| Splinter Cell: Conviction spies vs mercs multiplayer? |
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When Pandora Tomorrow's multiplayer was unveiled and played it was a breath of fresh air amongst a sea of over-familiar Xbox Live multiplayer experiences. Tired of Halo 2's fast paced antics, and disillusioned with the Ghost Recon/Rainbow Six tactical multiplayer offerings, Splinter Cell offered a compelling, yet tricky to master online experience.
The onus on spies being sneaky and having to disable objectives versus the more tooled up mercs wasn't the most accessible game but still proved highly popular, most likely due to its originality. Whether you played as a spy or merc the game offered a lot of options and incorporated teamwork like no other game commanded. When Chaos Theory released and offered more of the same alongside the addition of true co-op gameplay versus AI, this was heralded by many as the pinnacle of Splinter Cell online gaming. If you check the Xbox stats, you're most likely to see the game still being played by the masses of Live gamers (Chaos Theory also works on Xbox 360).
Double Agent on Xbox 360 totally rewrote the rules and this perhaps disillusioned fans of the original multiplayer despite the fact that several additions to the gameplay offered some improvement. Most notably the inclusion of some pretty decent, and sometimes unfair bot AI. A major issue with the earlier online games was the fact that most gamers preferred playing as spies rather than mercs; so it was welcome to have the merc slots filled with AI. We're not sure what made Ubisoft decide to change up the core gameplay in Double Agent with the controversial inclusion of a new sensor which somewhat made being a spy less stealthy and changed the game to a more cat and mouse approach. For some this ruined the multiplayer, yet others adapted and garnered much enjoyment from it.
So, this brings us back to Splinter Cell Conviction and what direction the multiplayer is headed. We know that there is a multiplayer and by the description on the fact sheet suggests a new multiplayer offering featuring crowds of civilians, but under what guise this will be is anyone's guess. It's probably safe to say that most people really enjoyed the offerings of the earlier games, and so if Conviction's multiplayer returns to the same template (with some new quirks) should be highly enjoyable. The inclusion of crowds adding another layer to proceedings could prove very interesting indeed for those sneaking around, and those on the hunt. We can only really speculate at this juncture, but the inclusion of co-op versus AI would also be a neat feature, especially if specific missions for the mode are presented. As for the main multiplayer game, let's just hope we don't get a carbon copy of other third person shooters, and that the identity of the series keeps on being a unique one. Spies versus Mercs is a great concept and one which Ubisoft should hopefully expand. As Ubisoft used to say prior to Double Agent...'you don't know what's coming!' Let's just hope we're all pleasantly surprised.
Posted By: Robert Cram
Date: 2009-06-16
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