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Splinter Cell Conviction Demo Impressions

It looks good enough -- the gameplay was just too easy. But of course, it's a demo, and they know most will not purchase the game if the demo is too hard for them.

Anyway, it was fun while it lasted, I'll keep an eye on the game when it comes out.
 

kaskade

Member
After playing the demo maybe 10 times and really getting the hang of things I definitely like it. The only thing that is kind of annoying is that panther thing. It would be nice if it didn't make the noise. Think we can get them to change that if we complain enough on the ubi boards :lol
 

Sanic

Member
I don't really mind the projections on the walls. I don't think it really adds anything to the game, but it doesn't bother me.

Visually I think it's rather nice. Lighting/shadowing are good, everything else is a bit better than ok, so it evens out to make an overall above average package, though for how long this has been in development, I can't help but be a little dissapointed it's not even better. Some of the animation are just short of bad.

Oh, and the fact that X doesn't reload is something that will take a long time to get used to.
 
kaskade said:
The only thing that is kind of annoying is that panther thing. It would be nice if it didn't make the noise. Think we can get them to change that if we complain enough on the ubi boards :lol

panther thing?

I thought that popup indicator to show that you have the ability to mark and execute was a bit annoying and loud
 

kaskade

Member
TheVampire said:
panther thing?

I thought that popup indicator to show that you have the ability to mark and execute was a bit annoying and loud
People on here were calling it a panther scratch or something like that. But that's what I'm talking about. After one time I know that a melee will give me a mark and execute I don't really need that every time.
 
That was really short.

A bit of the gameplay was broken for me, like going in and out of hiding.

Also the interrogation scene could have used more variety. I walked the dude over to the mop bucket hoping I could dunk his head in there and hold it there for a while. Instead I just punched him.

You should also have been given the option on how you finally want to execute the dude with one of the things in the room.
 

comrade

Member
Damn GAF's hating. I loved the demo. Can't wait for this. Really want to play deniable ops with my buddy.
kaskade said:
People on here were calling it a panther scratch or something like that. But that's what I'm talking about. After one time I know that a melee will give me a mark and execute I don't really need that every time.
There's an option to turn off tutorial tips in the settings. I'm thinking it'll turn that off. It's not selectable in the demo though.
 
SCC_RES.jpg
 

skyfinch

Member
Big Splinter Cell fan and thought I would hate this game, but it's actually very good. Day one for sure.

Hope they add the option to get rid of the black and white, though. It's hard enough to see in the dark as it is.

You can also hit the "BACK" button and project the mission details anywhere you're aiming......because we all love the projection thingy.:lol
 
I love the cornball intro: "Sam Fisher was our first Splinter Cell. Go get him. Be warned: he will kick your ass!"

The demo itself was decent, I guess. I have nitpicks with the stupid black-and-white filtering and Fisher needing me to hit A to climb on a pipe. I must have breezed through the demo three times on Realistic, and I think the most fun I had from it was using the portable EMP devices and EMP grenades. Other than that, there was hardly anything interesting about the demo for me. I'm just going to wait on impressions and probably a sale.
 

_Bro

Banned
Gah, there is so much I don't like about this demo. Most of it has been said so I'll just get angry about

- I already clicked Start Demo, I already slammed a guy's head into a toilet, why are you telling me to press A to start the game again?
- Why is everybody I passed earlier dead when I reload a checkpoint?
- "blah blah blah HIS DAUGHTER blah blah blah" What type of dumb story is this? Fisher found SinkFace. . . JUST DON'T LET HIM KNOW ABOUT HIS DAUGHTER. I'm more attached to the pastries I ate during the previous Splinter Cells than I am to the daughter that appeared for 7 minutes? across four entries? No thank you.
- Control scheme does not make sense to me.
- And that It's A Game intro? He can mark and execute. He is adept at street fighting and our high-op fighting. Fuck off. Find a clever way to introduce game mechanics beyond "Hi, I'm a faceless dick showing you how to play the game. Let me tell you how awesome you are."
 
One of the ugliest games I've played on my 360. Between the blurry textures, low resolution, aliasing and tearing, 'twas not a pretty site. They really need to tone down the effects or something the console/engine clearly can't handle what they're throwing at it at anything approaching reasonable quality.

Also, why do I need to hold down the trigger all the time I'm in cover? Its just annoying.
 
the black and white didn't bother me too much. At first when I tried it, getting used to the controls. Love the music that the sticky cams plays lol. After I threw a sticky cam you can't pick it up again which sucks. I beat the demo once and tried again on Realistic so easy once you got a good feel of the controls mainly because the Mark and Execute was available to get easy kills. I'm going to tried the demo again but not using the Mark and Execute.
 
