Review by: William Abner

Thank goodness UbiSoft decided to add cooperative multiplayer to the feature list of Splinter Cell: Conviction. Without it, this is a surprisingly average third person shooter that takes itself far too seriously—but with it it’s an engaging spy ride to take with a buddy as you sneak, slide, and execute your way through the main story’s prologue.

In the main single player story, you play Splinter Cell hero Sam Fisher, now out of the spy game and, much like Michael Corleone, the guy just keeps getting pulled back in. The story tends to meander all over the place but in the end you’re going to be shooting a lot of enemy agents and hired thugs on your way to saving both your daughter as well as the President.

Good news for you is the fact that the people who are trying to pull off this caper are more trained in the art of QuickieMart burglary than complex world domination. In short, these are the worst enemy spies and hired underlings, ever.

The AI simply cannot handle the task at hand. Yes, Sam is a notorious bad ass but he is aided so much by the inept enemies that it makes his job, thus yours, far too easy. For example, if you’re in a dark hallway and the bad guys are in the next room you can sneak up and snipe one them – this will of course cause all of the other bad guys in the room to exclaim, “Watch out!” or, “It’s Fisher! He’s here!” Then what do they do? They either walk out into the hallway (slowly) allowing you to pick them off one by one or they stay in the room and declare something brilliant like, “We’re staying right here! Let the target come to us!” It’s ludicrous.