Topic: Splinter Cell: Conviction

[MysterD]

Splinter Cell: Conviction has been revealed (AKA Splinter Cell 5)

Splinter Cell: Conviction Revealed [May 03, 2007, 11:24 am ET] - 19 Comments
Kotaku has word that the next installment in the Splinter Cell series is to be called Splinter Cell: Conviction, offering details from a magazine called Magaza Pelaaja:

    The game takes place in broad daylight this time, but don't worry, it is still a stealth action game. At the beginning of the game, Sam learns that Anna Grimsdottir (Anna is the person in charge of intelligence gathering for Third Echelon, and an old friend of Sam's) is in danger so Sam joins up with Third Echelon once more in order to help. Unfortunately, 3E is not what it used to be, and Sam frequently gets incomplete and bad intel, as well as the wrong equipment. All this, and the 3E bosses are in the middle of a political squabble for control. Sam eventually finds out that the threat is actually coming from inside Third Echelon itself, so he leaves and basically becomes a fuigitive. Looks like Sam is on the wrong side of the law once more, this time for real.

[iPPi]

Bah, I hate the broad daylight shit.

It was really poorly done in Double Agent and ruined the feel of the Splinter Cell.

[PyroMenace]

Yea, it seems like the series is moving more and more away from its roots, kinda like what happened to Tomb Raider.

[Pugnate]

This sound like 24 or something. I haven't played Double Agent yet, though am enjoying Chaos Theory.

Day light sounds stupid.

[MysterD]

Shit, I really need to catch up.

I did finish SC: Original.
I got SC: PT and SC: CT -- ain't even began those.
Ain't bought SC: DA yet.

And now, Conviction's coming.....
I'm falling WAY behind....

[iPPi]

This sound like 24 or something. I haven't played Double Agent yet, though am enjoying Chaos Theory.

Day light sounds stupid.

Chaos Theory is quite amazing.  Double Agent sucked, plus it is plagued with technical problems.

[Xessive]

You said it iPPi. DA was plagued with bugs, and Ubisoft refused to release any more patches. They only made two patches which only had a few minor fixes. Then they just gave up on the game. They didn't even fix the save bugs!

Daylight was irritating in DA, but hopefully Conviction will do it better. By the way who's developing it? Ubi Montréal? Coz those are the guys I have faith in. Ubi Shanghai did a shit job with DA.

[Pugnate]

Dude I bought R6 Vegas to play online, and they still haven't fixed the online component. Plus they hardly refined the engine, and everyone seemed to have problems.

[Quemaqua]

Funny how DA sucked.  That was the only SC game I was ever even remotely interested in.

[Pugnate]

I think that did it.

[MysterD]

Holy crap.
Conviction now is not planned until around 2009-2010 now.

Ubisoft raises guidance, lacks Conviction
Publisher ups full-year outlook after 26 percent climb in Q1 sales to $264 million; Splinter Cell now due before March 31, 2010.
By Tom Magrino, GameSpot
Posted Jul 24, 2008 11:40 am PT

Ubisoft made a number of poor predictions concerning its fiscal-year outlook in 2007. Fortunately for the publisher, those goofs were due to conservative expectations in regard to its total revenue, and Ubisoft raised its guidance several times before finally reporting €928.3 million ($1.5 billion) in full-year earnings. On the back of a strong first quarter, the publisher said today that it would be kicking off fiscal year 2009 with another mea culpa, revising its guidance upward for its fiscal year ending March 31, 2009.

Beating its initial guidance of €154 million ($241 million), Ubisoft said today that its fiscal first-quarter sales hit €169 million ($264 million) for the period ended June 30. That figure marks a nearly 26 percent climb over the same period last year, when the publisher posted revenues of €134 million ($210 million).

Ubisoft attributed the success to a number of factors, including continued strong sales of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Assassin's Creed, and Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, as well as another strong showing from its casual Games for Everyone lineup. The publisher noted that its Petz, Imagine, and MyCoach series accounted for a full third of the company's first-quarter sales, up from 11 percent a year ago.

"Ubisoft delivered a very robust showing in the first quarter of 2008-09 against a particularly dynamic market backdrop," said Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot. "This achievement was especially fueled by ongoing strong growth for our Games for Everyone range, where we are continuing to strengthen our leadership position. We are notably very pleased to see our latest work, My Weight Loss Coach, ranked among the best-sellers for the Nintendo DS."

