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F Top 21 in 2010 - 21) Splinter Cell: Conviction

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2010 was a busy year and it saw the release of a bunch of great games. Staff and regular freelance contributors at Gameroni had the opportunity to play a wide variety of titles over the past 12 months and together we've compiled a list of 21 of our favorite games from the period. These are the ones that had the biggest impact on us, not necessarily the industry as a whole. We're sharing that list with you now, one title per day over a period of three weeks. Though there's only a loose order to this list, in general you can know that we liked games more as we work toward the number one selection. ----- 21. Splinter Cell: Conviction (Xbox 360, PC) Let me describe, as clearly as I can, how the cover system in Splinter Cell: Conviction works. You hold the left trigger, and Sam crouches and hugs the nearest wall, nimbly tip-toeing along at near-running speed. Come to a corner and face another wall, and with the tap of a button, Sam moves automatically to his new destination. Release the trigger, and Sam remains crouched but can move freely from cover until the trigger is pulled again. You know how every shooter these days makes you feel like you’re steering a tank that has a curious habit of getting stuck to walls via Velcro? Well, Sam Fisher is significantly more mobile than Marcus Fenix, and Conviction features the quickest, smoothest and all-around best cover system I’ve ever used in a game. Shooters employ cover as a defensive mechanism, but Conviction is not a shooter. It only takes a couple of gunshot wounds to kill Sam, and the one or two instances in which the game converts to all-out action are its least enjoyable moments. While Conviction makes the most drastic changes of any Splinter Cell entry to date, its triumph is in keeping with the series’ stealthy roots by reinventing the concept of cover as a weapon. Sam’s agility has bewilderingly improved with age, and he uses it to his advantage, scaling walls, shimmying along pipes and clearing obstacles with the speed of one Nathan Drake (and sporting a cardigan to match). Your ability to get around environments quickly is what makes Conviction's flavor of stealth-action work so well. Conviction isn’t the best stealth game I’ve ever played, but it is almost certainly the most exhilarating. Until now, most stealth games have actually encouraged pacifism; in the best-case scenario, you could complete a level without your enemies even knowing you’re there. In Conviction, however, your enemies know exactly who you are, and they know you’re probably watching them right now. Sam has always been his most powerful when unseen, and that hasn’t changed, but this ramped-up level of aggression is what makes Conviction such a thrill. In previous games, if you entered a room with six guards, it was recommended that you try to sneak by them unnoticed. In Conviction, if you enter a room with six guards, every one of them must die. Kill them without even entering their line of sight and now you’re Sam Fisher. The purists are whining, and maybe it's not a true Splinter Cell game. But I don’t care what it is, because I freaking love it. ----- Each of the posts that we make as we reveal our list of the Top 21 games of 2010 is written by one of the people on our staff and freelance team who advocated most aggressively for an individual title's inclusion. Check back tomorrow to see if one of your favorite games made our list, and be sure to leave your comments if you have any to share!

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