Splinter Cell Conviction's Cancelled DS Version Review

 Hello everyone. A while back, I learned that there was a cancelled Nintendo DS version of Splinter Cell Conviction and I was curious to check it out. This version was based on the original scrapped version of Conviction that was originally supposed to release back in 2008. While OG Main Console Conviction was rebooted into the 2010 version we ended up getting, the DS version was just flat out cancelled in 2008. However, a ROM of the prototype development version recently resurfaced and I just had to check it out as a window into an alternate timeline where we got OG Conviction and as a fan of DS Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, I just had to see how they adapted OG Conviction for the DS.

 

When I booted up the game and played the first mission, my first thought was "OMG, this feels like a hybrid between Assassin's Creed Chronicles on the DS and Metal Gear Solid 1 PS1. I love those games. This is going to be sweet" .  The game showed its cool sorta overhead camera angle and PS1-inspired models and graphics. It was also made by Gameloft, the people behind Altair's Chronicles DS with menus, graphics and a feel reminiscent of that game. The game ended up being more of a roller-coaster of emotions afterwards.

 

Conviction DS' gameplay is divided up into 2 "phases". The first is "Stealth phase" where the mission plays mostly like a Metal Gear Solid 1 clone. And the second phase is "Action phase" where it tries to play like a 3rd person cover shooter. Lets talk about "Stealth Phase". The controls are decent. You move/run with the Dpad. Y is used for punching. B is used to crouch and take cover. A is used to interact with objects (such as picking up throwables, opening doors and climbing on pipes). X is reserved for special occasions. L turns on the DS Microphone and Holding R lets you walk. The touch screen shows a Soliton Radar with vision cones for guards, cameras, civilians and your objectives. The bulk of Stealth Phase missions had me running between enemy vision cones, sometimes holding R or crouching to sneak behind enemies to bonk them into unconsciousness.

 

You have a meter on the top right of the screen that indicates how alert enemies are. If it's green and says "SAFE", it means guards aren't alerted at all.  If you enter an enemy guard's vision cone, the green meter will quickly fill up and become Yellow and change to the words "WARNING". The guard will now become suspicious and come investigate you. If you stay in their Yellow vision cone, the Yellow Meter will fill up, become a "RED ALERT" and will start shooting at you.

 

Guards have pretty poor vision range, although their peripheral vision is pretty good. Good luck sneaking up on them from the sides. They will also stay in the yellow phase for quite a while and will travel pretty far from their original posts to investigate you. However their overall detection AI isn't very advanced. For example, if you alert 1 guard, nearby guards won't turn red until you walk into their vision cones while another guard is shooting at you. So if you get spotted,you only have to deal with 1 active guard as long as you play smart. You can push yourself against walls and this will shrink their vision cones. Guards in later levels will also get better hearing so you actually have to walk or crouch when approaching guards so they won't hear you.

 

I was looking forward to see how Conviction DS adapts the gameplay and mechanics of OG Cancelled Conviction. I remember being rather excited for the more "social stealth" focus of OG Conviction. The DS version tries with mixed results. You can quickly and seamlessly hide under tables like in the OG Conviction trailer to lose guards that don't see you. You can pick up and throw objects like books, cups and bricks to distract and pull guards away from their posts.  This even draws snipers' attention. Melee combat is rough. In the OG Conviction Trailer, Sam had a pretty robust hand-to-hand melee combat system that let him punch and throw enemies around. While Conviction DS doesn't replicate that. Combat works by pressing Y to punch. If you time your Y presses, Sam will do a 4 hit combo that can  stun and tear huge chunks of an enemy's health bar. I managed to do a perfect 4 hit combo the first time I tried it....... and never again. At most I sometimes managed to get 2 hits. I have no idea why that is. You can also whistle to attract guards by Holding L and blowing in the microphone which works well but I would rather it be an icon on the touch screen to free up L for additional commands. 

I was surprised that DS Conviction actually tries to adapt the social stealth mechanics of OG Conviction. Not even the DS Assassin's Creed games tried that hard with Social Stealth. If you hold R near a group of 2 or more civilians, Sam will do an "Assassin's Creed 2 Style blend" that works nearly flawlessly. The "Green Safe Meter" on the top right of the screen becomes a "Blue Blending" meter that lets you know how much time you have left if you move too far from a crowd. Some civilians, indicated by a blue icon on the minimap, can be pickpocketed so Sam steals their phones. Sam can then place their phone on the ground and call them to act as a portable distraction. 

 

While I rarely used this mechanic (it was usually easier to just throw an object or whistle to lure/distract guards), I really love the idea of it. The story of OG Conviction is that Sam is supposed to be a rogue agent trying to lay low and using whatever improvised tools he can get his hands on since he no longer has access to any 3rd Echelon gear. In the current 2010 version of Conviction we got, Sam has to break a car mirror to use in place of the Optic Cable. And that's the only improvised gadget Sam uses (and replaces with a proper version later). So Conviction DS using pickpocketed phones as a remote distraction tool is a cool and creative idea at least. One that the main console version of OG Conviction probably used more.

 

While Conviction DS does try with crowds and social stealth, it is rather basic. Civilians will cry out if you bonk a guard in front of them but they won't run and alert guards like in Hitman (unless the guard is literally right beside them). Nor will they flee or scatter when you blow your cover. There's no alarm system where areas become less populated the more you get spotted. Conviction DS does have a disguise system where Sam disguises himself depending on his objective. Disguises let you run around an area without needing to worry about the guards. However, other Civilians with same outfit as you will see through you Hitman Absolution style (despite coming out nearly 4 years later).

 

I know all this probably sounds pretty lacklustre. But there is a mission in Conviction DS, Mission 6, Hospital, where it all just clicks and game becomes genuinely a blast. Its level design and mechanics just work. This mission takes place in a large multi-story hospital building. It's linear and the game marks where your objective is. But the hospital is this rather interesting large complex of multiple routes, hallways, side rooms and paths that all look pretty distinct and recognizable (a feat Splinter Cell Chaos Theory DS had a hard time with). I lost myself in this mission as I dashed around guard vision cones on what felt like instinct. Narrowly avoiding detection. There were times when I'd stop next to a hallway with a guard patrolling it, look at my minimap and make a split second decision to follow what looked like a side path around some doors to bypass it. Another one had me stopped next to a guarded hallway looking for a way through when some civilians were walking past. On instinct, I ran next to them and held R and entered a blending state just in the nick of time to walk past the guard vision cones. Another time, I got spotted and ran past crowds as I entered into a bathroom, enemies in hot pursuit. I saw the bathroom had a vent that led to the opposite bathroom next door. I used it to give the pursuing guards the slip. You know this level is onto something when it's fun to get spotted because the following chase and losing the guards is this dynamic and fast paced affair. If there was a mission I'd try ghosting in Conviction DS, it's this one. It's that good.

 

Unfortunately, none of DS Conviction's other Stealth missions come close to the Hospital mission in terms of that large, complex but still readable and fun level design. Civilians, especially those moving you can use to time a blend, are rare in other levels. Other levels tend to have more basic layouts with side rooms to hide in to lose pursuing guards but lack the means to make it as fun and dynamic as the Hospital Mission. As a result, they peak at more of a "OK" rating than a "Certified Banger" rating. Sometimes relying a lot more on trial and error with inconsistent checkpoints. Part of the issue is that Conviction DS doesn't have a lot of tools or mechanics to build a lot of interesting levels around. Like, in terms of controls, Conviction DS and Metal Gear Solid 1 are about par in what you can do. But Snake has moves like crawling, as well as gadgets like Goggles and Boxes which can lead to some nice puzzle solving in areas. Prior Splinter Cell Games let Sam manually jump and climb, letting you build verticality and more paths through levels. As well as do things like turn off or shoot out lights to create more darkness to exploit.

 

My point is that in an ideal world, the Hospital Level would be just one banger level that focuses on navigating this massive but accessible maze-like level with creative use of the regular stealth gameplay but with blending being more viable and feasible here. But you'd also have another level that swaps blending for some kind of parkour/climbing to maintain that fun but with a change of pace. And then you'd have another banger level with a different flavour/gimmick that mixes up the stealth experience. Unfortunately, Conviction DS is unfinished so the Hospital Level remains the only standout. Giving the game the benefit of the doubt, I can imagine a finished version of this game might have been able to add more climbing and gadgets to make other levels stand out more.

 

Action Phase:

The other main gameplay phase is "Action Phase". During some missions, the game displays "Action Phase" on the screen. Most of the controls are the same except now Sam takes out a pistol. Pressing Y when far from enemies has Sam shoot enemies MGS1 style. While being up close lets Sam do punches. Enemies no longer have vision cones on the minimap but have greater vision ranges and will instantly go into an ALERT state when they see you. The game intends for you to play through this phase as a cover based shooter. However, while you can crouch behind any piece of cover for some inconsistent protection, you can only properly take cover on select pieces of cover that have a large green circle behind them. Pressing B in these circles will make Sam properly take cover and have the camera move from its MGS1-style overhead view to a more typical "3rd person shooter" camera view. You also get crosshairs you control with the Dpad. The crosshair will also sway on their own kinda like those old Rail Shooters. If there are other pieces of green cover in close proximity to you, you can press L or R and Sam will roll in between them to get a better view on the enemy.

 

The actual gunplay is really dull and tedious. You just move the cursor over enemies and press Y and Sam will automatically pop and fire and return to cover when you stop firing. You can only hit enemy guards that are out of cover shooting at you so you can't target enemies' limbs that are poking out from behind cover. There also isn't any locational damage so doing headshots doesn't take enemies down faster. Some shootouts do have explosive barrels you can exploit. But that's it. Every shootout from the start of the game to the end plays the same. Get behind the prescribed cover, shoot the guards and repeat until they are dead. No variety or options. Not even different weapons or grenades.

 

Enemy AI is also not very engaging. There aren't any interesting tactics or strats. They just run to their spots, take cover, pop out and shoot (sometimes through your cover) and repeat. Their hearing isn't great so you can be engaging one guard in a firefight while his friend just wanders around unaware of the gunfight literally happening in front of him. I exploited this as much as I could to get through demanding fights.

 

Mission 2 in particular was absolutely dreadful. It's this long 20 minute mission that drags because it is entirely Action Phase and shootout after shootout. Health packs are rare and you don't even get a health refill on  death or when reloading a checkpoint. I had to restart the entire mission because I simply did not have the health to get past some shootouts. I kept looking at the time going "I get that this is a tutorial for Action Phase and the gunplay but why is this so long? Surely it's almost over now so I can go back to Stealth phase right?" But no. It kept going. I'm someone that wrote a 100,000 word essay praising the DS version of Chaos Theory but even I was fed up here and nearly quit the game. That's how bad this mission is.

 

Part of my complaints could just be that the game is unfinished. I imagine the release version probably would have patched this with more health pickups or slowly regenerating health or restoring health in between submissions/checkpoints. Maybe even have MGS style rations or armour. But I feel the limitations of the DS mean gunplay never could have been better than "something you tolerate". The DS versions of the Call of Duty games, despite being arguably the most impressive 3D games on the DS, had limited movement, animations and responses from enemy guards because the DS simply doesn't have the raw horsepower to do a lot with them.  The game is also limited by the camera and perspective. You can't have the enemies flank the player because the player literally can't turn around and aim at them when in cover since the camera view is locked facing certain directions when in green cover. You can't have the enemies chuck grenades at the player to flush them out of cover because the player can only take cover at prescribed points. You can't have stuff like shooting the enemies' legs to incapacitate them or shooting their arms to make them drop their guns because the DS likely doesn't have the memory to spare tracking multiple hitboxes and responses like that.

 

It goes without saying but the appeal of 3rd person cover based shooters is the flexibility and freedom you have to dynamically move across the arena, taking cover on whatever you can, fighting the enemies and choosing how to engage with them, and moving between cover organically.  Even Rail Shooters where you are locked behind a piece of cover and can only move a cursor at least give you different enemy types, weapons, tools and responses as well as rewarding precision and streaks. While Conviction DS' "Stealth Phase" does a good job in replicating the appeal of a stealth game despite its limited mechanics, "Action Phase" is far too rigid and limited to be fun even the first time you get into a firefight. The game's difficulty and limited health, which is fine for "Stealth Phase" is dreadful for "Action Phase".

 

Moreover, it doesn't even make sense narraitively. In the early missions, Sam switches between Stealth and Action phase with the justification that he uses Stealth Phase when there are civilians around since getting into a firefight risks collateral damage. And switches to Action Phase mid-mission in areas without civilians. But there are missions later without civilians Sam plays in Action Phase. Sam can also get dedicated in crowded Stealth Phase missions and have multiple guards shooting at him. The second Oil Refinery mission has a situation where Sam is playing in Action Phase while you can switch to Anna in Stealth Phase. Moreover, the point of OG Main Console Conviction was that Sam could choose to stealth or shoot in crowded areas and the game would react accordingly. He wasn't forced to stealth or shoot.

 

The funny thing is, there is actually a stealth game with a gunplay system like DS Conviction that actually works. 2012's CounterSpy. In that game, you typically play from a 2D Side scrolling perspective. Whenever you take cover, the camera zooms in to  fixed "3rd person behind the shoulder perspective". You aim by moving a cursor from behind cover. Some enemies are farther in the background that you cannot reach due to the 2D gameplay so you have to use the cover system if you want to take them out. But Counterspy makes it fun. For one, there isn't a dedicated "Action phase". You can enter cover and shoot even in stealth and there are silenced weapons. In fact, you can use this to kill guards in a room by stealth headshotting them and the game rewards you with bonus points for getting multiple stealth kills in a row.