The publisher's track record notwithstanding, Ubisoft took a stab at projecting its second-quarter performance, saying that revenues would see a similar 26 percent hike to €160 million ($250 million). The publisher believes that growth will be driven for the quarter by the launch of Brothers in Arms Hell's Highway for the Xbox 360, PC, and PlayStation 3, casual games for the Nintendo DS and Wii, as well as the release of Soulcalibur IV (which Ubisoft is publishing in Europe).

As mentioned, Ubisoft also said today that it has raised its guidance for its fiscal full-year sales. Previously pegged at €1 billion ($1.56 billion), the publisher now believes that sales will hit €1.02 billion ($1.59 billion), thanks to gaming-industry market conditions, its first-quarter performance, and the reception of its upcoming games that the publisher received during this year's E3 Media & Business Summit.

One game that will not be contributing to that growth will be the oft-delayed Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction. As part of its financial report, the publisher noted that Sam Fischer's next excursion has once again stalled. Ubisoft now expects the game to arrive during its 2009-2010 fiscal year, which runs from April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010.

[sirean_syan]

Oh well. I was sorta hoping that Splinter Cell would become just a relic of the previous generation. It seemed like interest in the series was falling off and that they made the mistake of making too many games in too short of time.

[MysterD]

I mean, damn -- that's quite the delay. And 2009-2010 is not much of a pinpoint, in that timeframe. A very uncertain one, too.

I mean, what did they do?
Scrap the current game and restart?

Possibly restart w/ a new story?
With a different or brand new game engine?

Or take the current Conviction and just port it over to a new engine?

[Xessive]

Judging from Ubisoft's (specifically Ubisoft Montréal) previous release schedules I'd wager SC Conviction will come out around November 2009.

Like Sy said, they made the mistake of releasing too many games too fast. I think the real problem here is that they split the franchise between two studios; Ubi Montréal (the original developer) was doing great and Ubi Shanghai was doing a half-ass job of it with a lot of inconsistencies. I just don't think it's a coincidence that the two SC games by Ubi Montréal (original & Chaos Theory) rock and the two by Ubi Shanghai (Pandora Tomorrow & Double Agent) are riddled with technical bugs and suck.

[iPPi]

I don't recall having much of an issue with Pandora Tomorrow, but I did think that the levels and story were somewhat disappointing compared to the original.  The first one and Chaos Theory were definitely the best of the franchise, and I have already expressed my distaste for Double Agent.

[MysterD]

I definitely think Chaos Theory was the best of the bunch.

DA did have a shot, if it wasn't such a damn technical mess -- with saved game/profile issues and performance issues galore.

[MysterD]

For those who didn't see it on G4TV, here's the E3 2009 gameplay vid of Splinter Cell: Conviction.

[Xessive]

Wow.. I coulda had an orgasm watching that!

[MysterD]

Wow.. I coulda had an orgasm watching that!

Why didn't you? :oP

Yeah, the SC: Conviction previews at E3 was awesome. This one really does look quite promising.

[Pugnate]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAH!

*nerdgasm*

[MysterD]

X, Pug stole your nerdgasm!

[Pugnate]

D your homosexual fantasies mustn't become part of the internetsssss....

[MysterD]

D your homosexual fantasies mustn't become part of the internetsssss....

Pug, don't make me go all Sam Fisher on you, chump! :OP

[Xessive]

Why didn't you? :oP

Well, I was in a less than private setting.

[MysterD]

Well, I was in a less than private setting.

Makes sense.

I really can't wait for Conviction. I was really surprised how good the E3 2009 vid of this one actually turned out. After it being delayed and then scrapped and restarted, I was not so sure how the hell this might actually have wound up looking. So far, looks like they made the right move in restarting the game from scratch.

[iPPi]

Looks pretty good.  It seems, at least from this video that you are able to 'queue' your actions and just let the computer pull them off -- like when he breached the door, shot out the lights, killed the guy, then grabbed the other dude.  It seemed too smooth to be player controlled.

[MysterD]

Looks pretty good.  It seems, at least from this video that you are able to 'queue' your actions and just let the computer pull them off -- like when he breached the door, shot out the lights, killed the guy, then grabbed the other dude.  It seemed too smooth to be player controlled.

Well, you don't let the computer pull it off. You can see who and where you want to attack ahead of time, through walls and stuff.

And then, you can try and actually pull it off.

It's the new Plan And Execute Feature.

