says:
Could you have liked it if it was not Splinter Cell?
carocat says:
Thanks!
Erm, I don’t know, some of the things that bugged me weren’t necessarily related to it not being a SC game, like the Mission objectives on the walls or the constant reminder to press A to jump.
beck says:
I would reserve judgement regarding the pressing A to jump etc until I play the real thing because that might have been specially done like that as a tutorial for the demo only.
Also I don’t mind that anyway as it is a reminder of what is climbable and what is not
The mission objectives on the wall I quite liked and t6hought it was a nice touch
SparkysDream says:
I was really disappointed with the gameplay. It was all context based and I never really felt like I was in control of the character. I felt too far removed. It seemed more action than stealth, the mark and execute feature is rubbish, and the AI is absolutely shocking. Even the bathroom scene was a disappointment – just repeatedly jabbing B to continue. It could have been so much more!
beck says:
That is me outnumbered then
I must admit the AI were stupid, With some games advancing with their use of AI, this game seems to have taken a step back.
beck says:
Here is an interesting snippet from Eurogamer about the demo and they give the impression that the demo is not indicative of the final game and that some aspects are missing from the demo.
Take the AI for instance: choose a restart point within the demo and check out your opponents’ behaviour. These enemies aren’t predictable: their exact responses change even when you adopt similar strategies against them. Other more visually apparent technologies, such as the way light and shadow are handled, are all closely entwined with the core gameplay, and while this is showcased to an extent in the demo, it appears Ubisoft Montreal has more tricks up its collective sleeve than are revealed in the sampler.
The developer has talked about Sam Fisher interacting in crowd-based levels, along with level crammed with a ton of individual items and there’s also been some discussion about destructible environments, but none of this is seen in the demo. Roll on final review code.