_Bro said:
Gah, there is so much I don't like about this demo. Most of it has been said so I'll just get angry about

- I already clicked Start Demo, I already slammed a guy's head into a toilet, why are you telling me to press A to start the game again?
- Why is everybody I passed earlier dead when I reload a checkpoint?
- "blah blah blah HIS DAUGHTER blah blah blah" What type of dumb story is this? Fisher found SinkFace. . . JUST DON'T LET HIM KNOW ABOUT HIS DAUGHTER. I'm more attached to the pastries I ate during the previous Splinter Cells than I am to the daughter that appeared for 7 minutes? across four entries? No thank you.
- Control scheme does not make sense to me.
- And that It's A Game intro? He can mark and execute. He is adept at street fighting and our high-op fighting. Fuck off. Find a clever way to introduce game mechanics beyond "Hi, I'm a faceless dick showing you how to play the game. Let me tell you how awesome you are."

Sounds more like you are just nitpicking to me. And for the control scheme, get used to it, once you learn it, it works very nicely.
 
tadcalabash said:
How does this matter? The game either looks good to the eye or it doesn't, which depends more on graphical style than resolution

It's an annoying trend, and honestly a bit shameful given that it's an exclusive game that has been in development for quite some time. It wouldn't stop me from playing the game, but it's still silly.
 
Demo was fun. The only gripe I have is the forced hand to hand kill to get executes. Sometimes there's 3 guards, 2 guards standing next to each other and 1 a few feet away. I just improvise and threw a grenade. :D I chuckled at the interrogation scene. Didn't even bother with hand to hand kills in the tunnels. Almost forgot about the black and white filter. I don't know what's up with that. Reloading, I get the black and white on the screen. Kind of bummed there is no non-lethal way. You have to kill the guards.
 
AltogetherAndrews said:
It's an annoying trend, and honestly a bit shameful given that it's an exclusive game that has been in development for quite some time. It wouldn't stop me from playing the game, but it's still silly.

IDK, whenever I see posts like that and I'm playing the game on my TV in 1080p with HDMI and it looks good to me, than I can care less about specific specs.

So it looks fine on my TV so I have no complaints.
 
I need to invest more time into it because as of right now I'm not feeling it whatsoever. As someone who has played through all four of the previous entries and read two of the book I was put off by a lot. The in and out of the black n white filter kills my eyes and the cover system is all too familiar with every other action game out.
 

comrade

Member
_Bro said:
Gah, there is so much I don't like about this demo. Most of it has been said so I'll just get angry about

- I already clicked Start Demo, I already slammed a guy's head into a toilet, why are you telling me to press A to start the game again?
- Why is everybody I passed earlier dead when I reload a checkpoint?
- "blah blah blah HIS DAUGHTER blah blah blah" What type of dumb story is this? Fisher found SinkFace. . . JUST DON'T LET HIM KNOW ABOUT HIS DAUGHTER. I'm more attached to the pastries I ate during the previous Splinter Cells than I am to the daughter that appeared for 7 minutes? across four entries? No thank you.
- Control scheme does not make sense to me.
- And that It's A Game intro? He can mark and execute. He is adept at street fighting and our high-op fighting. Fuck off. Find a clever way to introduce game mechanics beyond "Hi, I'm a faceless dick showing you how to play the game. Let me tell you how awesome you are."
I didn't read one valid complaint in your post.
 

Prine

Banned
I was very happy with the demo. Fast moving, exciting and varied. Splinter Cell was getting stale for me, this feels fresh.

Well done Ubi Soft, another killer title, day one.

And the projection of objectives is genius.
 

Prine

Banned
_Bro said:
What would makes any of the other ones valid?

How can you expect a demo to enlighten you about the story AND introduce its mechanics strategically in what seems to be 10 minutes of gameplay.

Your complaints are ridiculous when you realise this.
 

comrade

Member
_Bro said:
What would makes any of the other ones valid?
They just look like nitpicks you're using to convince yourself you don't like the game. The only thing you listed that effected gameplay was the control scheme. I didn't like the control scheme the first time I played it but now I'm used to it and I have no problem. Just my opinion obviously.
 

Foil

Member
Visually it looks really nice. Gameplay is different for the series, some will love it while others will hate it. Either way it's still a fun game, even if it's quite different for Splinter Cell as a series. The b/w effect is terrible though. Totally ruins the visuals. They already have a hud on screen, just add a little meter or let people turn the b/w off completely.

Can you not move bodies anymore? I shot some guys right at the intro on the road and the other guards didn't react at all to them lying there. Even when their flashlights would go over the bodies.