 

Enemy AI, although simple, has more going on. They will notice bodies, hear loud gunshots, and radio in to alert others, creating pressure on you to eliminate them as a high alert means mission failure. In a gunfight, they can throw grenades to flush you out. But the game never forces you to fight or stick to your spot. You can run through an area and eat the alert, or back away and reposition. The simple gunplay being something you dynamically enter as you stealth through levels just works.

 

If I could wave a magic wand to magically fix DS Conviction's Action Phase, I'd remove it entirely from the game. Have it that you can take cover on any piece of cover and the game automatically brings the camera in. You can then pull out a variety of guns and grenades. Gunplay is something you can engage in but is treated as more of a punishment or last resort (justifying why it's so shallow) but you're better off hiding from enemies or running away (which is far more fun).  But that's likely infeasible given the DS' limitations. Ideally I would still have Action Phase Removed entirely but if we must keep it in, I'd opt for the following changes to help bring it to the standard of being "tolerable" while still being feasible given the DS' limitations.

 

Firstly, have ways of letting the player bypass shootouts. Maybe you can climb a pipe to get around most of the enemies and/or get the drop on them so you can eliminate them using a stealth takedown so there are fewer you need to engage in for the actual gunfight. But more importantly, at least have Headshots do increased damage or even instakill the enemy. That alone would at least make it fun to be precise. The second would be more green cover and from different angles. Right now, you can only switch between ground level cover if it's right next to you. But maybe when you take cover on walls, some walls have pipes or railings you can climb to get the high ground on enemies. You can balance this by giving Sam limited Stamina so you can't hang on them forever but can use this to pick off multiple enemies in that short time. This would be interesting with the headshot idea. The third would be more environmental interactions. Maybe the player can move a crane before starting a firefight so they can then drop the cargo on enemies during the firefight. The fourth would be more gadgets and weapons. Maybe frag grenades to take out multiple enemies, or smoke/flashbangs to stun enemies so you can go in and do melee takedowns. Maybe even a human shield mechanic so you don't need to be so reliant on green cover.

 

Rather funnily, I would kill to have Current 2010 Conviction's Mark and Execute System in this game as even that would elevate Action Phase so much. You can build levels around the puzzle aspect of finding a way to bonk 2-3 guards to fill up Marks, then actually Mark more problematic guards, then find a way to position yourself to have Sam auto-execute the rest. Though, I have a suspicion Mark and Execute was only created for 2010 Conviction since Social Stealth wasn't the core gameplay there.

 

The game does have 1 additional weapon you can only use in some Action phase Missions. The Sniper Rifle. Very rarely (like 2-3 in the entire game), there are sequences where Sam gets a Sniper Rifle and can use special sniper green cover to enter a first person sniper view to snipe targets. Enemy guards will attempt to rush Sam's position and move between cover sorta well. I found these sections rather hard to do on the DS Dpad since there isn't a lot of aim assist or bullet magnetism or large aiming hitbox like the pistol. So stuff like the Sniper Boss Fight in Malta 2 was rough to play for me. I'm not apologizing for using Save States there as it would have taken me forever.

I noticed the game had a ranking system after every mission. You'd be rated on your performance in every mission and its corresponding Stealth and Action Phases. Stealth Phase ranks you on a Bronze, Silver and Gold scale for minimizing alerts and knocking out guards. So the DS version of Conviction encourages stealth more than the main version we ended up getting lol. While Action Phase rewards you on kills and time taken. Not ideal for a stealth game but oh well. I would rather there only be a ranking for Stealth Phase since the stealth systems are more developed anyway.

 

Minigames:

 

Conviction DS features 4 minigames all controlled by the DS Touchscreen for activties like lockpicking or hacking similar to other Splinter Cell games. Time doesn't freeze when you are doing them so you can be spotted by guards while doing them. These minigames are also located in the main menu as extras but are inaccessible in this prototype version. These include:

 

--Lockpicking.

I remember reading the tutorial for this and being confused. I just decided to wing it and found while it was kinda confusing at first, it ended up being my favourite minigame and arguably my favourite version of lockpicking in any Splinter Cell game. It works by having a bunch of Plus shaped gears with a different colour on each of the ends. You have to rotate each Plus Shaped Gear so the colours all line up. So if Gear 1 has a blue end, green end, red end and yellow end, and is next to Gear 2 which has 2 green ends and 2 blue ends, you have to make sure the ends making contact between Gear 1 and 2 are both Green or both Blue. The minigame usually throws around 4-5 gears at you that you have to align properly. While a pretty easy minigame overall, I found it a nice change of pace. It was brief enough to not get annoying and required enough thinking to be engaging. I approve. There are automatic lockpick gadgets you can find that can instantly bypass the minigame but I never found the urge to.

 

--Dusting for Prints.

 

Since Sam doesn't have his goggles in this game, he can't use Thermal Vision to see fingerprints on keypad locks. Instead, he has to powder them then the player has to blow on the DS microphone to reveal which 4 numbers were pressed then figure out the correct sequence for the keypad. The game at least remembers if you input a number in the correct place. So if the numbers revealed are "1234" and you input 1234 but the actual code is "2314" then the game will let you know that 4 is the last number. There are no penalties for incorrect guesses.

These were an ok novelty at best but became tedious afterwards. For some reason, this is the most common minigame. There are more keypad locks than regular lockpick locks in this game. At least lockpick doors can be zoomed through once you get good at the puzzle. For keypad locks, you have to rub powder on all 10 number keys, blow in the microphone (which is unreliable for this minigame), get the 4 numbers and trial and error until you get it. There is no challenge or variety. It's the same thing repeated so many times. I started rolling my eyes when some missions had multiple of these in a row. Why game? Why? I would 100% use my Automatic Lockpicks to bypass keypad locks if the game let me. It feels like these are there more to show off the DS and slow down the game rather than because it's an interesting puzzle.

There is actually a way for Conviction DS to salvage this mechanic. Let the player find keypad codes by exploring the map or being able to interrogate some guards or overhearing conversations. The game has a cutscene in the first Hospital Level where the guards forget the password and go ask the Secretary for a reminder and you can overhear this. Why not incorporate this into the game have the dull keypad minigame be a last resort if you didn't find the code some other way. It would incentive exploring a level to grab all codes.

 

--Recording Conversations.

 

In previous Splinter Cell games (and also current Conviction), one of Sam's gadgets is the Laser Mic which lets him listen in and record conversations happening far away as long as he has line of sight. Previous SC games required you to keep the Laser Mic pointed at the people talking. Conviction DS adapts this mechanic by giving you a sound wave and requiring you to place and hold a square on the touch screen so it follows the sound wave. You start with a score of 100 that drops the more of the sound wave you miss. Early versions of this are pretty easy but later ones go on for a long time with complex sound waves so I often ended with a score of 34/100.

 

This minigame is kinda fun and used infrequently enough that it doesn't feel like a drag (unlike some minigames 🙄). I do feel it loses some of its appeal because the game isn't voice acted. In prior SC games, if you lose line of sight with the Laser Mic, you couldn't hear the conversation anymore. The DS version can't replicate that sense of listening to the conversation while matching the shape and panicking as the sound cuts out or glitches as you miss or aren't 100% accurate.

 

 

--Hacking

 

This one is the hardest to explain but kinda fun. It's also the rarest minigame appearing only 5-ish times in the game. The way it works is that there are these nodes/chips on a circuit board. Each node can have big squares on them or little squares. The objective is to draw lines connecting the big square of one node to the little square of another node. The catch is that all nodes also have to be "powered". Squares that aren't connected and have no power are black. Squares with power are green. Squares that are connected to another Square but lack power are yellow. You have to make sure all squares are green. Connection lines can't cross and only one set of squares can be connected together in a 1:1 connection.

 

It was fun puzzling through these and figuring out which combination of connections would ensure all squares on a node would be green without blocking other nodes. Even though I feel one of these Hacking Puzzles took longer than all the Keypad Minigames combined, I would 100% choose to replace every Keypad Minigame with a hacking one. At least the hacking ones are actual brain teasers that are fun to work through.

 

Collectibles:

 

Each of the 14 missions have collectibles in form of floating USB sticks. Collecting the 4 USB Flash Drives in a mission unlocks a brief file giving you some more lore details. These are kinda cool but I don't feel are really interesting rewards. Maybe place some cheats or alternate costumes or door codes behind them to really sweeten the deal here.

 

The Story and Missions:

 

Normally in my reviews, I tend to gloss over the story. It's not my forte. But I feel it might be worthwhile to document this game's missions and story in detail, both as a lens to what the original 2008 main console version of Conviction would have been like, and also because there is barely any info or YouTube videos on this game. Even its Wiki entry is sparse and contains typos. So lets start.

 

Mission 1: Valletta.

One of the things that makes my life easier is that each mission and sub-mission has a brief description before it starts so I can copy paste that here. Here's the first:

"For the past few years, Sam Fisher has been in retirement from Third Echelon, a division of the NSA. They have an agreement with each other, both will try to stay out of each other's way. Up until now. Sam has been moving around Europe. However, when he arrives in Malta, a group of military mercenaries begins to hunt him down".

 

Adding on to the story, the mission begins with Sam being contacted by a mysterious individual who tasks him to call him from an isolated phone booth and to avoid the mercenaries hunting him. After doing so, this man directs Sam to meet him in a safehouse. This man reveals himself to be Tom Reed, a field operative for 3rd Echelon who tells Sam the mercs work for Evangeline de Lozada, head of a defense contracting firm called Contrar that's been recently linked to terrorist activities. Reed believes that Contrar has been tasked to launch attacks against the US. Anna Grimmsdottir was previously investigating Contrat, but was compromised. However, she continued to work on her investigation despite the NSA trying to pull her out (which Sam notes is unlike Anna). Anna has been captured by Contrar who also know about Sam and are hunting him down since Anna would be likely to try to contacting him. Reed wants to bring Sam out of retirement for one more mission to help out here. Sam reluctantly agrees. Reed hatches a plan to have Sam cross the city for a safe extraction. The rest of the mission is Sam trying to evade the guards to escape by stealing their jeep.

 

Alright, from a gameplay perspective, if I was a kid and was given a Demo of Splinter Cell Conviction DS and that demo was just this level, I'd be salivating to buy the full game. It hooked me (I had a similar experience with the demo of iOS Assassin's Creed Altair's Chronicles). The game looks surprisingly charming with its blocky MGS1-style look. It also acts as the stealth tutorial for the game and introduces the basic concepts of sneaking, vision cones, whistling, lock picking etc. All in all, pretty solid.

 

I will note one oddity. The first thing you have to do is sneak past guards and find a phone booth and manually punch in Reed's entire phone number.  The game doesn't record it for you in the phone booth so you have to exit it and look at the objective on the touch screen if you forgot it like me. This is the only time this concept comes up in the game. There are other phone booths in this mission but those only function as hiding spots. I was expecting the game to do more with this concept. Maybe let you phone from booths to distract guards, or order supplies at booths or even hide bodies in booths. Even the DS version of Chaos Theory lets you hide bodies whereas they just disappear in Conviction DS.

On the story side, I like that DS Conviction retains the thriller focus of SC games on the DS. Even having rather elaborate cutscenes with 3D Models and textboxes. The only other proper stealth game on the DS was Chaos Theory DS so Conviction DS would have stood out among the DS lineup. You get glimpses of antagonists like Evangeline and Dragun for their later confrontation.

 I noted that Reed looks entirely different from his 2010 iteration. Looking more like he's portrayed by Batman Begins Christian Bale. The order of events is also interesting. Like the 2010 version, Conviction DS starts in Valletta, Malta, has Sam being pursued by mercenaries, being roped in with the NSA/3rd Echelon. Leading me to suspect this was also the way the intro went in OG Cancelled 2008 Conviction. I do find it interesting this version starts with Reed contacting Sam and coaxing him out of retirement as a sort of unofficial agent and Grim is missing (the opposite of the release version). I imagine this version of the mission in OG 2008 Conviction would have been the game's stealth tutorial as Sam uses social stealth and climbing to move through Valletta while dealing with mercenaries after him.

 

Mission 2: Valletta 2:

 

Mission Briefing: "Evangeline de Lazada has sent her mercenaries to kill Sam. He must find a way to get out of Malta alive. An attempt to steal a mercenary's vehicle and drive out has failed, leaving Sam on foot now. Tom Reed, a special field operative working at Third Echelon has advised Sam that he can arrange for extraction. But first, Sam will need to fight his way to the designated extraction point".

 

 I already talked earlier about how dreadful this mission was to play with how many forced combat encounters with limited health and shallow mechanics were. Made worse by how this mission has 3 sub-missions while mission 1 only had 2. This mission didn't need to be this long. The shooting gets old quickly. As I was playing it, I was like "damn, I get this is the tutorial for Action Phase but this is overboard. You can stop now and let the player play the rest of the mission how they like, and preferably in Stealth Phase". But no. This is entirely Action Phase.

