After two years in the darkness, a major gameplay overhaul, and a much-needed shave, super-spy Sam Fisher finally re-emerges — with Conviction

Sam Fisher is dead. Long live Sam Fisher.

Like the secret-agent ninja that he is, our favorite grumpy Third Echelon spy disappeared in the blink of an eye back in 2007, leaving us to wonder what had become of the renowned Splinter Cell series of stealth masterpieces.

After building up an unbelievable track record on the original Xbox (including our highest-scoring Xbox game ever with Chaos Theory), Fisher’s boots crunched the snow on both Xbox platforms with Double Agent, an impressive (if slightly undercooked) attempt at taking the series in a slightly new direction.

That was Ubisoft Shanghai’s baby, however, leaving us excited for what the Ubi Montreal Splinter Cell team — the folks responsible for the series’ first game as well as Chaos Theory — would have in store next. That game was Splinter Cell Conviction, a “stealth in daylight” paradigm shift in which a renegade Fisher would use crowds (à la Ubisoft Montreal’s own then-upcoming smash hit Assassin’s Creed) to hide from a pursuing government that once employed him. But after a brief showing in May 2007 (see preview in the August 2007 issue of OXM), Conviction went dark and hasn’t been heard from since. Rumors persisted that it was being heavily redesigned. Those rumors, it turns out, were true, and after two years Ubisoft is finally ready to break their silence. Only OXM was given the first inside access to the team in Montreal and the new Xbox 360 exclusive they’ve been quietly working on in the meantime.

The Death of "Hobo Sam"

“No more wetsuits.” Such is the promise of Conviction’s creative director, Maxime Beland, who took the reins on the project about a year and a half ago after having worked on the Rainbow Six Vegas series (remember that fact for later).

While Conviction will ultimately bear little resemblance to its original design document, not everything has been thrown out. But the wetsuit is still history. So, too, is the scraggly, bearded, homeless-looking hero we’d started calling “Hobo Sam.” It’s the story that’s the primary holdover — blamed for events in Double Agent, Fisher quits Third Echelon and goes off the grid in Malta, refusing to accept that his daughter’s death at the hands of a drunk driver was an accident. The new game has been designed around that core element.

So what is this new experience, since it won’t be about throwing chairs at foes? “I felt that stealth was getting a bit old,” proclaims Beland. “I want the player to feel like a panther, who hides because it’s a great way to kill the enemy,” he says with an undeniable twinge of excitement.

Translation: Conviction is going to play a lot faster than previous Splinter Cells. Lamenting how slowly Fisher moved in the earlier games (“I could climb a pipe faster than that!” Beland digs) and how long it could take to clear out a room full of bad guys, the creative director — an admitted acronym abuser — introduces us to the team’s gameplay loop, dubbed PEV: prepare, execute, and vanish.

Rainbow Splinter Cell

Preparing to enter a room starts just as any Splinter Cell veteran would expect: after taking a peek under a door with a snake-cam (or in our case, a side mirror broken off from an SUV, complete with the “OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR” stamp on it, since Sam doesn’t have many gadgets in the early Malta levels of the game), you’ll survey the situation. Using this trick, you might spot two or three foes; aim the camera at a guy and press RB to mark him, which will place a dot above his head, just as in Rainbow Six Vegas. Different weapons let you make different numbers of marks in a sequence — Sam’s default pistol can tag two at a time, for example. After marking your targets, you’re ready to execute.

But without Rainbow teammates to take down your targets, you’ll tap the A button to open the door (or hold A to bash it in), then press Y to execute your plan. Fisher will automatically gun down the marked men, and holding Y will deliver the cinematic moment in a slow-motion, John Woo–like extravaganza that lets you behold the flying debris and other carnage courtesy of the highly destructible environments. Of course, you can also run in and savagely beat the bad guys using Sam’s savage new Krav Maga fighting style (motto: “whatever it takes,” be it a kick to the nuts or a pistol whip) if you like.

Naturally, though, your actions might attract a lot of unwanted attention, so part three of the loop is to vanish. With a faster Fisher, you can quickly bolt out of a room, out a window, or up a pipe. Sure, your foes might see you, but only for a moment — i.e., your last-known position. Beland aims to keep people from going to the pause menu and reloading their game; he wants the flow to stay tense and fun even if you’ve been discovered.

Strike Hard, Strike Fast

The demonstration we saw took place early in the game in Malta, and you might have seen a condensed version of it at Microsoft’s E3 press conference. Just to allay your fears: the game normally isn’t that fast. Montreal walked us through it three different times, the final two of which were done at a much more traditional Splinter Cell pace and in varying ways; replayability will remain very high for Conviction.

Beginning with one of the game’s downright vicious interrogation moments, the camera flies down the sink’s drain after Sam’s final inquisitive blow and does a fly-through of the old mansion of King George, where the just-beaten man has told Sam that Kobin — the guy who was hired to kill Sarah Fisher — is hiding out.

It’s worth noting that there are no formal cutscenes in Conviction. Rather, the camera makes quick cuts and always keeps you in control. In this case, it zips through the giant house and back behind Sam in a plaza outside the mansion, where each NPC looks different and behaves realistically. Shopkeepers hawk their wares, a photographer shoots the scenic ocean view, a man talks on his phone, a pair argue at a cafe table, and there’s even a romantic couple gazing out at the water. Loose paper blows in the wind, and the lights strung between the merchants’ tents sway.

After swooping over a ledge to avoid mansion guard detail (grabbing and tossing one of them over the side and into a dumpster below in the process), Sam scales the wall, eschewing the more heavily patrolled front door, and climbs in a window. In the upstairs lobby, he clings to a pipe overhead, pressing RT to do a “death from above” drop move on an inquisitive bad guy. In the center of the lobby, a giant chandelier casts massive amounts of light in the room. Fortunately, two foes are standing directly beneath it. Marking it with RB, Sam scampers across the room, is noticed, and hits Y, shooting the expensive light source down, killing the baddies below.

Coming to a room on the opposite side of the mansion where Kobin is holed up, you peek under the door, revealing a half-dozen bodyguards. They’re ready for you, pushing over tables for cover as soon as they hear you outside. You can storm in, guns blazing (if you have a shotgun, it will rip through the tables), or you can slip out the window, clamber over, and watch them try to get you — with grenade launchers. An explosion rips a burst of fire through the window, no doubt scorching Sam’s fingernails. Scooting to the window at the back of the room, Sam leaps in and grabs Kobin by the throat. But that’s where the demo ends, as a squad of Third Echelon soldiers (with familiar-looking wetsuits and…red goggles you’ll no doubt get later in the game) swoop in and force Sam to surrender, presumably moving the setting to Washington, D.C.

A Light at the End of the Tunnel

At the end of our visit to Montreal, one thing was clear: Splinter Cell Conviction is still very different than its predecessors, but is it a good different? One of the great things in the series thus far is that you always had the choice to project whatever morality you liked upon Sam. You could shoot someone with your silenced pistol, sure, but you always had the option of choking them out, air-rifling them unconscious, or sticky-shocking them — all with non-lethal results. We’re a bit concerned after our first look that, with lethal violence seemingly unavoidable and encouraged in Conviction, that choice could be eliminated, forcing us to play Sam as a desperate man who takes the lives of others.

And what about Conviction’s multiplayer components? Will the genius co-op side missions return? For a game that left our questions unanswered for the past two years, the new Splinter Cell somehow managed to introduce as many new queries as it settled. But it’s good to know that our favorite grouchy bastard is back on active duty. We missed you, Sam.