I'm not sure what to think of this game. I'm a huge fan of the original Splinter Cell games and Conviction, while looking good just isn't anything like them. It's still fun, but not exactly what I was hoping for. Enjoyable but different. I'll rent first.
 

pr0cs

Member
I really enjoyed the demo. I never could get into any of the other Splinter Cell games, they were a little too slow for me, plus I'm not terribly good at trial and error type games.
I played this demo once, learning the mechanics of the game (and still succeeding) then played it again trying to be as efficient as possible.
I didn't mind the black and white thing, there should be some tradeoffs for staying in cover, it's not like the game heavily punishes you for staying in hiding so it's not a big deal to me really.
Reading the "panther scratches" this morning I was worried that it would be pretty cheeseball but it doesn't distract from the game at all. I'd rather them not be in there but it's not like it's ruining the game.
Overall I like it, I just don't know how I'm going to afford all the good games coming out... not to mention all the time involved to play them.
 

_Bro

Banned
comrade said:
They just look like nitpicks you're using to convince yourself you don't like the game. The only thing you listed that effected gameplay was the control scheme. I didn't like the control scheme the first time I played it but now I'm used to it and I have no problem. Just my opinion obviously.
It's not a good stealth game. The AI is dumb. The controls are awkward, I don't want to get used to using all these complex things to kill people when I don't want to kill people. I'm not saying it is a bad game, I'm saying I don't like.

Don't get all offended because I can't confirm your belief that this game is the shit. If you like it then good for you, you don't need the world to tell you that something is enjoyable.

Unless you're trying to convince yourself that the game is something amazing. :\
 
_Bro said:
- "blah blah blah HIS DAUGHTER blah blah blah" What type of dumb story is this? Fisher found SinkFace. . . JUST DON'T LET HIM KNOW ABOUT HIS DAUGHTER. I'm more attached to the pastries I ate during the previous Splinter Cells than I am to the daughter that appeared for 7 minutes? across four entries? No thank you.

I haven't really paid attention to the marketing, but I'm feeling like the whole vengeance angle is a setup for something bigger. I'm actually kind of hoping the story would be the same as the Conviction novel, which a nice junk food read.
 
Ok, after playing the demo about 6 times....here are my impressions.

The first time i played the demo...I honestly wasn't impressed and was kind of dissapointed. I am a huge splinter cell fan and always felt splinter cell was the better "stealth" game over the MGS series (though I love that series as well). So when I saw the videos released I thought "very cool, but how will it control...some of it looks automated...I'm kinda weary but still it looks really cool." Then playing the demo for the first time....It just didn't feel like the splinter cell I've come to know and love.

However, I went back into it again and again just to screw around and try different things. The Third time I went into it...I went into it fresh and trying to forget the splinter cell mechanics of old...and just looked at like a new game. And the more I played, the more I realized how great this game may be.

What some don't realize the first time through, as I didn't realize, is that you don't have to use the mark and execution stuff. In fact, in my last 4 plays through it, I didn't even use it at all. Mark and execution is cool, but it is much more fun coming up with my own strategies in taking people down....and this brought back that old splinter cell feel. But not only that, what I find better about this game is that there just seems to be alot more ways of tackling a situation than in the old splinter cell games. In the previous ones there were a few different ways you could tackle situations, but it still felt limited. Here, you get much more open space and scenarios that give you multiple options in how may want to handle a given situation. It's a very linear game but with sandbox gameplay...as in...linear in progression but the actual scenarios you are put in is total sandbox.

Now, I really like it, and can't wait for the game to come out. I just hope the whole game holds up and continues with the open environments that give you multiple options where you can come up with your own creative solution to a problem as opposed to doing preset solutions.
 

epmode

Member
CrazedArabMan said:
IDK, whenever I see posts like that and I'm playing the game on my TV in 1080p with HDMI and it looks good to me, than I can care less about specific specs.
I also can care less. I can care a LOT less.

At least there's a (DRM'd to hell, overpriced) PC version I guess.
 

Jtrizzy

Member
WickedLaharl said:
i'll regulate the game to rental status.
It's relegate, fyi.

I'm dl'ing now, but wow has this thread killed my buzz. I can't wait to hear the sex panther though. 60% of the time, it works every time.
 
brain_stew said:
One of the ugliest games I've played on my 360. Between the blurry textures, low resolution, aliasing and tearing, 'twas not a pretty site. They really need to tone down the effects or something the console/engine clearly can't handle what they're throwing at it at anything approaching reasonable quality.

Also, why do I need to hold down the trigger all the time I'm in cover? Its just annoying.


PC version perhaps.
 

Eurocult

Member
Played through the demo 5 times. It's short, but I think the idea is to replay it and try new things each time. I really enjoyed it. Keep in mind I sucked at the other Splinter Cells even though I really wanted to be good at them. This might be day 1 for me as long as I finish the game I'm currently playing.
 
