Splinter Cell Conviction Demo

[Shyam]

Awful.

There's no shadow meter so you can't tell if enemies can see you are not. The screen goes monochrome sometimes but I'm not sure what it's supposed to be telling me because it didn't seem to relate to me being in shadows or hidden.

Screen going monochrome means you are hidden. If the colors come back on, you are detected.

But still, I am really on the fence about this game.

 

[MorganFreeman911]

Bullshit, you can't download unless you have XBL Gold.
I ****ing HATE Microsoft.

 

[stemot]

My god. What the **** have they done to my favourite series. This is not Splinter Cell in the slightest. All of the skill has been removed and you end up with a game where you can clear a room with a quick look around and a button press. Ubi, I hate you.

 

[V-Man339]

I swear, I can't tell if Ubisoft or Activision are more intent on ruining decent/great franchises. Maybe it's a contest.

 

[Gargantou]

I enjoyed it as an independent game, but as a Splinter Cell? **** that.

I played on "Realistic" and it wasn't hard a single f*cking second.

Just 'stealth'-melee-execute and then rinse, repeat.

Can't say I'm all that surprised, but I am dissappointed.

For once I am actually pondering not getting this game on release, and waiting until it's cheap, but knowing how many younger gamers will just swallow this stuff, it'll stay high-price for quite some time.

 

[Doppelgofer]

i like the different direction they've taken. to be fair, they've been using the same dynamics for 4 games and yeah maybe, if its not broken don't try and fix it but he's supposed to be a rogue agent and i suppose they watched bourne identity a few too many times

i like it, i can see why others don't but i'm pretty sure if they did the same thing they've always been doing, they would've been pounced on for being samey

still though, i must agree with someone else in this thread saying chaos theory was the best in the series. chaos theory is their magnum opus, everything worked beautifully

 

[Bad^Hat]

Really too short a demo to say anything concrete, but it seems about as horrid as I anticipated.

Did any of you actually buy DA during the holiday sale?

I did, without being aware of the port issues. Not that I'll ever play it, because it's a TEN ****ING GIG download, which is nearly half my cap at the moment.

Overall, it's a full consolization of what used to be a good series.

Okay, let me just preface this by saying I agree with basically everything you said, but please kindly f*ck off with that word. Not only is it dumb, it doesn't even apply here.

I mean, you can't even go prone, or pick up enemy bodies. I am disappoint.

But you don't need to pick up enemy bodies! Their buddies will just walk right past and assume they're taking a timely nap.

Bullshit, you can't download unless you have XBL Gold.
I ****ing HATE Microsoft.

Hate all you want, this has been the case for new demos since (far as I'm aware) XBL's inception. At least the high profile ones.

 

[Krynn72]

Hate all you want, this has been the case for new demos since (far as I'm aware) XBL's inception. At least the high profile ones.

Wait, really? Because ive been getting demos for awhile now, and I havent been paying for gold access since the first 4 months i've had the console (got a 3 month thing, plus 1 free).

 

[Bad^Hat]

They're gold exclusive for like a week or two, then any old Joe can get em.

Edit: Heheh.

 

[Shyam]

My god. What the **** have they done to my favourite series. This is not Splinter Cell in the slightest. All of the skill has been removed and you end up with a game where you can clear a room with a quick look around and a button press. Ubi, I hate you.

Ubi executives went, "hey, most gamers are now ADD inflicted, they will probably get bored of sneaking around and waiting patiently for a kill. What we need is to turn Sam Fisher into a steroid filled Chimp and make this into a game version of Bourne/Taken".

 

[PvtRyan]

Nope, Tessellation



Not to be offensive (well, a little bit) but you're talking out your ass. Do you know what you need to do to make a heightmap? You need to make a high-res model. DERP. Not only that, but it would be better on performance to not use tessellation because you need a LOT more geometry even on your low res to make it work correctly. It would almost be better to actually model each of those roof tiles and just ignore the new texture pass altogether.

And those images are an unfair comparison because its showing you diffuse only vs tessellated. Once you throw in normal/paralax mapping the difference becomes minuscule and virtually only noticeable on the edges of the model as its silhouette wont be broken up. Its also a huge bitch to implement into your game, requires TONS of manhours and puts more work on already overloaded artists. And because of that, its my opinion that tessellation is bullshit and not worth the effort or performance hit on the vast majority of things, with the one notable exception of cylinders. Tessellation of a cylinder is a fantastic thing.


Example of unnecessary geometry that would be better off just being modeled.

Hint: you can use the parallax map and/or normal map that you must use to make the non-tessellated version not look like shit for the heightmap in the tesselated model. And in a lot of cases (like for tiles or rocks on the floor) just passing the diffuse texture through a Photoshop desaturate filter with a few contrast adjustments should do just fine.

Even if you first create a high-res model for the heightmap, the artist can just go nuts on the model and doesn't have to worry about keeping the triangle count manageable or about optimizing the model. Creating a high-res model for the heightmap is still less work than creating a LOD-able optimized high-res model that can be used in the game. And then you still need to hold the model in memory, which would add up quickly. A compressed texture is cheaper.