 

My conspiracy theory is that this is not an accident. Maybe in OG 2008 Conviction, there was meant to be a section where the game forced an alert on you so the latter half of the Valletta mission was more action focused with enemies pursuing Sam and the player having to engage in open combat for an extended duration. Acting as the game's combat tutorial before Sam is whisked away to the US and the game takes off the training wheels now that the player has a taste of how the game plays with social stealth and with combat.

Mission 3: Tranchion Corporation. 

 

Mission Briefing: "The Third Echelon has discovered that the CEO of an American Oil company named Tranchion Corporation has set up a phone meeting with Evangeline de Lozada. The Third Echelon plans to send Sam in for reconnaissance. The plan is to have Same get close to the CEO and record the conversation".

Adding onto this, after the last mission, Sam gets extracted by helicopter. This mission starts with Sam outside the Tranchion Corporation where he gets invited to sit with Reed in a "Cafe" (really just some chairs. Nice try game. Even the dialogue where Reed tells Sam to order a cappuccino isn't fooling me). Reed lays out the mission for Sam and tells him he needs a disguise to be able to get in. He tells Sam to pursue a window cleaner through a side building into an actual cafe and take his clothes. Sam does so and is instructed to take the elevator up the 17th floor and use the window cleaner carts to spy on the meeting from the outside and see what CEO Anderson says to Evangeline. He learns they intend to assassinate Senator Davis at an upcoming meeting.

 

This mission acts as the tutorial for blending and environmental interaction. Teaching you how to use 2 or more civilians to hide, throw objects and trigger car alarms to lure guards. I also really like the sneaking music in this level. It's so tense and foreboding. And Like I said before, disguises work similar to Hitman Absolution where you're fine as long as you don't do anything suspicious or walk in front of other people with same outfit. Overall, a pretty fun mission even with the annoying keypad minigame.

 

I have my suspicions if this is entirely accurate to the OG 2008 Main Console version of Conviction. Just a gut feeling (I could be wrong here). I do think the plot of Tranchion being up to something with Contrar and assassinating Davis was likely present in OG 2008 Conviction. Would be odd to have such an elaborate and specific plot detail made up for just the DS version. Especially since the DS version doesn't have voice acting or elaborate and expensive cutscenes, Gameloft wouldn't have had to radically alter the story to fit the carefully constructed continuity of a different vision of the game. Like, they can replace the Tranchion Company with any other company and  the assets and level still would have played out the same. Since it doesn't matter if they change those aspects, Gameloft likely took the easier route and adpated the written story of OG 2008 Conviction.

My suspicions stem more towards the way the mission plays out. Seems weird for Sam to be flown via helicopter, dropped off in front of the Tranchion Corporation building, then has to meet Reed in front of it, where he is given his next objective as opposed to on the helicopter beforehand. The concept of the mission kinda makes sense for OG Conviction. It's a large office building complex with areas like parking garages, cafes etc so you have a mix of civilians, office staff and guards patrolling the area. But I don't know. Maybe it's the disguise aspect. I can't imagine scruffy hobo Sam changing clothes Agent 47 style or walking around office buildings and it being as believable. Especially as DS Mission 3-Part 2 has Sam's disguise compromised so he has to sneak around the office building in a more typical stealth way. I suppose a more traditional stealth section wouldn't be out of place in between in OG Conviction.

 

My outlandish conspiracy theory is that in OG 2008 Main Console Conviction, this version of the mission was set in more of a commercial plaza area rather than the office building of the DS version. That way, Sam's gameplay has him interacting with civilians out in public where his scruffy appearance doesn't feel out of place. He would still have to sneak through restricted areas to record the meeting. Of course, this is all assuming DS Conviction follows the story of OG Conviction the way DS Chaos Theory did for Main Console Chaos Theory. It could also be this is an entirely original level because DS Conviction couldn't replicate what OG Conviction was doing (even though DS Chaos Theory didn't do that).

 

 

Mission 4: Government House.

Mission Briefing: "Armed with the knowledge that Evangeline de Lozada intends to eliminate Senator Davis, the Third Echelon has a chance to prove that Contrar is a terrorist organization. The attack against Senator Davis will take place at the upcoming oil talks, hosted by the President at the Government House. The Third Echelon sends Sam undercover to catch the assassin red-handed" 

I also want to add that when Sam enters the Government House, Reed contacts him and tells him the Oil Talks will be conducted in "The Round Office". Sam is also tasked with finding a Senator to knock out so he can disguise himself as him to prevent Senator Davis' assassination. Sam doe so and enters "The Round Office" to see Anna Grimsdottir poorly disgusing herself as Junior Senator of Virginia, Samantha Moss (not "Moose". Get it right or pay the price), which actually fooled me 😢, talking with Senator Davis. Davis expresses in a rather sinister way that he intends to get the President to "see his way". Before Davis can elaborate, he is killed by sniper fire. Sam saves Grim by entering Action Phase  to shoot iron bars on the room's curtains to trigger shutters to seal the room.

 

Afterwards, Sam and Anna talk. Sam gives his side of the story while Anna explains he suspected something was wrong with her missions and actually left the NSA. She describes her missions as being seen as "dangerous to national security" and that Senator Davis had oddly been communicating with 3rd Echelon. Anna came to the "Round Office" to learn what was going on. The 2 decide they have to leave before they can talk more. Anna hands Sam some kind of device that disables all nearby cameras. She also tells Sam not to use his gun to take out marines (which you still have to since the game is in Action Phase. You kill a lot of people in the latter half of the mission. Conviction DS is so committed to its Action Phase that it's willing to let you kill US Marines despite saying the opposite in the cutscene previously lol). As Anna and Sam escape, Reed calls Sam and warns him that if he continues, he will be in prison for life. Sam chooses to back Anna on this. Sam shoots his way out.

 

Now that I am done with the mission summary, time to review it, Firstly, I fully admit that I am not familiar with US Government buildings. But I am 80% sure this mission takes place in the White House and is just called "Government House". The "Round Office" is meant to be the Oval Office. Granted, my only knowledge of the White House is from the 2010 version of Conviction, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2009, and Hitman Blood Money. My evidence is the following:

 

-DS Conviction Mission 4 takes place in the same kind of hallway that was the start of the White House Level in Hitman Blood Money. The building's general architecture and gardens also kinda look like the White House in the game.

-The guards all wear the same outfits that the White House Guards wear in Hitman Blood Money.

-There is a section where Sam runs across a balcony outside the building and the building is vaguely rectangular shaped and is white.

-The Round Office kinda looks like the Oval Office. There is a texture on the floor with a seal that says "Seal of the President of the United States".

 

I suppose I could actually Google it to confirm it instead of relying on Hitman Blood Money of all games to be the measuring stick but I feel it's funnier this way. Assuming this is true, I imagine this was a writing slip up. Gameloft and Ubisoft are French Companies and the game has a few grammar oddities here and there. Wouldn't be surprised if something got lost in translation and wasn't corrected by the time the game was cancalled.

 

 In any case, the mission is kinda fun..... if you can play it. My Desume Emulator kept crashing during this mission. I hear MelonDS works better but I couldn't test it out. Had to watch Gekon 009's Playthrough on YouTube of this level. Interestingly, the wiki for Conviction DS includes cheat codes you can enter by tapping corners of the DS touch screen in specific orders. There are ones for invincibility and noclipping but also one for instantly completing a mission and moving on. I was forced to use that here since later missions are far more stable than this one.

 As for the story here and how accurate it is to OG Conviction, I am pretty skeptical. I strongly believe this level is either 80% original and/or a remix of ideas from OG Conviction because DS Conviction couldn't 100% replicate them. My evidence for this is that DS Conviction's second half reuses the exact same levels. Including the Government House Level (albeit at night). Splinter Cell games aren't known for reusing levels like this. It's not like in Chaos Theory, you have a second mission set on the Maria Narcissa  Cargo Ship again later on because Sam needs to retrieve some new documents he didn't get on his first trip lol. The closest Splinter Cell did to reusing levels was the JBA HQ in between main missions in Double Agent. But in Double Agent, you'd expect from the premise that Sam would be spending time in the villains' HQ.

 My conspiracy theory is that either this Mission or the second Mission to the Government House was not present in OG 2008 Conviction. You only had 1 White House Mission.. Unfortunately, I can't decide if DS Mission 4 is accurate or not. It could go either way. Here are my points for and against it:

For (That this mission is somewhat accurate and had an analogue in OG Main Console Conviction):

-The plot point regarding Davis and Anna seems way too fleshed out and it would be really dramatic if the trajectory of the plot changed due to an assassination in the White House. We do know there was a White House Mission in OG Conviction somewhere. And the assets from that served as the final level for 2010 Conviction.

-The later White House Mission in DS Conviction lacks the same narrative impact that Mission 4 does. It doesn't have to be the White House that Sam sneaks in again for the story to work there. So Mission 4 makes sense for the White House one.

-If this isn't the White House Mission, then where else in the story would it make sense for it?

Points Against (That this mission isn't accurate. Even if the overall plot beats are, the actual White House Mission was used in a different place in OG Conviction with a different context):

-The White House is a heavily fortified area with minimal civilian access. Scruffy Hobo Sam sticks out like a sore thumb. I can't imagine social stealth working as cleanly as it would in a place like Valletta. In Hitman Blood Money, Agent 47 is a sharply dressed guy in a suit and is using proper disguises to be able to move around undetected.  Moreover, Splinter Cell games are rather pro-America. Wouldn't really fit the vibe if the player got detected at the White House and started firing at American guards. I doubt Ubisoft even back in 2008 would have been cool with the potential controversy. That's why 2010 current Conviction was set up where the White House mission was the final mission of the game and taken over by Mercenaries so the player was the good guy when they were shooting at them. Even Hitman Blood Money made its White House Mission one of the final missions and had the setup that the VP was attempting a coup 47 was trying to prevent to minimize any controversies.

- It just seems weird for OG 2008 Main Console Conviction to throw such an early mission at you where neither Social Stealth nor switching to open gunplay would really make sense.

In closing, I don't know for Mission 4 DS. Could be either or. My wild prediction with no basis in reality is that the White House Mission was actually the final mission of OG Conviction (similar to 2010 Conviction). Sam would collect some of his old 3rd Echelon Gear and it would play like a throwback level (plus some of OG Conviction's additions). I'm Picturing a "God of War 2018 Kratos gets the Blades of Chaos" moment.

 

-Mission 5 Subway Central Station:

Mission Briefing: "With the surprise appearance of Anna Grimsdottir at the oil talks, the NSA has no other suspect for the assassination of Senator Davis. Furthermore, Sam's failure to prevent the assassination and his attempt to assist Anna escape renders him an accomplice. NSA agents have chased Sam into a Washington subway station."

 

Don't have much more to add for the story. Sam is separated from Anna and has to navigate the subway tunnels while being pursued by NSA agents. Eventually activating a train so he can escape. This mission is a mixed bag. It has 2 Action Phases which mean more boring gunfights that are a slog to get through. Justified in the story with Sam claiming "there aren't civilians here". The Stealth Phase introduces a new mechanic, being able to pickpocket cell phones and call them to act as distractions. I already discussed this mechanic earlier in my gameplay review. The Stealth phase here is alright but is easily one of the weaker Stealth Phases in the game given its short length and being sandwiched between tedious Action Phases. The Stealth and Action Music in this level absolutely slaps.

 

Sam does have something of a mini boss fight against Dragan, of the Lieutenants pursuing him since Valletta. Conviction DS has something akin to reoccurring antagonists that pursue Sam but not very fleshed out aside from info hidden in collectibles. I doubt OG Main Console Conviction had characters like this. They feel a bit out of place given SC's tone and how the player would be solo sneaking and shooting through areas.  But given the more cinematic approach OG Conviction was going for, it's not unreasonable they could have had named characters as key figures leading the pursuit for Sam to add more to the narrative.

 

While the level itself is mostly filler in DS Conviction, I have a feeling OG Main Console Conviction might have been able to do more with the concept. A Subway system where Sam has to deal with guards actively looking for him while trying to blend in and find a way on a train sounds like a cool level to play. I can imagine a setup where if the player keeps enough of a low profile for the entire level, they can blend their way onto the train and give the guards the slip. While a player that blew their cover might have to find a workaround to get a train going or fight their way onto the train before it leaves.

 Mission 6: Saint Micheal's Hospital

 

Mission Briefing: "During her attempted escape from the Government House, Anna Grimsdottir was severly injured. The NSA sent her to a Washington hospital in order to recover from her wounds. Despite being under tight surveillance from NSA, Anna was able to send a text message to Sam informing him of her current situation. Sam heads to the hospital in an attempt to extract Anna".

Adding to the game's description:, Anna was hospitalized for "Severe contusion, bullet wound right thigh". Sam arrives at the hospital, asks for Anna from the secretary and is told she doesn't know but Anna was with Doctor Green that the secretary describes as a "bald African American Man" (what kind of hospital is this lmao where the secretary has no idea where a patient is and tells a visitor to go flag down a busy doctor that's rarely in his office lmao?). Sam has to use the cameras to find Dr. Green but also notes there are mercenaries here looking for Green and Anna. Sam tails the mercenaries and Dr. Green, pounces when the Mercenaries are about to kill Green. Green informs Sam that Anna is on the 3rd floor. Sam goes there, notices the place is heavily guarded and knocks out a doctor to disguise himself. Sam finds Anna and informs her of the situation as the 2 escape after doing the Hacking Minigame.