[Xessive]

Yeah, but isn't it automatically executed after you manually plan it? At least that's what it looked like in the vid. Most notably in the window entry part, where Sam targets the two guys and then takes them out instantly without the player's crosshair going over them! The system seems pretty cool so far.

I'm really glad they scrapped the original game we saw back in E3 2007. This vid has me really anxious for some SC stealth action!

[iPPi]

I think I like it... it gives the game a more cinematic feel.

Anyway, I think it's shaping up to be a decent game.

[MysterD]

SP portion of Conviction will take around 12 hours or so, according to Maxime Beland of UbiSoft.

Splinter Cell: Conviction creative director Maxime Beland wants people to finish his game. Accordingly, it looks like Sam Fisher's latest adventure will be clocking in at around 12 hours.

"I want people to play my games and finish them," Beland recently told Official Xbox Magazine.

"We're going to ship with difficulty levels, at least a normal mode and realistic mode - like we did on Rainbow Six Vegas. And realistic is going to be really fucking hard - you're going to need stealth, two bullets is going to kill you, the enemies are going to be super-lethal."

Normal mode, however, will be "for normal gamers, that are going to spend 12 hours playing our game and not 30 because they're dying all the time."

For those worried about getting their money's worth, Conviction will of course also feature a robust multiplayer mode. Should be plenty to keep fans busy when it arrives this October.

[Xessive]

The difficulty never really seemed to affect me in any of the SC games. For example in Chaos Theory after I finished the game on Normal I went back to replay it on Hard and I didn't notice any difference except that the enemies were slightly more aware i.e. you need to maintain a slightly lower level of sound when you're right behind them. I was kinda miffed that this seemed to be the only difference so I jumped back into Normal mode and started testing out how many liberties I could take before I could get overwhelmed. That's when I realized that I had played it way too meticulously the first time around. I was too cautious for the "Normal" difficulty.

Counting the "death rate" into gameplay hours is not proper. That shouldn't be factored in to a game's span!

[wizall]

Counting the "death rate" into gameplay hours is not proper. That shouldn't be factored in to a game's span!

No kidding. I assume he's simply trying to head off any complaints. Fortunately for him (unfortunately for us) 12 hours for a shooter is pretty decent, it seems.

[MysterD]

Conviction delayed until 2010

[MysterD]

Ubisoft announces a release date for this game.
Feb. 26th, 2010 for Windows and X360.

[iPPi]

I hope there will be a PS3 version of this game some time down the line.  It's pretty much inevitable.

I'm also not liking what Ubisoft is doing with their Collector's Editions.  This time around, this CE will have an additional game mode, more weapons and armor.  An entire game mode is only available for people who buy the CE version of the game!  That's fucking retarded.

I didn't like the fact that with Assassin's Creed II, several maps (3 PoP style maps) were locked unless you bought the CE, but I did manage to get a copy of the CE (just not the Gamestop version so I'm missing 1 exclusive map).  Now, while this content does not affect the main campaign or storyline in any way, it's still a part of the game that's just 'locked away' unless you have an unlock code.

[Quemaqua]

Just another way to rip you off, same as with DLC.  We made this awesome complete game!  Except it'll cost you an extra $20 to actually get it to that point...

[MysterD]

Well, that's pretty crummy of them.

I always liked the CE's that pack extra stuff that is not in-game stuff - like art books; comic books; game's original score soundtrack on CD; action figures; some sort of kick-ass cool packaging (i.e. Fallout 3 CE for a case is a lunchbox; some CE's use a tin case to put your game in; etc; the huge oversized book-like case for LOTR Online: Mines of Moria - Special Edition or Age of Conan CE); etc etc.

[iPPi]

Don't get me wrong, I like Collector's Editions as well, but it's hard to justify a CE purchase for every single available game.  Hell, the only reason why I got the AC2 CE was because the preorder price was the same as the normal edition.

[MysterD]

Don't get me wrong, I like Collector's Editions as well, but it's hard to justify a CE purchase for every single available game.

I agree w/ you.

I always keep my eyes on for the inevitable price drop for a CE - if there's still any left looming around, of course, after the game's been around a bit.

Hell, the only reason why I got the AC2 CE was because the preorder price was the same as the normal edition.

That sounds like a good deal to me.

[Pugnate]

Their justification is that the extra money they make from the CE is what allows them to have the resources to create the extra mode.

Obviously that's bullshit.

I hate all this nickel and dime b.s. that gaming has turned to.