I don't have any numbers, but I wouldn't be surprised if tessellation that is implemented directly in hardware is actually cheaper than parallax mapping, which is a very complex multi-pass pixelshader

 

[VirusType2]

Another advantage of tessellation is the scalability. It gets rid of models popping in. Also, the transition from LOD to full res would be smooth.

I don't have a lot of games, but I know this happens in Oblivion. For some models there aren't even LOD versions, so the object just appears. This is shit. Just walking along and some rocks or a building appears. Memory restriction I guess. The memory is not a problem with tessellation since there is one model, with added details for the better versions of the model.

 

[Gargantou]

Ubi executives went, "hey, most gamers are now ADD inflicted, they will probably get bored of sneaking around and waiting patiently for a kill. What we need is to turn Sam Fisher into a steroid filled Chimp and make this into a game version of Bourne/Taken".

Which is retarded reasoning, seeing as I have ADHD and I love the older Splinter Cell games and always played'em on the highest difficulty.

Anyway, as I said, I found the demo to be enjoyable, but it's definitely not a stealth-game, it's an action-game.

 

[V-Man339]

Which is retarded reasoning, seeing as I have ADHD and I love the older Splinter Cell games and always played'em on the highest difficulty.

Anyway, as I said, I found the demo to be enjoyable, but it's definitely not a stealth-game, it's an action-game.

You expected Ubisoft to know its consumers that well?

 

[Gargantou]

You expected Ubisoft to know its consumers that well?

Not any more than I expect Jesus to rise again, no.

 

[KagePrototype]

I enjoyed it! Pretty much Jason Bourne the video game. Love the style, love the controls...I don't really have strong nostalgic memories of the other Splinter Cell games, so I can't really join in with all the "not MY Splinter Cell!" stuff.

 

[Shift]

If people are that bothered with it not being like the older games, then just play the older games then. Its changed yes, but games do that over the branch of a series. Its like bands will change their sound overtime to keep it fresh, just gets boring after a while if they play the same stuff all the time.

 

[stemot]

If people are that bothered with it not being like the older games, then just play the older games then. Its changed yes, but games do that over the branch of a series. Its like bands will change their sound overtime to keep it fresh, just gets boring after a while if they play the same stuff all the time.

It's not the fact that it's changed it's more the fact they have removed everything that defined the Splinter Cell games, they have turned a very popular stealth series into a skill less action game. Ubi have many action franchises to adapt to this style of one button room clear to, they didn't have to rip the core mechanics from an established series with a massive fan base. Then again, it shouldn't surprise me seeing as how they did the same to the Rainbow franchise.

 

[Shift]

It was inevitable though, we have had 4 Splinter Cell games already, all of them uses basically the same mechanics, while just using updated methods and new cool aspects to keep it fresh. I mean there is only so much you can do with that style of gameplay before you run out of ideas.

 

[stemot]

It was inevitable though, we have had 4 Splinter Cell games already, all of them uses basically the same mechanics, while just using updated methods and new cool aspects to keep it fresh. I mean there is only so much you can do with that style of gameplay before you run out of ideas.

I would have been happy with a game as good as Chaos Theory with the same mechanics but a new story levels and updated visuals. They tried to change things up with the 360/PC version of Double Agent and ended up having a better version on the otiginal x-box which stuck to the original template which was much better than than the next gen version.

 

[Cpt Tenacious]

You don't even play as Sam Fisher, you play as Liam Neeson from Taken. Actually, they both have stories about their daughters and they're getting revenge. Wow, I think I just figured it out.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

As cool as it would be to play a taken video game (hence why I will still probably like conviction) I want my old sam fisher back

*remembers the days of chaos theory so fondly*

 

[StardogChampion]

It was inevitable though, we have had 4 Splinter Cell games already, all of them uses basically the same mechanics, while just using updated methods and new cool aspects to keep it fresh. I mean there is only so much you can do with that style of gameplay before you run out of ideas.

Bullshit. That's the most ridiculous lack-of-imagination statement I'll ever see. You're seriously saying there was absolutely nothing they could've done to freshen it up while remaining true to the originals?

There was plenty of things to fix in Chaos Theory such as the clunkiness of the movement, they could do more with the environments, etc, and if they had any decent game designers working for them they should've had tons of ideas to freshen things up without removing proper stealth mechanics.

And I've said it in other forums, but if they're going to do this action movie assassination marker thing then they should go all out and let us fire it off in mid-air while doing a backflip etc. Why half-ass it? Let us target body parts - hold RB over an enemy and it zooms in, press right or left to target arm, up for the head. Shooting arms could take half a point of the M&E limit so you could disarm some people temporarily instead, etc, etc.

 

[the cow says moo]

I've been wanting an actual stealth game with climbing mechanics like Assassin's Creed or this. And not action-stealth, but pure "watch your enemies for 5 minutes+ from the shadows" stealth. Maybe Th4if will be like this.