As for my review of the mission, this level easily has the best music in the game. It's quite catchy. I also already reviewed the gameplay of this mission in my earlier section on Stealth Gameplay since this is the high point of Conviction. This mission is genuinely fun and where all the mechanics just click. Made better by the fact it's entirely Stealth Phase so you just the decent stealth gameplay elevated by the great level design. Even graphically, all the areas from the operating and patient rooms, to the lounges and gift shop, all look well done and charming in the MGS1 artsyle.

 

Storywise, this mission feels a bit off. Reed implied back in mission 1, that Anna was in some way captured or compromised by Contrar. Yet in Mission 4, she shows up like she's still an active agent. She tells Sam she left the NSA but Mission 5's Briefing Implies she and Sam are implicated in Davis' assassination. Anna disappears in between cutscenes between Mission 4 and 5 but there's no mention of that. I imagine the text boxes would have gotten another pass later on and the story tweaked a bit more to make sense. I'm choosing to believe what the game was trying to say that Anna was doing her own independent investigation rather than "leaving the NSA" like she claimed. So she's still an NSA operative which is why she's under NSA care. However, this still conflicts with Mission 4's massive shootout and escape sequence (as well as Mission 7's Briefing). Leading credence to my speculation from earlier that Mission 4 might not have been 100% accurate in OG Main Console Conviction.

Conceptually, I imagine this mission would have been so cool in OG 2008 Main Console Conviction. A hospital where Sam has to find Anna while being pursued by mercenaries after both of them sounds like a blast between the more claustrophobic hallways, bevy of siderooms, occasional courtyards and gardens, and lots of interactive items. You wouldn't even need a disguise system like in the DS version as there would be plenty of tight civilians to blend with without being so wide and open. While there wasn't any evidence in any concept art, promotional material or interviews that there would be a Hospital level in OG Main Console Conviction, it's a concept that seems like a good fit so I imagine it was planned.

 

-Mission 7: Subway Central Station.

 

Mission Briefing: "Anna is now able to provide data support for Sam. She advises him to meet with Maria Donohue, a journalist for the Washington Today. Anna suspects that Third Echelon is trying to prevent the press from publishing an article about the President's defense policies. Anna had been asked to spy on Maria when she was still with Third Echelon. Sam has set up a meeting with Maria at a Washington Subway" .

 I also want to add this mission starts with Maria getting escorted by some of Evangeline's guards into a room in the Subway Station with a lot of bodies on the floor (the game kinda does "show don't tell" in here) and Sam opts to go rescue her. After doing so, Maria tells Sam that she is writing a piece about Federal Defense Programs. Quote:

Sam: "Alright, I think it's time to hear about your feature"

Maria: "Well, the Washington Today is running a story about Federal Defense Programs. It's well known that President Caldell is shifting government away from the military. But, I've been speaking to some of her friends. I can't reveal names but they tell me that the NSA is headed for a shakedown. More specifically, your former employer: Third Echelon."

 Sam: "Why would the President want to do that?" 

Maria: "I think she's concerned about the agents working there. There are other guys there like you, who go rogue".

 Sam: "I didn't go rogue. I just quit".

Maria: "Well, I heard a different story. It doesn't matter, really. What's important is that Third Echelon is in the red now".

Now to review the mission: In terms of gameplay and setup, it reuses part of the map from the last Subway Mission but stitches on a lot of new hallways and corridors for new areas. My brief time with this mission, it felt kinda labyrintine and unfun to play. Granted, my emulator glitched out so I had to use the "Skip Level Cheat" to by pass it entirely. Looking through this level on YouTube, this doesn't feel like it would have been a standout mission. NPC crowds are sparse. There are a few fun stealth rooms interspersed between more barren hallways and even some "Action Phase" gameplay.

Storywise, I like what's going on. We have a bit of connection to Splinter Cell Essentials with how Sam's record has been altered to say he's gone rogue. Plus, I feel OG Conviction/Conviction DS seems to have this one interesting thread going on regarding the morality of 3rd Echelon. Sam has no obligation or loyalty to the NSA/3rd Echelon now. Especially since Essentials and Double Agent show they aren't on the best of terms. Moreover, President Caldwell doesn't seem entirely wrong here. Legally speaking, the Splinter Cell Program is a huge red flag. You have an entire US Agency that can capture and assassinate both US and international citizens without due process and very little accountability. The whole reason why Splinter Cells are a secret is because both the US public and international communities would be appalled at their existence. Moreover, the plots of Pandora Tomorrow, Double Agent and Blacklist are instigated by US Military and Espionage operations. DS Conviction has people targeting a journalist for wanting to write about this.

It could have been interesting to see the story explore this angle more. Maybe discuss how even if the gameplay fantasy of being a superspy is cool, the IRL ramifications of it are anything but. Similar to how the Metal Gear Solid games weren't subtle about how the Military Industrial Complex and Intelligence Operations left their stain on the world. But knowing Tom Clancy games and their themes, they would have brushed it under the rug.

 

Onto another topic, the Mission Briefing mentions Anna providing data support to Sam. And she seems to act as the voice in his ear now. Assuming OG 2008 Main Console Conviction followed a similar structure to 2008 DS  Conviction, I imagine this would have been a cooler moment in that version. You've been playing as Hobo Sam needing to use Social Stealth and improvising your way through levels using whatever you could scrounge. But now, you start having access to some of the resources from prior games.

I remember watching Chris Davis' YouTube review on OG 2008 Main Console Conviction and he brought up that he suspected that starting out, Sam would have been forced to improvise his equipment as a rogue 3rd Echelon agent. Maybe even needing to purchase lethal equipment from Black Market dealers (kinda like Blacklist's system). But as you would have progressed through the game, Sam would slowly have re-acquired some of his old Splinter Cell gear.

I wonder if this also could have been tied into the narrative. In prior SC games, Sam was encouraged not to kill people (despite Sam claiming it would "make his job easier") by his bosses more due to pragmatism than morality. Splinter Cells avoid killing people and use stealth because people and other countries finding out the US is conducting illegal espionage actions is a big deal. OG Conviction had an interesting opportunity to let players show what Sam could really be like. To quote Chris Davis:

"Mathieu Ferland, a Senior Producer, described the Fisher of the first four games as being a basic "soldier obey order" type and the team wanted to move away from that. What better time than when Fisher has no boss except himself? What is Fisher like when he doesn't have to follow orders? We've had few chances to experiment with that so far, outside of optional moments in missions like the potential execution of Dhalia Tal or rescuing the pilots against Lambert's orders. To a certain extent, the player would be able to decide what Fisher is really like when he's let off the leash. Does he become more violent when he's not watched by his employer, or does he stick to a non-violent approach when possible, not because that's what he's told to do, but because that's what he wants to do?"

 

Assuming this is what OG 2008 Main Console Conviction was going for, I wonder if a modified version Blacklist's currency system would have actually fit better here. If the player does opt for more lethal strats, they earn money which they can spend on Black Market weapons. And they'll be more reliant on Black Market weapons since Sam might now have an easier time convincing what few NSA contacts he has left to slip him some Splinter Cell gear. Kinda like what happens in the PS2 version of Double Agent where if you make NSA approved choices, Lambert is able to convince higher ups to slip Sam more non-lethal equipment. Whereas if you make more JBA approved choices, Lambert has a harder time convincing NSA Higher ups to further support Sam and Sam has to make do with the Lethal Equipment JBA give him because the JBA trust him more now.

 

Hear me out. Lets say in a hypothetical version of OG 2008 Main Console Conviction, if the player opts for lethal plays, they earn money and money is used to purchase Black Market weapons. But if the player opts for stealth, they earn less money but get "tokens" or something which can be redeemed for Stealth Equipment slowly throughout the game. I'm just saying, I'd be down for that since your playstyle is further encouraged by the game.

 

Mission 8: Government House 2

 

Mission Briefing: "With the motive behind the assassination of  Senator Davis still unclear, Sam returns to the Government House to extract files from Senator David' Computer. The hope is that information revealing the senator's relationship with the Tranchion Corporation will be discovered."

Not much for me to add here for the story. This mission is pretty filler in terms of story. You have a second visit to the White/Government House because Sam and Anna need Senator' Davis files. This is what I was talking about earlier when I said this game reuses levels in its latter half. You travel through a lot of the same rooms as Mission 4 albeit at night. It plays about the same since it's more typical MGS1 style stealth with no civilians.

The gameplay is solid. No "Action Phase" and all stealth. Whistling helps you get past a lot of the enemies here.. The snipers in the court in the first part of the mission were kinda annoying to deal with but an ok mission overall. 

Mission 9: Valletta (again)

 

Mission Briefing: "The Information extracted from the senator's computer shows that a deal was brokered between Tranchion and Contratar to ship a package from Malta to the United States. Sam returns to Malta in order to learn more about this potential threat". 

Not much to add for the story here. This mission has 3 parts. Part 1 is a "Stealth Phase" section where you play a good chunk of Mission 2 backwards but in "Stealth Phase" this time. Some of the enemy placements and locations are different. You can now use civilians to blend or steal their phones and use as distractions but by in large, it plays the same as Mission 1. This game being unfinished is pretty evident here as there are places you can walk off the map and into the void. During my playtime, I was able to use this to skip a huge chunk of the map (I did reload my save and play normally as well to see how it would be different). I also had to use the Cheat Code to skip this level because the trigger to complete it and move to part 2 didn't work.

 

I feel this mission highlights DS Conviction's biggest issue (aside from being unfinished). The Hospital Level was the best level in the game because of how its level design really brought together all the mechanics of the game in interesting ways. Accommodating blending, running past enemies and thrill of being chased and hiding as well as being fun to plan out an approach or relying on improv gameplay. It was large, deep and had a lot of pathways and rooms and civilians to exploit. Unfortunately, DS Conviction doesn't have any more mechanics to really build interesting levels out of. Mission 9 Part 1 tries to feel different by letting you use blending and phones that you couldn't do in Mission 1 but it's not much of an upgrade or changes the experience.

 

I'm not saying it's impossible for DS Conviction to make this work. But it would need to add in more mechanics for Sam and add in more stuff to levels to reward players for thinking outside the box. For example, why not give Sam more parkour/platforming moves. Maybe even able to manually jump and climb. Now you can do what Assassin's Creed Altair's Chronicles DS (or Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow GBA) did and have alternate paths in levels based on your jumping and climbing skills. Maybe for this Valletta mission, the streets are way more guarded than they were in Mission 1, but Sam now has more jumping/platforming related moves and gadgets so the player could now navigate rooftops more comprehensively. In Mission 1, perhaps the player could only access some rooftops if they had pipes or ledges providing a direct route to them. But in this new version of DS Conviction's mission 9, the player can now cross most of the level using only rooftops. I don't think it's impossible given the DS hardware (it would depend on how much time and resources Gameloft were given. If they are resorting to reusing levels so much, I imagine they probably didn't have as many resources as they would have liked).

Mission 9 Part 2 is entirely "Action Phase" but this mission is even more broken and unfinished. After an initial shootout, a lot of guards have their AI just break entirely and don't move or respond to you so you can easily Stealth KO them. But this also means you can't complete the Part and have to use the Cheat Code to skip it.

 

Mission 9 Part 3 is interesting. It's a full on sniper boss fight between Sam and Evangeline. Evangeline is also the only character in the game with actual voice acting as she taunts Sam (not even Sam has proper voice acting so clearly Evangeline has to be a big deal). The way this fight works is that it takes place on a section of map from Mission 2 but Evangeline is perched on various sniper points. You have to make your way to her without getting shot too much and do a brief melee section with her. She then flashbangs you and disappears and you have her Sniper Rifle. You then have to look down the perch she was on and snipe her as she makes her way down to you. Once she reaches you, she flashbangs you, takes her Sniper Rifle back and moves further up the level. You repeat this until she dies.

 

Conceptually, this is a really creative move by Conviction DS by twisting its limited mechanics and repeated level. You're rewarded with your familiarity with the level by finding more convenient routes to get to Evangeline, more cover spots and health pickups. The game's cover system operates like a precursor to something like CounterSpy and you use that to snipe at Evangeline as the roles reverse with her trying to cross the same path you did to get to her.

 

The biggest issue here is that, I found it really hard to use the DS Dpad to line up my shots. I'm terrible at Sniping even with a controller and Mouse and Keyboard. So this was rough. And the game tries to help you out by having Evangeline run out in the open and I still missed most of my shots. And you have to take her out early since she can glitch and get stuck in the walls if the fight goes on for too long. I had to resort to using Save States and even then, this fight took me forever 😢.

 

Moving on from that to the story, yeah, It's kinda filler in the overall plot. It also doesn't make sense. How did wanted fugitive Sam, that needed a 3rd Echelon helicopter thanks to Reed's explicit help to even get from Valletta to DC in the first place, go there and back to DC in a single mission? I'm pretty confident in saying this probably wasn't in OG 2008 Main Console Conviction and was something DS Conviction had to do to get more levels into the game without creating too many new environments.

 

I do wonder if the broad stokes of this mission were still in OG Main Console Conviction. I'm leaning on "No". From what we know of OG 2008 Main Console Conviction, the focus was on keeping Sam close to the action and surrounded by potential threats. Sniping sections and Sniping Boss Fights tend to have a vibe of "being slow, detached and methodical". Whereas even OG Conviction was aiming to be somewhat faster paced. Prior SCs didn't exactly have a lot of sniping gameplay.

