Goodbye Splinter Cell

The trouble with rebooting a bit of culture (Star Trek, Doom, Sherlock Holmes, any superhero ever) is that you inevitably have to choose what to keep and what to lose. Everything depends on those decisions, because you might have new and interesting version of a series that was good but that's become stale. Or, you might end up with something that barely resembles what you were trying to renew. The latter is what's happened with the Splinter Cell series. Over the weekend I played through the campaign of the latest Splinter Cell Conviction and can say that it wasn't a Splinter Cell game. It wasn't a bad game, not at all, but it was not a continuation of the stealth-based series of games that I love.

The Splinter Cell series (and I'll be referencing Chaos Theory almost exclusively) is based upon being hidden, both philosophically and literally. As Sam Fisher, you have to stay in the shadows, hide in vents, hang from pipes, find hidden paths, and stay silent to accomplish your mission. Having a guard or soldier spot you meant your objectives would be much harder and far riskier to accomplish. Silence and invisibility was also part of the philosophy of the game. As an agent of Third Echelon, a division within the NSA, Fisher was tasked with stealing information. Not killing people. Killing guards could not only be detrimental to your mission, as it leaves evidence of your existence, but could cause you to fail your mission. (Several missions involve infiltrating American facilities or the facilities of an ally. As an American spy that "does not exist," killing American soldiers or the soldiers of allies is not allowed. However, because these soldiers consider you an enemy you still have to neutralize them.) You steal information regarding cyberwarfare and arms deals. You can kill people to steal that information, but it is not necessary.

Fraser McMillan describes his Chaoes Theory experience:

Having killed the pair in a panicky moral haze, I'd decided that enough was enough, and within two more missions of similar dilemma I had firmly concluded that I'd be as non-lethal as possible for the game's remainder. I like to think I went pretty far out of my way to deal with enemies via hand-to-hand combat or incapacitating strangulation, resisting the knife's brutally efficient allure or the pistol's middle-distance aptitude in favour of sticky shockers and gas-expelling wall cameras.

And it enhanced the play experience as well as satisfying my own entirely selfish aversion to guilt. My spatial awareness was enhanced, my takedowns were more creative and my control over Sam more careful. Chaos Theory's nature is one of precision and tactfulness. Sneaking in silently and extracting an hour later without having even fired a gun is something that few games support, never mind encourage, and the manner in which the latter is achieved is remarkably understated.

This is why Conviction is not a continuation of the Splinter Cell series. Not just because the element of stealth has been balanced with the element of action, but because the philosophy of the game is different. Conviction is more akin to a Jason Bourne movie, where Jason Bourne is hidden sometimes and other times he's running around shooting people or killing them in slick fashion. In Conviction, Sam Fisher is not longer an agent of Third Echelon, so his mission is no longer stealing information and he is no longer compelled be silent or invisible or to not kill anyone. In fact, Conviction forces you to kill. The game forces you to shoot people, blow them up, or drop heavy objects on them. And, the forced violence of Conviction cannot be reconciled with the ambiguity of Chaos Theory. A game that relies on bullets and death cannot be connected to a games that relies on shadows and silence. Other than the names of characters and of organizations, these two games have nothing to do with one another. Beyond that, Conviction cannot be said to relate to the larger Splinter Cell series.