After reading the same impressions I had, this may be the first SC I don't get at launch and await the inevitable Ubisoft "two weeks later" price drop.

Anyone up for some Chaos Theory? =P
 
I played the demo twice, once on Normal and the next time on Realistic. I think I beat the demo faster than downloading it. Short demo, they did not even let you disarm that EMP that you were asked to do FFS.
 

Truespeed

Member
Kibbles said:
I wish I could understand this.

He's a pixel counter and he's the best. He determined the horizontal resolution by focusing on a horizontal line of 20 pixels. He then counts the steps within the 20 pixels. In a 720p image, there should be 20 steps in that 20 pixel selection. In the case of conviction there are 16 steps so the horizontal resolution is (16/20) * 1280 = 1024. The same applies to the vertical resolution. A vertical line of 20 pixels is selected and the steps are counted. There are 16 steps in the vertical line so (16/20) * 720 = 576 lines.
 

KevinCow

Banned
So I just played the demo, and... well, it's fun, but it's not Splinter Cell. I stayed optimistic past the initial previews that they were just showing off the new tricks and it would probably still be true to the series, but that's not the case. They clearly want you to be lethal, and in several parts give you no other choice. You won't be ghosting through this game.

On top of that, I feel like the controls are a serious step down. The old Splinter Cell controls were perfect. Here, they moved a bunch of stuff around for no real reason. And Sam just doesn't feel right. It's like they tried to make his animations more fluid, but in doing so they made his controls more stiff.

I dunno, it's just a completely different game. Which isn't necessarily bad, but I don't see why they couldn't have just added the new features and mechanics to the old game design.
 

comrade

Member
_Bro said:
It's not a good stealth game. The AI is dumb. The controls are awkward, I don't want to get used to using all these complex things to kill people when I don't want to kill people. I'm not saying it is a bad game, I'm saying I don't like.

Don't get all offended because I can't confirm your belief that this game is the shit. If you like it then good for you, you don't need the world to tell you that something is enjoyable.

Unless you're trying to convince yourself that the game is something amazing. :\
Not offended in the least Junior.

I've played the demo probably 8-10 times and have yet to try to do it without killing anyone. Silenced pistol headshots are too enjoyable.
 

watership

Member
I do not feel so positive about this game after playing the demo. At some points, the demo just looked bad. I have high standards for ubisoft montreal games, and parts of the cut scenes and voice acting just made me cringe. The slash across the screen during a takedown is just...i don't know.. from the wrong game?
 
watership said:
I do not feel so positive about this game after playing the demo. At some points, the demo just looked bad. I have high standards for ubisoft montreal games, and parts of the cut scenes and voice acting just made me cringe. The slash across the screen during a takedown is just...i don't know.. from the wrong game?

The part where the two guys talk about Sam Fisher, in that scene I thought the voice acting, in fact the whole scene was kinda cheesy.
 
Tokubetsu said:
Yea, I'm waiting for the PC demo that was supposed to come today but is notably absent.
There won't be a PC demo.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/03/18/uh-thanks-no-splinter-cell-demo/#more-27151

I love the first comment

The absence of a demo IS the demo. You won’t be able to actually play the game when you want to as a result of the hideous DRM, so clearly the absence of a demo is designed to simulate a small part of the experience of not being able to play the game. It’s genius I tell you!
 

Hammer24

Banned
A couple thoughts after several runs through the demo:
- didn´t notice any tearing after the bathroom scene (1080p via HDMI on 50´ plasma), but this might be because of my playing style, going very cautious and slow
- Every other setting than realistic is vanilla and nothing for SC fans of old. But if they have to include it, along with this silly mark´n´execute stuff, to reach a broader market and justify their budget, so be it - I don´t have to use this stuff
- the game can still be played like the SC of old - aside from the guys outside the warehouse where you learn the controls, you can go through without killing anyone. I simply shot out lights far across the room, this usually moves the guards toward the destroyed lights and lures them away.
- can´t judge if the gameplay will be satisfying enough for the full game, as the demo is awfully short
- the different possibilities to engage the enemies will probably make the coop a riot - one could do the Jason Bourne imitation, the other could go more fisheresque
 

derFeef

Member
Can someone tell me why I get almost a heartattack when I STEALTH kill someone? That sound is ridiculous loud and disturbing. Everytime that pops up I have the impression I am under fire.
 
derFeef said:
Can someone tell me why I get almost a heartattack when I STEALTH kill someone? That sound is ridiculous loud and disturbing. Everytime that pops up I have the impression I am under fire.

Ah good so its not just me then.
I had the volume up and when it happens its way too loud, plus its distracting.
 
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