I can imagine maybe a section where Sam needs to sneak through an area while there are multiple snipers, perhaps with silenced weapons, scanning for him. Sam might have to use cover or crowds to hide as he moves between Snipers. But an MGS style Sniper Bossfight feels rather too unrealistic for Splinter Cell. Even 2010 Conviction didn't have a ton of sniping.

Mission 10: Tranchion Corporation 2

Mission Briefing: "Evangeline de Lozada has been eliminated but the uranium shipped into the United States is still at large. Sam's only clue to locate the shipment is the Tranchion Corporation, the company that paid Evangeline to acquire it. Sam returns to Tranchion Corporation in an attempt to hack into the CEO's computer and find out where the uranium has been sent."

 Adding to this, here is some dialogue from the start of the mission:

Anna: "I'm checking the Tranchion blueprints to locate Anderson's office"

Sam: "Don't bother, I've seen it already "

Anna: "You were asked to spy on Anderson?"

Sam: "Well, how do you think I ended up at the oil talks?"

Anna: "Really? That's odd. Sam, before I left Third Echelon, I requested the NSA to monitor Anderson. I had come across emails between Tranchion and Contratar. But my request was denied, and I was informed that Tranchion was clean. I don't see why the Third Echelon would have you spy on him, though".

Sam: "Hmm, maybe they learned the truth about Anderson." 

Anna: "Or maybe they wanted you to be there when Davis was killed."

Sam: "In any case, they won't be happy to see me here again".

Skipping ahead a bit but Sam has to sneak into a different wing of the building. Then here's some dialogue I found humerous as a callback to Mission 3.

Anna: "There's an elevator just past the office to your right that can take you to the eighth floor of the building. Then head to the security elevator that leads to Anderson".

Sam: "Sounds better than using a window-cleaning cart."

Anna: "Excuse me?"

 Sam: "Don't ask".

 

This mission is ok. It takes place on the same map as Mission 3 but in a different wing of the building. However, the aesthetics and graphics of the mission feel similar to Mission 3. The smaller cramped hallways, limited civilians and sparse doors mean that the stealth is a lot more basic now. A lot more "throwing objects" or whistling to distract guards. The lack of checkpoints was also annoying. A lot more hacking minigames as well.

The one interesting set piece is in Anderson's office. There is a security camera that goes back and forth. If the camera sees you, mission over. If Anderson sees you in his office, he will run and and lockdown his computer, resulting in a mission fail. So you have to time when you KO him.

Not much more to add here. I do find it funny that Sam and Anna are just now talking about the events of Mission 3. How did Anna think Sam ended up in Mission 4 lol?

Mission 11: Stratton Petroleum Refinery

Mission Briefing: "Data from a computer belonging to Anderson, the CEO of Tranchion, shows that the uranium was sent to Stratton Petroleum, a refinery located in Houston Texas. Sam heads there in order to collect an oil sample to ensure that the data is accurate."

 Finally, a new area!. After like 4 repeat maps, nice to have a new level. On top of that, the music rather catchy for both Stealth and Alert. I like how it seems to include the lockpicking sound as part of the beat.

Mission 11 has 3 parts. Part 1 has you move from the outside of the Refinery to find an entrance. There are no civilians to blend in with. The gimmick is that even though the level is linear, there are gaps in your path. One path will usually have guards, the other will have steam vents you have to move past when the steam isn't active. It's a fine level. The different sections are oddly memorable and distinct.

I did note the minimap was a lot less detailed. Usually, the game's minimap is fully coloured in but here, it's just boxes back and dark green rectangles. I guess this mission wasn't finished. Especially as the final keypad lock contains a 6 digit code and the microphone doesn't work so this requires another Level Skip Cheat Code.

 

Mission 11 Part 2 takes place inside the refinery next to this massive silo with a lot of rooms encircling it. I found the environment cool with how it had stuff like break rooms where employees would chill but the level less fun to play as there were fewer alternate routes or ways to bypass enemies. Definitely not a mission I would recommend ghosting. It also has  the longest laser mic minigame for recording the convo of an NSA agent mysteriously investigating the refinery. You have to do one that's 100 seconds and one after that which is 30. These were really tense.

Mission 11 Part 3 is literally part 1 but backwards. Damn, this game is now reusing the same level twice lol. Except there are snipers now which can be annoying to deal with. Mission 11 has a whole definitely needs another pass of its layout. Which is probably why the minimap is so unfinished. This is likely an earlier version of the mission.

Storywise, my gut says something like this was in OG 2008 Main Console Conviction in some form. The fact that the DS version gives a rough location and city of the refinery corroborates that. Meaning that Sam would have had to find a way to get from Washington DC to Houston subtly but still quickly enough before the situation changes. I'm curious how Sam did this. He probably couldn't take a flight. The 2 cities are about 2300 km apart.

More importantly, I wonder how this mission would have played in OG 2008 Main Console Conviction? A private refinery doesn't exactly have the kind of social stealth that OG Conviction was going for. My unsubstantiated conspiracy theory is perhaps this mission was a throwback to older  Splinter Cells. A traditional mission requiring you to use a basic version of the "in the shadows" stealth of prior SCs, maybe with some of your gadgets? But I am not sure.

 

 

Mission 12: Saint Micheal's Hospital 2.

Mission Briefing: "Having determined that Stratton Petroleum is where the  terrorist attack will originate. Sam must now figure out who is orchestrating it. After overhearing the phone conversation of Third Echelon Sergeant Lawrence Spradin at the refinery, it's a safe bet that the NSA is involved. Sam heads to the Washington Hospital to question the oil worker who is suffering from radiation poisoning."

 

Adding onto this, Sam has to find this oil worker while also watching out for assassins sent in to assassinate said worker (wow. This really is a copy and paste of Mission 6 lol). Sam navigates the hospital, finds the assassin, does a 80 second Laser Mic minigame. Sam takes out the Assassin and finds the oil worker, named Billy Bob (bit of an odd name). Same explains that he "took a tour of Stratton Ridge" and heard all about Billy. Billy is confused at this and how Sam even knows his name.

Billy confesses that he doesn't how how the uranium got there or where it's going. All he knows is that he was supposed to contact about the shipment but got irradiated before he could. This contact will arrive soon at the Refinery. Before Billy can say more, Spradin walks in. Sam hides as Spardin injects Billy with a syringe which kills him. Sam defeats Sparadin in a melee bossfight (which can glitch with Spiradin leaving the room. If you kill him outside, the next cutscene has Sam phasing through walls to get back over to Billy's body. But the mission then just ends).

 

Not much to add about this mission. It takes place in the best level in the game that still holds up on a second playthrough despite there being zero new areas (that's how good the level design is). Billy is even in the same room Anna was back in Mission 6. In fact, this mission covers less mandatory ground than Hospital 1. I went out of my way to revisit Dr. Green's Office on this trip and there was nothing there. Not even a collectible.

Storywise, it feels like this mission is missing some content. Maybe a part where Sam escapes in Action Phase since Mission 6 didn't have one (I'm not complaining lol). We don't get closure over Sam returning to Billy's body. The level just ends.

It's also odd that a Houston Oil worker would be sent  for treatment in a DC hospital (I'd hate to see his hospital bills). And that the consequence of this is that Sam would have to return to same Refinery from Mission 11 for Missions 13 and 14. Sam's travelling between Houston and DC like 2-3 times lol. As a result, I don't think OG 2008 Main Console Conviction was structured like this. It's more likely that either the Refinery was larger and/or there were other locations that the DS version could not adapt and instead reused the hospital map. In fact, the DS version is missing levels like the Washington Monument, Washington Streets, Police Station etc from the trailers.

 

Mission 13:  Stratton Petroleum Refinery 2.

Mission Briefing: "Sam has learned that a government official will arrive at Stratton Petroleum to oversee the shipping of irradiated oil in a matter of days. He heads there with Anna immediately in an attempt to shut down the refinery's systems so that the dirty oil cannot be pumped out".

Part 1 is literally the same as Mission 11 Part 1. Same route, same enemies, even the same bug that the door is glitched and you need to use the cheat code to skip Phase 1.

Part 2 is interesting because it technically requires you to play it twice in one mission. You need to make 1 full lap around the level as Sam. Then, Anna shows up, gives Sam a Sniper Rifle and has Sam climb the top of the tower. Then the game introduces a new mechanic. You can press X to switch between Anna and Sam (the only time the X button gets a use and unique icon in the game). The game actually found a way to combine Stealth and Action phases instead of treating them as separate gameplay styles entirely.

Anna plays mostly the same as Sam (even using the same grunts as him when she takes damage) except she can't melee or KO enemies (despite having the prompt). If you switch to Sam and Anna gets detected, the game forcibly switches you back to Anna to help her. Sam's sniping isn't too useful. This Silo has 2 areas. An "outer" area Sam can see and can snipe. And an "inner area" that Sam can't see. Anna needs to criss cross between these 2 sections to do another full lap of the area. So yeah, you would have played this level 3 times in 1 playthrough. There's also no checkpoints.

 

The idea is cool and a creative take on Conviction DS' mechanics. I don't even thing is something OG 2008 Main Console Conviction would have done (although 2010 Conviction has a section where you play as Coste with a limited moveset. And Blacklist has a mission where you briefly play as Briggs from a 1st person shooter POV). However, I will note the executation is lacking. Even ignoring the story ramifications of Anna being a field agent and why Sam couldn't just do it or have them swap roles, there isn't much back and forth or cool use of the mechanic. Imagine if there were windows and Anna could throw something to lure a guard and the player would have to swap to Sam to take the shot that was now possible. As it stands, it's mostly a section that plays like normal except you can't melee people anymore.

 After you complete this section, Sam climbs down from the silo and finds Anna has been captured by Tom Reed. There's the following exchange:

 

Anna: "I'm sorry Sam"

 Tom: "Oh, how touching. She might actually mean it. When we asked her to track you down, she refused. She wanted to leave you alone."

Sam: "That's the problem with Third Echelon, right now the people calling the shots rarely consider what others want".

Tom: "If you accept everything that others want, you compromise too much".

Sam: "So, you'd threaten the lives of the people you're sworn to protect?"

Tom: "What I've done is not nearly as dangerous for our society as the President's effort to marginalize Third Echelon. Third Echelon has been the backbone of our defense policy for decades. If the government breaks this institution the safety of the entire nation will be in jeopardy."

Sam: "Third Echelon is a division of the NSA. It exists to serve the government, whether or not you agree with the decisions that are made."

Tom: "Spoken like a true coward. I'm not going to be lectured by an agent who lacks conviction". {Tom begins walking away with Anna as a hostage}

 Sam: "I can't let you go, Tom." 

Tom: "Right, now you're the government hero. You're going to do the 'right' thing. Make sure you know what the right thing really is. Your dear friend has a bomb around her neck. If you follow me, she blows up. See you in hell, Sam!"

Anna: "Forget about me, Sam. The bomb on me is proximity controlled. It will blow if I leave this refinery. He's planted other bombs around the refinery. You've got to stop him."

 Sam: "Right"

 

So yeah, the story actually tries to throw an interesting plot twist. You have Sam, the guy at the start of the game that was reluctant to work for 3rd Echelon, having to stop the guy trying to "save" 3rd Echelon and being called a "Government hero". Tom's dialogue implies that Anna really was on Sam's side. This reminds me a bit of 2010 Conviction where the game has Anna shoot Sam and deliver him as a present to Reed, the game framed it as Anna betraying Sam before turning around and revealing that actually, this was a setup by Anna and Sam to trick Reed and take him down.

I think some of the messy DS version's story inconsistencies were meant to be intentional to get Sam/the Player to wonder who was really on their side. Anna's story doesn't line up with Reed's so who is telling the truth? But the story's presentation lacks the means to make it appear more provoking. Rather, it feels more like "huh? I guess the DS text is a little weird" rather than something that tips off the player. Though the game does give away the twist when Anna says earlier that "maybe someone wanted you nearby when Senator Davis was shot".

I think it would have been interesting if there was some actual friction between Sam and Anna so the player might have reason to suspect that maybe Tom was in the right. Maybe have it that Anna really was spying on Sam and this is what led to him getting spotted.

 

2010 Conviction's way of accomplishing this was to reveal that Lambert faked Sam's daughter's death in order to keep her safe. A plot beat that makes little sense despite being presented in a really engrossing and emotional way. But DS Conviction seems like it had the means to do more with less. 

I also noted that DS Reed has the same general motivations as his 2010 counterpart. He wanted to frame Sam for the assassination of a political figure (The President in 2010's case) in order to justify 3rd Echelon's existence. The 2010 version had Reed orchestrate a coup with the VP, use EMPs to shut down DC, and have the Black Arrow PMC invade the White House. Reed had no way of knowing Sam would be at the White House however. While the DS version has it be more of a framed nuclear terrorist at a refinery in Houston.

 

I do wonder how both version of Reed's plans would have feasibly worked. In the 2010 version, if Caldwell is assassinated and the VP succeeds her, then Reed has someone in power that is supportive of 3rd Echelon. He doesn't need to frame Sam specifically. 3rd Echelon also doesn't formally exist. It's a subdivision of the NSA so it's not like he needs to convince the general public to increase NSA funding. Kinda overkill my man. Maybe 2010's story would have worked better if the more drastic actions were also used in a kinda "Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2" way to make sure people would always be support for the NSA?