 

[Shift]

Bullshit. That's the most ridiculous lack-of-imagination statement I'll ever see. You're seriously saying there was absolutely nothing they could've done to freshen it up while remaining true to the originals?

There was plenty of things to fix in Chaos Theory such as the clunkiness of the movement, they could do more with the environments, etc, and if they had any decent game designers working for them they should've had tons of ideas to freshen things up without removing proper stealth mechanics.

I'm no game designer but I fail to see any revolutionary method they could have used on the game to keep it fresh without spoiling the mechanics that kept it a Splinter Cell game, but you seem to be bustling with ideas they could have used so feel free to enlighten me.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

I take my prior statement back; I just tried the demo and I feel really let down now D;

*hugs chaos theory tightly*

I don't particularly like the control scheme but I guess i might get used to it (R3 for zoom, LT for cover and L3 for reload wtf? ), The brutal interrogation was rly disappointing cos it was just like a 1 button QTE that was context sensitive, big let down that one.

OK biggest problem tho was yea it was jst not splinter cell. It's not a stealth game anymore. It's just an action game where you crouch and have a small health bar and good god the AI is dumb as a doorstop (normal mode tested) >_>

EDIT: I think this might prove my point. This is a so called "perfect stealth" playthrough

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXKZ6nGetfA&hd=1

 

[Stigmata]

I'm no game designer but I fail to see any revolutionary method they could have used on the game to keep it fresh without spoiling the mechanics that kept it a Splinter Cell game, but you seem to be bustling with ideas they could have used so feel free to enlighten me.

- Parkour (as in Assassin's Creed and Mirror's Edge)
- Counter-Op multiplayer (two opposing agents trying to complete the same mission without killing anyone)
- Branching objectives/storyline
- AI that remembers dynamic state changes (like whether a door should be open)
- A fusion of VATS and GTA4-style targetting
- Impersonation, e.g. being able to be spotted without raising suspicion, when seen as a silhouette where a guard is normally seen
- False leads (you are presented with multiple or scripted-incorrect objectives, and must deduce the correct one based on information from briefings, interrogations, etc.)

There's tons of space to evolve the gameplay without turning it into an action game.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

wow stigmata you just make me feel worse bout conviction ;(

 

[Shift]

- Parkour (as in Assassin's Creed and Mirror's Edge)
- Counter-Op multiplayer (two opposing agents trying to complete the same mission without killing anyone)
- Branching objectives/storyline
- AI that remembers dynamic state changes (like whether a door should be open)
- A fusion of VATS and GTA4-style targetting
- Impersonation, e.g. being able to be spotted without raising suspicion, when seen as a silhouette where a guard is normally seen
- False leads (you are presented with multiple or scripted-incorrect objectives, and must deduce the correct one based on information from briefings, interrogations, etc.)

There's tons of space to evolve the gameplay without turning it into an action game.

They're... *ahem*...pretty good actually..

 

[Dalamari]

I enjoyed the game, however I'll only be renting it, definitely doesn't feel like there will be much to do once you run through the co-op/SP once. Getting a pretty strong MW2-vibe off it with how Bourne Identity everything is. Seems that a lot of you just wanted Chaos Theory with some more levels.

On the negative side, **** that game for forcing you to engage in gunfights.

 

[Gargantou]

- Parkour (as in Assassin's Creed and Mirror's Edge)

- AI that remembers dynamic state changes (like whether a door should be open)

IIRC CT had this, I distinctly recall the AI investigating why a previously closed door was open.

Also FU Dalamari, with your legal-renting ways. Game publishers made all rental services over here remove games from their offerings.

This was a long time ago too, like before the PS2 came out.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Then again, it shouldn't surprise me seeing as how they did the same to the Rainbow franchise.

Actually, I really didn't mind R6: Vegas. Besides the cover mechanic it was pretty much the same game. I mean there was the regenerating health, sure, but who actually enjoyed limping around an entire level because you got shot once?

I've been wanting an actual stealth game with climbing mechanics like Assassin's Creed or this. And not action-stealth, but pure "watch your enemies for 5 minutes+ from the shadows" stealth.

Have you tried the Tenchu games? No real parkour perse, but you'll spend a lot of time on rooftops. >.>

I'm no game designer but I fail to see any revolutionary method they could have used on the game to keep it fresh without spoiling the mechanics that kept it a Splinter Cell game

Because you're not being paid to. Ubi are, and instead they decided to "reboot" the franchise like all of their other ones lately, just in this case it's kind of against everything the series used to stand for.

Also, as to your band example - yeah, like music fans are so understanding of change.

Game publishers made all rental services over here remove games from their offerings.

Ouch, dude. Just ouch.

 

[Shift]

Also, as to your band example - yeah, like music fans are so understanding of change.

So true haha.

 

[Stigmata]

EDIT: I think this might prove my point. This is a so called "perfect stealth" playthrough

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXKZ6nGetfA&hd=1

If that's Ubisoft's idea of perfect stealth gameplay, I'm too stunned to think of an appropriate analogy. This is a bastardization of everything the original stood for in terms of gameplay.