After you’ve killed an enemy in close-quarter combat, you unlock the ability to “Mark & Execute”. But disappearing into the night and hiding behind cover are not the only things in Sam’s repertoire. The cover system works surprisingly intuitive and (more importantly) consistently than in some dedicated cover-shooters. Meanwhile, you can either hide and start this procedure anew, or you dance around your foes, killing one or two each time you pop out of the shadows and generally feel like a badass. Enemies will continue to focus on that position until they storm forward and check it out. When you are spotted eventually, Sam can fall back into the shadows, and his last known position is marked by a silhouette. Instead of doing so, you have to quickly move from cover to cover, climb on pipes and ledges and aggressively sneak up on your enemies and quietly take out as many as you can. Gunplay has been implemented very smoothly, but the accuracy is low enough to prevent you from taking on a squad head-on. It might not be a Splinter Cell game, but it is a pretty nice Stealth-Shooter. But the question remains: Is it an objectively bad game? Definitely not. A lot of people (myself included) did not take too kindly to this change of pace. Splinter Cell: Conviction is as far removed from its roots as it can be. All you can do is to pick off a few enemies before they are eventually alerted and attack you, while you have to stay mobile and engage in hit & run tactics. Also, after you’ve killed an enemy (remember, knocking out isn’t possible any longer), you can’t interact with the body! If you killed him in a bad spot, there is absolutely no way to hide or even move the body. You can’t find alternative routes that let you avoid certain encounters altogether, hacking and lockpicking have been removed completely, and there is no way to hide, except for ducking behind cover. The way Splinter Cell: Conviction is laid out, this is no longer possible. To me, ghosting through the levels always was one of the best parts of the game.
This is a huge missed opportunity throughout the whole series. And then in Double Agent, she died and was never mentioned again.
During the first three games, we only saw her once, and Sam talked to her three times over the phone. This would have been fine if Sarah would have been a more fleshed-out character. Splinter Cell: Conviction tries to explain it like this: Sam’s daughter was the only thing that kept him human, and since her death, he is barely more than a killing machine. There is no longer a distinction between lethal and non-lethal attacks, which bothered me more than it probably should have. Sam has only three different speeds, namely running, walking, and crouching, which only affect how fast enemies can see you. Acoustic stealth is no longer a thing (okay, to be fair, it never really worked, anyway). The system works a bit better than in Double Agent because this time around, there is a lot more cover for you to hide.
When enemies see you, they no longer get suspicious and check out your location, but you have a small timeframe (represented by a “detection meter”) before they notice and attack you. Like in Double Agent, visual stealth is a binary system of “completely invisible” vs “everybody can see you”. To reflect this much more aggressive playstyle, most of the stealth elements have been drastically simplified. Instead, it is all about engaging and preying on your enemies. The focus is no longer on evading combat. Gone are the days of steadily sneaking around the area, and carefully trying to avoid all contact with enemies. Instead, the developers opted for a more dynamic, faster-paced system.
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