 

The 2008 DS version kinda gets closer to this idea.  You have the angle that Journalists are looking into the NSA and 3rd Echelon and might blow the lid with all their illegal activities. Reed's actions here are less "drastic" (at least compared to his 2010 counterpart) as they have to convince President Caldwell not to dissolve 3rd Echelon. But seeing as Reed intends to blame it on Sam, would it be a smart idea to get support for 3rd Echelon by drumming support for the expensive organization that produces Rogue Agents that assassinate Senators?

I don't know. I guess the 2010 version feels more over the top but would actually work. While the 2008 version feels more plausible but has more holes to poke through.

I will complain the DS version's stealth music doesn't fit the vibe of the cutscene. Or the fact that Reed is wrong about 3rd Echelon being an important institution for decades. 3rd Echelon was set up in 2003. The first Splinter Cell was about Sam getting pulled up as part of this new secretive organization. So at this point, 3rd Echelon would have been active for 5-8 years (depending on when Conviction DS actually takes place).

 

Mission 14: Stratton Petroleum Refinery

 

Mission Briefing: "Third Echelon agent Tom Reed is the man behind the operation to attack the United States. Since Sam and Anna have made it impossible for him to use pipelines to pump  out the irradiated oil, Tom will try another way to release the radiation into the United States. Blowing up Straffton Petroleum is his current mission, and if Sam and Anna are brought down with it, even better".

 

This mission has 4 parts. Sam must climb the tower floor by floor disabling 10 bombs. Each floor is copy pasted with the same general layout (but with a detailed map). You must use a Sniper Rifle shoot a precise section of the bombs to disable them while guards patrol the area. The game actually manages to combine Stealth and Action phases as you can use weapons like in Action Phase, and enemies have their vision cones and behaviour of Stealth Phase. So I guess it was possible this whole time!

 

This mission is pretty repetitive. I can see OG 2008 Main Console Conviction maybe doing a better take on this with the bombs in a public space where the player might have to make some hard choices, maybe like a better version of MW3 2023 where you can shoot civilians accidentally blocking your way to get closer to disarming the bomb, so you, on some scale, get to experience what Tom is doing, killing a few innocent people in order to potentially save more lives. Maybe if you don't kill civilians or take too long, the bomb blows up and you get a bad ending. Showing that you "didn't have the Conviction to do what's right" (according to Tom).

 

Mission 0: Tom

 

 Mission Briefing: "Third Echelon agent Tom Reed is the man behind the operation to attack the United States. Since Sam and Anna have made it impossible for him to use pipelines to pump  out the irradiated oil, Tom will try another way to release the radiation into the United States. Blowing up Straffton Petroleum is his current mission, and if Sam and Anna are brought down with it, even better".

 

That's not a typo. The final mission is called  "Mission 0: Tom" and reuses the same description. I have a feeling that maybe these were used as a placeholder. You travel this balcony disabling bombs while Reed shoots at you. Unfortunately, this mission is glitched and can't be completed. If you use the skip mission cheat code, that works, but there is no ending cutscene. The game just strats from Mission 1 again like it's Dark Souls 1 doing a new run (although on YouTube, some people were able to get the end credits instead).

 

So yeah, hard to say what actually happens next. 2010 Conviction ended with  Reed's death and Caldwell dissolving 3rd Echelon. She and Anna presumably clear Sam's name after the fact so Sam can finally stop being on the run. Although the setup here also makes more of a "return to status quo" for Blacklist where Sam and Anna are now a part of 4th Echelon and conduct more typical missions. Even Sarah comes back from the dead.

I imagine something similar might have happened in DS Conviction/2008 Main Console Conviction as with 3rd Echelon formally dissolved, Sam is finally free to no longer be on the run as much. Though it would probably be harder to convince Caldwell to greenlight 4th Echelon given Sam doesn't personally save her life here and the plot involves journalists investigating t.

 

I wonder if Ubisoft ever intended to make follow ups to OG 2008 Main Console Conviction? Blacklist was the way it was in part due to fan backlash to Conviction. Ubi was trying to make a game to cater to both classic SC fans with how Blacklist supports stealth, and 2010 Conviction fans with how Blacklist supports Panther and Assault playstyles. Somehow, I doubt Blacklist would be the way it was if OG 2008 Main Console Conviction was the game before. Maybe Ubi would have tried to marry OG Conviction's social stealth with CT's Classic Steallth? Or they would have gone back to a more typical Splinter Cell? I guess we will never know.

 

Conclusion:

 

If Conviction DS was finished and released in 2008, regardless of what happened to main console Conviction,  I think it would have been treated as a "6/10 ok Stealth game" on places like Metacritic. While Conviction DS has some strong points, it's too limited in terms of mechanics and scope to be a compelling stealth game through and through. Part of that isn't Conviction DS' fault. I've been comparing it to Metal Gear Solid 1 a lot here. But MGS1 had the advantage of being a big budget AAA game with years of development. Even though Conviction DS does stuff MGS1 never did like social stealth or actually good minigames, Conviction DS likely would never have gotten even a fraction of the budget and development time of MGS1. So the fact it has such positives even in an unfinished state is impressive.

Moreover, had it released, it would unironically be the best stealth game on DS by a country mile. There are no Metal Gear, Hitman or Tenchu games on DS. The Assassin's Creed games on DS are either 2.5D (Altair's Chronicles) or 2D (Discovery) aren't really typical stealth games. The other stealth game on DS is Chaos Theory DS which....... doesn't have the best reputation. So even a functional Conviction DS would be the best stealth game by default.  Even then, DS Conviction, by opting for an MGS1 style, is playing to more of its strengths. Chaos Theory DS had a rough time being a more faithful adaptation of Splinter Cell 1-3 on DS. To the point its controls, performance and graphics were severely compromised. But Conviction DS didn't have those worries.

But for many people, I imagine the most interesting thing about DS Conviction isn't the game itself, but the game it wasn't. It was meant to be a tie in to 2008 Main Console Conviction. The game that never came out and as a result, took DS Conviction down with it and time made it obsolete. Had DS Conviction come out in 2008, I can imagine the people that played it might have had some positive memories and an experience they might not have been able to have (especially if they only had a DS). But now, in 2025, small stealth games are far more accessible. Between CounterSpy, Stealth Inc, MGS1-3, Mark of the Ninja, Intravenous 2 etc Nintendo users and players in general have plenty of options.

 

Still, DS Conviction provides a view to what 2008 Conviction would have been like. And despite everything, I now wish we got that game. I remember feeling like 2008 Conviction was a huge departure from classic Splinter Cell. Why was this what Conviction was going for? But the DS version of Conviction, despite everything, fulfilled its purpose and did the impossible. It sold me on Conviction.

 

 

I platinummed Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands on PS3

 Hello everyone. I recently platinummed the PS3 version of Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands (my third PS3 platinum) and I wanted to talk about it. I found my old PS3 and my 2015 save file and saw I already had most of the trophies and decided to go for the platinum.

Overall, this was a very straightforward and easy platinum. To the point I feel the main guide on PSNprofiles is exaggerating a bit. This game is a not a 4/10 difficulty. I’d say closer to a 2.5. It's possible and not too challenging to get all the trophies in a single playthrough. There are a few missable trophies that have some good spots to farm them in the story mode but also have ok replacements in challenge mode. 

I missed the following trophies on my first casual run back in 2015: "Acrobat - Jump on enemies 30 times in a row without falling or using the Power of Time." because there wasn't a need to ever jump on enemies. And "Sand Nemesis - Kill 50 enemies in a row without being hit and without using upgrade powers or the Power of Time." I missed this one because I'd catch a stray hit and was never concerned about this. Both of these trophies can be farmed in the challenge mode quite easily but there are easier places to obtain them in the story mode such as when these summoner enemies keep summoning weak skeletons you can easily kill.

 

I also missed "Stay Dry - Move on solidified water for 1 minute without using the Power of Time."  because I found description confusing. Wasn't the act of solidifying water itself using a Power of Time?What it actually means is that you just have to walking/standing/climbing on water structures for a minute straight while holding the L2 button to solidify said water. You're allowed to jump between water structures to release L2 to recharge the water solidifying power to continue the process. I missed this one because the game encourages you to be platforming quickly through these sections. You aren't exactly encouraged to chill on a couple water columns for a while as they could stop working. But this was easy enough to get as I found the first 3 water columns and just chilled on them to get the trophy.

 

"Our Little Secret - Don't worry. We won't tell if you don't" was one 2015 me never figured out. It turns out that all you have to do to get this trophy is start a playthrough on the normal difficulty and change the difficulty to easy mode at any point. I suppose that explains why every loading screen tip kept hinting to turn down the difficulty.  It's not one I ever would have even accidentally got. POPFS isn't a very difficult game. Its combat, especially towards the end when you get the upgraded sword, lets you tear through groups of enemies. So.... points for being the most well hidden trophy?

 

"Got Walkthrough? - Find and break every sarcophagus." is the trophy for finding the only collectibles in the game. There's around 20 sarcophagi in the game that you can break for health, magic/sand and XP.  The game does try to clue you that a sarcophagus may be nearby with these blue dust particles that get more dense as you get closer to them but despite often being right on the main path, these collectibles are hidden just out of sight in some clever places. Levels with a blue colour palette also camouflage these dust particles. I followed the Achievement Hunters' guide for them. It was a trip hearing the guy apologize for a 10 minute video being long in 2011. Ah the memories.

 

"Untouchable - Defeat Ratash in the Throne Room without taking any damage" is the first actually sorta rough trophy (and the one with a typo). This requires you to defeat the main boss of the game in your first fight with him without taking any damage i.e your health bar depleting. Everything else is fair game. The trick is the Stone Armour power you unlock. This prevents your health from being drained by enemy attacks even if the Prince grunts in pain or gets sent flying by a massive attack. The key is to activate this power and keep it on for the whole fight, including the brief platforming section since Ratash is throwing fireballs at you.

 

The main issue here is the way POPFS does checkpoints/autosaves. The game does not allow you to make manual saves or level select in any way. So if you take actual damage and the fight progresses to the next checkpoint, you gotta replay the entire game to get back to this point and try again. Supposedly, you can still reload a checkpoint in a latter stage if you get hit and it should still count but fortunately, I didn't have to test this. The boss fight itself also isn't very challenging or long so even being a bit wasteful with stone armours should still mean you can complete this easily.

 

The final trophy I earned was "Invincible - Finish the final battle against Ratash without taking any damage". This one has the advantage that even if you mess up and complete the game without getting the trophy, this is saved as your last checkpoint so you can literally continue your last save and keep retrying this. You can use the same Stone Armour strat as the previous one except the fight goes on so long that you won't have enough magic to stone armour for the entire fight and mooks almost never drop refills. So there is a bit of trying to dodge his easier attacks and timing when to activate stone armour to get the most out of it. I also advice making sure you reach this point with max magic. The fight itself isn't hard but it can be annoying to get hit by a stray attack that does like 4% of your max health and needing to retry.

 

And that's it for the most notable trophies. Everything else was simple enough that 2015 me got without even trying. I do wish the game had a few more cool challenge ones (in addition to a manual save/level select to help with that). For example, how about a speedrun one like God of War 1 or Prince of Persia '08 to beat the game in under 7 hours or something?  In 2007, Ubisoft released a licensed game based on the TMNT movie that basically played like a Prince of Persia game. One of my favourite things about that game was that it came with a series of bonus platforming levels that were genuinely tough. I would have liked to see something like that in this game. POPFS does have a bonus time trial challenge I couldn't even attempt because it was locked behind Uplay (and I am pretty sure POPFS PS3 doesn't even support the new Ubisoft Connect client so I might not even be able to redeem it anymore). Regardless, POPFS was a fun game to play and platinum.

 

As for the game itself, I really like POPFS. I might even say this is my favourite Prince of Persia game to play. I love the Sands of Time Trilogy but whenever I replay them, the platforming feels rather .... basic. With the exception of the odd challenge room or the final gauntlet in the Two Thrones, I tend to go on autopilot whenever I play them. The traps and timing often doesn't challenge me and I feel like I am going through the motions. POPFS has some wild sections such in the Djnn city where you need to combine and alternate between the Water Solidify Power and the Recall power at such speeds that I have to get engaged. I love that stuff. The sequence near the end where you have to wall jump between multiple waterfalls in quick succession is just so fun to play. POPFS has arguably the best platforming in the series (tied with POP '08. And for saying that, I might have lost all my credibility lol).

 

POPFS' controls are pretty good and about what I expect from a modern Prince of Persia game. There are a few changes that did sometimes conflict with my muscle memory from the Sands of Time games. You now have a manual jump by moving and pressing X and rolling is bound to O. I did have a few oopsie moments of jumping into a gap instead of rolling but managed to adjust pretty quickly. Something that took me longer was vaulting/climbing. In the SoT games, when you're climbing or clinging onto something, pressing X makes you climb up it and pressing back + X makes you back eject off it. POPFS changes it to holding up to climb and just X to back eject which did mess me up a few times. Rewinding Time is now bound to R1 instead of L1 and wallrunning/Interact is bound to R2 instead of R1. I had a few embarrassing movements of rewinding time instead of wallrunning or pulling a lever.

 

What makes platforming more interesting in POPFS is that you have more places to wallrun which is incorporated into platforming. For example, you can now wallrun horizontally or vertically while climbing and there are platforming sections that task you to time a vertical wallrun while shimmying to dodge blade traps and then fall back and resume shimmying. Or shimmy into a horizontal wallrun and jump into a pole swing. Manually jumping into a wall also lets you follow up with a vertical wallrun by holding R2 so you do miss out on extended wall jump sequences since you can wallrun up them to skip needing to do as many wall jumps.

 

The game also improves the Prince's animations and better accommodates flow. For example, lets say you cling to a column. In past POP games, you'd have position the Prince so his back faces where you want to go and then press X to back eject to where you want to go. But in POPFS, you can just press Direction + X and the game will buffer your inputs and make the Prince automatically jump in that direction when the animation allows. This led to a lot of cool sequences where I was in the zone moving from wall to pole to column all without breaking my stride or pausing. It was fun.

 

The final piece that adds to platforming is the Prince's powers. The Prince gets 3 main platforming powers: the ability to solidify water and the ability to recall parts of the environment and a Sonic Homing Attack. Solidifying Water lets the Prince freeze all water in the environment. Letting him wallrun on waterfalls and swing/move on columns. Some puzzles also use this such as freezing a water stream to block certain objects. You have a gauge that determines how long you can freeze water for. The game throws timing challenges at you where it asks you to freeze and unfreeze water such as mid jump. So you jump and hold L2 to freeze a stream of water you can swing off, press X to jump off and then release L2 to unfreeze all water so the next stream or column can move into place, then hold L2 to freeze that. All this at a rapid pace. Later levels go wild and ask you to freeze and unfreeze and plan out your path when wall jumping at a rapid pace. It's great.

 

The second ability is "Recall" not to be confused with the Prince's ability to rewind time. This lets load in a destroyed piece of the environment be it a floor, wall, pole, column etc by pressing L1. The catch is that the Prince can only load one item at a time. This leads to platforming challenges where you load in a platform, jump and then press L1 to unload the platform you were just standing on and load in the next platform to land on mid jump.

 

There's a wild section in the Djinn city that combines these abilities. You're sliding down a crumbling staircase. The game throws challenges at you where you use different combinations of tapping L1 while holding and releasing L2 and pressing X. You're jumping, freezing/unfreezing water and recalling the environment at once. It's great.

 

The 3rd ability is a Sonic The Hedgehog-like air homing attack that lets you cross long distances to fly into an enemy across a gap. The game throws platforming challenges at you to homing attack into birds and jump off them and combines this with the other powers.

 

So yeah, hopefully y'all can see why I like POPFS' platforming so much. However, I do have some complaints. The first is regarding Recall. The game shows you the next section/platform you can recall with a yellow silhouette of it but doesn't highlight the current platform you recalled. In 90% of cases, I found it was intuitive to know that if I recalled the next platform, which previous platform would disappear and if I would have to jump off my current one first. But in a handful of times, I was caught off guard and fell to my death (of course, I could rewind to undo it). Still, maybe some blue or green outline on recalled platforms to make it obvious they are the current recalled one would have helped here.

 

I do feel it's a missed opportunity the game doesn't go further with the environmental powers. After the Djinn City  Section, you never need to use the Recall powers. The game justifies this that since you aren't in the Ruined Djinn City anymore, there are no more ruins to recall. But I don't know, the current palace is still crumbling and falling apart. Why leave behind such a fun mechanic?

 

Another complaint I have is odd. Remember earlier when I praised POPFS' animations and flow? It's hard to explain but around 80% of the time, POPFS' animations and sense of flow is on point. But 20% of the time, it kinda isn't which stands out and takes me out of the experience. To use an analogy, imagine you are playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater. You do a combo of 5 cool fast tricks in a row. For your 6th trick, you decide to do a basic kickflip. For some reason, your skater takes a second longer, braces himself and then jumps and does a kickflip. Even if it doesn't break your combo, it can throw off your rhythm which can mess you up later.

 

POPFS normally does a pretty good job in maintaining the flow state but there are times when I am sliding or running or climbing and I try to do a Wallrun and the Prince lags for sec before doing it. It throws me off that I sometimes mess up the following sequence. Some of the Prince's animations also don't seem to match his momentum. His horizontal wallrun feels really slow which definitely messes with me.

I think this throws me off because of how much I played the SoT trilogy. In those games, while the Prince's animations were more scripted and less flexible they were more consistent and better showed a sense of momentum. Like in SoT, if I run and then do a Wallrun, the Prince always starts the wallrun the same way and he moves quickly enough with distinct phases to his animation that I can always tell what he's doing, how far he's got left and when I should jump.

 

I can't be sure but I have my suspicions that  POPFS nudges your animations and inputs to help you. I first noticed this when I clearly jumped perpendicular from a beam and would have missed a column. So I should have fallen to my death. But the Prince made a slightly more diagonal jump and reached the column.

 

My second piece of evidence is the way rewinds work. In the SoT games, you can rewind to the past 10 seconds by holding L1. Releasing L1 stops the rewind exactly where you released it. Lets you have a sequence where you are standing on a safe platform, then do a horizontal wallrun then jump. Lets say you jump too early. In SoT, you can rewind to either before you began the wallrun or mid wallrun and correct your jump right there. But POPFS works differently. It doesn't stop rewinding when you release R1, it continues rewinding you until it puts you in a "safe spot". So in this example, even if you release R1 mid wallrun, it would rewind you back before the wallrun.This often threw me off, especially during wall jump sequences as rather than rewinding me mid jump, it would rewind me a bit earlier to a wall cling state and I'd fail that. 

 

All this makes me suspect that all the occasional weird "delays" and "hitches" I sometimes feel are the result of the game's invisible assists kicking in. I imagine with time, I probably could have gotten a better feel of how they worked. If I could get good at Classic Assassin's Creed Parkour, this is in my wheelhouse. But I will complain at the way rewinds work now. In SoT, choosing when to end a rewind was part of learning the game. It was cool that even when you made a mistake, a more experienced player could rewind just before it and keep going while a less experienced player could rewind further back to give themselves more of a buffer. The animations and controls were intuitive enough that it was feasible to see where you messed up and how to correct it. Still, overall, the platforming is still arguably the best in the series. I imagine a hypothetical sequel would have ironed these out. 

-Combat:

 

POPFS holds the honour of having arguably the best combat in the series while feeling just as unengaging as its predecessors. Let start with the controls. You have a basic 5 hit combo with Square. Holding Square charges up a power attack. You can combine regular and power attacks for those 5 hits. Triangle does a kick which can push enemies back and drop enemy shields. You can jump on enemies with X and hop on top off enemies or press square to do an aerial attack. You can also do cool cinematic takedown animations if you knock an enemy into a wall or railing and then press Square. You can roll with O and that is your only defensive option. No Block or counterattack or parrying here.

 

You also have 4 Sand powers activated by pressing one of the D-Pad buttons. Up activates the Stone Armour which temporarily prevents you from taking Damage. Down Activates a wind storm that sucks up nearby enemies and damages them. Right activates a fire trail that follows the Prince and damages enemies that step into it. And Left adds Ice attacks and projectiles to the Prince's basic attacks. The game also adds quite a few enemy types like summoners, giant charging minotaurs and minibosses that are cool to fight. Defeating enemies also awards XP you can use to purchase upgrades such as increasing your health and magic reserves, improving your Sand powers etc.

 

Ultimately, the combat was something I tolerated in this game. And in my most recent playthrough, ran past almost every combat encounter and had a much better time. Prince of Persia games don't have the most engaging combat. The different enemy types don't require different strats or learning how they operate so every fight feels the same. The Sand Powers didn't change much about how I played and were just there. I think its telling that one of Two Thrones biggest innovations was adding stealth kills so you could skip fighting enemies and in POP '08, your punishment for being slow in a platforming section was a combat encounter. POPFS doesn't do much to address this. Every combat encounter starts to blend together. Especially towards the end of the game where you get the improved water sword that 1 shots most enemies and tears through most larger enemies.

 

I always wondered if a Prince of Persia game would be better served if combat was reworked into being an extension of platforming where enemies were platforming obstacles rather than enemies in a fight. Even something like The Two Thrones where you could use stealth to quietly take out enemies has its merits as it requires you to climb to certain vantage points or position yourself to get the drop on enemies. The Two Thrones even has a stealth takedown you do when wallrunning letting you transition from a platforming wallrun into a stealth kill. POPFS never incorporates that or even the Djinn powers to deal with enemies.

 

I'm just saying, in a Mario game, Mario doesn't need to start throwing hands with multiple Goombas in extended combat encounters for the game to be fun. It's enough to Goombas be obstacles Mario jumps on to defeat and move on.

 

Graphics and Artstyle:

Graphically, the game also looks impressive. The sandy kingdoms, effects, palace rooms and blue mythical areas are beautiful. I will complain the game lacks visual variety compared to something like Sands of Time which explored more novel areas like the zoo, construction areas, different kinds of baths etc. Sands of Time felt like I explored more and different places. To the point the game's save points named every location and the final vision showed you a lot off the areas you visited along the way that I remembered. Show me a screenshot of a location from Sands of Time or The Two Thrones and I am pretty confident I can tell you where in the game that is. Show me a screenshot of a location in POPFS and I'd have a harder time. It's harder to describe but POPFS feels more like individual areas are all connected by "biomes" that share the same general architecture and visual themes. I experienced a similar feeling in Warriour Within (granted, it was worse there as WW was a lot less varied in its visuals).

 

Performance and Stability:

The game did hard freeze on me around 3-4 times on this playthrough in such a way where I couldn't even exit the game and had to manually get up and turn my PS3 off. I did also notice a few slowdowns in areas with a ton of enemies and effects. Not sure if it's because the game has some issues, or my PS3 and/or Disc is getting older. My poor PS3 was chugging every now and again. So be careful should you choose the play the game. Aside from that, the game seemed to run flawlessly.

 

 

The Story:

POPFS' story was ...... ok. It's not something that will stick me nor was it something that upset me. I felt mostly neutral playing it.

 

Part of that, I feel, is the nature of the game. POPFS is an interquel, set some time after the events of Sands of Time but before the Dhaka came and started hunting the Prince for 7 years leading to Warriour Within. The game can't really challenge the Prince or give him a major arc since he has to be relatively static for Warriour Within to happen. The game is also quite self referential and often feels like a callback to its predecessors, especially Sands of Time. During the opening sequence, there are set pieces where the Prince shimmys along buildings and the camera zooms out and the scene feels like a HD remake of the same section from Sands of Time. The final climb is in a treasure room. The Prince even references Azad and Farah several times. The game also uses a similar blue aesthetic for the more dreamlike areas of the Djinn. The climax of the game has the Prince taking a few cues from Warriour Within by obtaining the water sword. The main villain, Ratash, even resembles the Dhaka visually. The Two Thrones shows its influence with Razia becoming a disembodied voice that comments on the Prince's combat performance.

 

So not only is POPFS limited by its place in the timeline, its going to be harder for it to stand out given its references to past games. To the point I wonder if this game wouldn't have been better served actually being a 7th gen HD Remake of Sands of Time. But even ignoring that, I feel POPFS doesn't do its story many favours. The first issue is the tone. The Prince is quite chipper and lighthearted to the point of cracking MCU style quips at the situation. The entire palace is turned to sand and there are sand monsters everywhere plus a giant demon rampaging around. In terms of danger, this is worse than in Sands of Time since there isn't even a way to rewind time to fix everything. Yet it feels less dire. At least in Warriour Within, the Prince was straight up terrified of the Dhahka whenever he showed up but the Prince never shows that kind of fear here which undermines the tension.

 

Sands of Time was by no means a dark game, (especially next to Warriour Within) but the game still highlighted how severe the situation was. The Prince would lament at how tragic the devastation was. He rarely made light of the situation and most of his humour/jokes was directed at Farah to bring some levity. Playing Sands of Time, you get a sense of how occasionally lonely, atmospheric and haunting some locations could be. The story being framed as a story a future Prince is telling also helped it out by contrasting the wiser and more cautious future Prince with the more brash and arrogant current Prince as well as expositing how the Prince is feeling. POPFS starts with the Prince explaining to Razia how he got there for first part of the story before dropping the narrator framework entirely.

 

The Prince's conflict and arcs are underbaked. There is the idea that the Prince looks up to his brother Malik and feels conflicted when Malik calls him a traitor. Prince is also unwilling to go ahead with killing Malik to stop the main villain Ratesh as Ratesh slowly takes over Malik. But the game touches these beats before moving on. One weird element is how Razia, Djinn the Prince meets on his journey, is handled. Unlike the PSP or DS version of Forgotten Sands, the Djinn here doesn't accompany the Prince by becoming his sword until the end of the game. So instead, the story has it that the Prince occasionally finds an entrance to her domain as he explores, stops in for a quick break and fill Razia in on her progress. This limits the story since it isolates the Prince's characterization to brief cutscenes in between long stretches of gameplay.

 

In contrast, The Two Thrones was setup that the Prince was stuck with the Dark Prince as a comforting voice in his head and devil on his shoulder from quite early on allowing for conversations and plot progression through the dialogue that occured as the player played. Even Khaleena as the narrator helped out here by expositing information. I feel POPFS would have had more to work with if Razia joined the Prince sooner. Their dialogue when they join near the end is quite entertaining.

 

If I could wave a magic wand and tweak the story to make it more entertaining, I'd do the following:

 

Firstly, I'd have the Prince show more anxiety and worry at the situation while trying to hide it from Razia. Like, this is the second time a Sands of Time-like event happened and there is no hourglass for him to undo it like nothing ever happened. There will be lasting consequences this time. If the game is going to have so many callbacks from Sands of Time rather than being a more novel story, I think it would be interesting for a follow up to Sands of Time to explore how that's affected the Prince. Go all in on the concept. The closest the current version of POPFS does is having the Prince be distrustful of magic because of his past experience. But I'm imagining a moment where the Prince has flashbacks to Sands of Time and is caught off guard and stressed by it. Because while the Prince managed to successfully reverse the situation in Azad, it was still an extremely stressful and "trial by fire" sequence for the Prince that changed his personality and outlook. Especially since there isn't even anybody the Prince can talk to about it (yet). This is a secret only he knows.

 

I also feel it would be interesting if this anxiety affected his decision making process. In the current version of POPFS, the set up is that both Malik and the Prince have a piece of the medallion that gives them powers. Both of them are levelling up as they defeat enemies but Malik is slowly getting corrupted by his where he becomes more distrustful and paranoid of the Prince. What if the Prince's anxiety and experience facilitates this. Like, lets say there is a plot beat where the Prince uses his past experience to solve a puzzle or deal with a section that someone without the experience couldn't have. Malik sees this and becomes curious that the Prince is hiding something from him. The Prince tries to explain how to fix the situation without explaining how he knows it which makes Malik suspect the Prince is the one being corrupted or being driven to madness by the Medallion. This weighs on the Prince that despite having past experience, he messed up and maybe even begins to feel that Malik is right.

 

Maybe this could also apply with the Prince's relationship with Razia. What if the Prince was initially hesitant to trust Razia and hesitates on fully going after Malik rationalizing it will be fine. After all, the Prince reversed the events of Sands of Time so surely Malik can do the same. This creates the conflict between the 2 where Razia suspects the Prince is hiding something and not taking the situation seriously and the Prince suspects Razia has ulterior motives. Finally culminating in a sequence where the Princes messes up just like how he did in Sands of Time and gets temporarily trapped with Razia somewhere. The situation looks hopeless and Razia chews out the Prince for this. The Prince finally drops his guard and confesses his worries to Razia and tells her an abridged version of Sands of Time. That he has seen something like this before and he doesn't want to believe he'd have to kill Malik and why this made him distrustful of Razia. You could have Razia not believe the Prince at first but give him the benefit of the doubt and this becomes the moment that fully unites the two as a proper team.

 

I also feel the final boss fight against Ratesh, who has taken over Malik's body and grown into a kaiju sized threat, was rather underwhelming (even ignoring the fact that the Prince beat him twice already). The preceding platforming section across floating broken scenery in a sandstorm was arguably a lot more interesting and fulfilling gameplay wise. The actual fight consists of a platform where you avoid Ratesh' telegraphed attacks and attack his chest when he gets close. Even when I first played the game over a decade ago, I always wondered why this fight felt so underwhelming despite the cool spectacle of fighting a skyscraper sized monster. I think I now know why. Lets compare 2 bosses from The Two Thrones: The Final Boss Fight versus the Vizir and the first boss fight against the Giant.

 

For the boss fight against the Vizir, yeah you have all the hype and build up from the story but even on a mechanical level, this fight works. Vizir's first phase as this biblically accurate angel is a back and forth where he attacks and moves quickly and you have to move fast and strike fast well. It feels like a back and forth so even though The Two Thrones' combat isn't amazing, it works with the fight and elevates it. The second phase has the Vizir go to the edge of the arena and summon floating rocks as mines for the player to avoid. You have to dodge the rocks, get under him and do a vertical wallrun into a QTE sequence to cut off his wings quickly before he moves. Here, the fight uses both the movement one of the new core additions to The Two Thrones, the QTE Speed Kill system in a memorable way. The final phase has him fly high his telekinesis creates one final platforming gauntlet out of random debris for you to climb and stab him. It's cool and memorable to have the final phase of the fight use the platforming the Prince is known for. The one shot only adds to this.  For the Giant Boss in Two Thrones, you can't attack him directly. Instead you must go to edge of the arena, climb up to get to the Boss' head level and do a QTE to stab out his eyes. Once he's blind, you attack his legs taking care to avoid his attacks before finishing him off. 

In both cases, even though the actual boss might not be the most complex, the way it plays feels unique to The Two Thrones. It highlights the mechanics and platforming of the game so it feels memorable. If you took the Vizir and ported him as is into something like God of War 3 or Dark Souls 1, the fight wouldn't play out the same as it does in POP The Two Thrones. But in the case of Ratesh, you can paste him as is and he'd work the same because nothing about his mechanics of avoiding telegraphed attacks and attacking the glowing spot on his chest is unique to POPFS. Even POP '08 did a better job with its final boss Ahriman. In POPFS's case, I feel a better boss fight would have been a quick platforming gauntlet similar to the one preceding it. Have the Prince moving in a Sandstorm, using the Recall Power to trap or damage Ratesh. The final strike could have been one where the Prince uses the Freeze Water power to freeze rain in such a way where he can use it to platform to Ratesh/Malik and deliver one final tearful strike to end the game. The final conversation between the Prince and Malik could also add a line where Malik notes that he suspects the Prince lived through all this before but is unsure of the details as Malik dies. Adding the twist of the knife that the Prince truly doesn't have anybody now that knows what he went through or believes him. I feel even if this sequence was short scripted set piece, it would feel cooler and be more memorable than the current version. But maybe this would have been infeasible to implement.

 

I do suspect the game might have been rushed as the ending is extremely brief. With stuff like the aftermath of the game and Razia's fate relegated to a quick voiceover after the main ending. If that's true, then it further dilutes an already underwhelming ending. I imagine in an alternate timeline, if the game had more resources, there could have been a sequence where we see Razia sacrificing herself and the Prince having 1 final sombre and quiet platforming section where he returns Razia's sword (kinda like the vibe POP '08 was going for).

 

 In closing, despite my complaints, I really do like POPFS. Its biggest flaw is that its story is ok and that its mechanics have a few nitpicks and missed opportunities. But despite that, I 100% recommend this game. The raw platforming is some of the best in this series. The game more than justifies its existence and forgives every flaw from that. It was a truly enjoyable game to Platinum. Of the 3 versions of Forgotten Sands I played (The PS3 version, DS version and PSP version), this is by far not only the best version of FS but also arguably the best playing game in the series (besides maybe POP '08). If this truly is the last the big budget AAA Prince of Persia game we ever get, then I am ultimately satisfied the series still ended on a high note.

Splinter Cell Blacklist Embassy Missions Review and Tier List

 Hello everyone. A while back I bought Splinter Cell Blacklist on PC  and got addicted to it. Put around 30 hours into it in a single week. I really enjoyed the game. One of my most unexpected and favourite aspects that I spent the most time in was, believe it or not, The Embassy/Charlie's Missions and I wish to talk about them today. Before we begin, here is some context for those unfamiliar with the game or the mode.

 

Blacklist was the latest Splinter Cell game released in 2013. In addition to the main missions that progress the story, you have side missions given to you by Sam's crew that all have a gimmick attached. Grim's Side Missions will fail you if you get detected. Kobin's Side Missions have reinforcements show up if you get detected. Brigg's missions are coop only. Charlie's missions are a kind of wave based horde mode where around you must eliminate 30-50 enemies per wave. Enemies tend to spawn in batches of 5-12. These levels are typically set in an open map based in a foreign embassy.  Later waves become more challenging with there being more armoured enemies, guards with goggles, dogs, drone operators that jam your goggles and vision modes and send out seeking drones after you, snipers and more. The mission continues for a max of 20 waves although you can successfully end the mission after every 5 waves and even resume there later.

 

 I took a brief look online and saw that these Embassy/Charlie missions were generally disliked by players. And I can see why and will even agree with them. But first, I wish to discuss why I enjoyed this missions so much (at least for the first 10 or so waves). At their best, these missions play like an alternate flavour of a Batman Arkham Predator map. Sam is incredibly agile and quick and it's oh so satisfying to survey the map, note where 6-10 enemies are, plan a route to move through the map in creative ways and taking them down. Doubly so if it can be done non-lethally so you could pop a smoke bomb drop down, KO 3-4 guards and then use Mark and Execute with the Electric Crossbow to KO 3 more. The better maps give you plenty of routes to stealthily move to other locations and take out enemies along the way. In something like Batman Arkham, Batman doesn't need many escape routes or mind if the map is rather large because he can grapple and glide to quickly escape detection or cover large distances. Sam Fisher can't do that so the better maps tend to be more compact with more rooms and windows. This often let to waves feeling more tense, oddly enough as I felt more vulnerable but more deadly than in Batman Arkham. The missions also often swap out enemies and even introduce objectives like "non-lethally KO and capture certain High Value Targets (HVTs)" to help keep waves interesting and prevent the player from getting to complacent or just sniping everyone by needing to rush to get closer to certain enemies.

 

However, the modes' downsides pop up on higher waves. For one, Dogs. They are drawn to your position and can sniff you out. When they detect you, they will charge you and trap in an animation where you have to mash E to escape. You are completely vulnerable during that time. So if other guards are around and begin firing at you...... you're done. Dogs can also bypass your human shields/hostages by trapping you in their bite/mashing animation. In the main campaign, dogs are rare and the game never throws 2 max at you. But some embassy waves can throw 20 dogs at you in a single wave. The only solace being that dogs are weak and will go down to a single silenced pistol shot at medium range. 

 

They are made worse by Drone Operators. These guys jam your goggles so you lose access to alternate vision modes while they are conscious. But their main issue are the little RC drones they spawn. These drones patrol the map, if they spot you they alert every other enemy then rush you and try to explode. The point blank damage from the explosions is often enough to kill you instantly and each Drone Operator often spawns multiple drones. Normally, the game disables an operator's drones once you take them out but it's inconsistent. I had times when I took out an operator and his newly deployed drone deactivated the exact second he went down. Other times, I got spotted taking out said operator by his newly deployed drone. The drones are weak enough to be disabled by a single shot and will explode on a second shot which helps with creating distractions and taking out some enemies but in collaboration with dogs was a nightmare. Getting trapped by a dog was a death sentence in waves with drones. It often got to the point where I had to exploit the collectible save spots by hiding in there and spending most of the wave just sniping the dogs and then throwing an EMP round just to deal with the 15 or so drones camping me. It's not fun when the overuse of these enemies restricts you so much.

 

Here are a few ways to fix these. For dogs, I'd prefer the way Assassin's Creed 3 did animal attacks. If a Wolf or Dog attacks you in that game, you have to do a QTE to counter their attack and take them out. If you messed this up, then you have to do the mashing to get out. Something like that would work way better here. I'm imagining a system where a dog lunges at you, you do the QTE and you have the option of either loudly shoving the dog away or doing a lengthy and loud takedown animation. You're exposed in both cases but at least now you have the chance of not instantly getting screwed over by a dog attack by being able to escape. For drone operators,  limit the number of drones that can be active, or let players be able to hack drones remotely to use against enemies. So rather than limiting the player's movement, they allow new opportunities in a map.

 

With all that said, lets talk about about the maps themselves. Note that there is no compass or map in the game but for the sake of convenience, I am going to say the direction you spawn in the map faces North. For maps that are circular or rectangular in nature, I am also going to be using a clock notation to help with orientation and location. For example if you're at the centre of the map and you go straight forward, I'll describe that as in a 12 o'clock position. If you're at the centre of the map facing the direction you spawn and go forward but turn around 10-ish degrees to the right, I might describe that as towards the 1 o' clock position. I apologize if it may be confusing. Like I said, Blacklist doesn't give you a compass like its predecessors.

 

S Tier (These maps are perfect and are super replayable and give so much to mess around with): Nothing. There are no maps I'd put in S tier.

 

A Tier (These maps are great, are replayable and give you lots of options): Nothing as well.

 

B Tier (These maps are good. Are somewhat replayable and give you a fair amount of options): The Pakistani Embassy. This map has the potential to go into A and even S tier. It's so close and already so fun.  First the setup.  

 

The map consists of 3 main areas. A sort of "ruins" area towards the South consisting of more of  hallways with blind spots. These are connected to a road area with quite a few cover spots. The road area is sandwiched between the ruins and the embassy itself. The Embassy is towards the North and takes up around half of the entire map. The Embassy has 2 "regular entrances". One main entrance/garage that leads to a large garage area. In this garage area, there is a luggage scanning room towards the east (around a 2 o'clock direction from the centre of the map) and stairs on the west leading to the upper floor. The upper floor consists of a room (around a 10 o' clock direction from the centre of the map) with multiple windows on the west side you can use to enter and exit the embassy. These are connected to 2 hallways. One hallway has windows letting you drop down to the garage area and another window connected to the other hallway. The other hallway is also a long balcony that gives you surprisingly great view of the road area and ruins area letting you snipe quite well. The balcony is also a great area to get takedowns as unalert guards won't spot you doing ledge takedowns and the cover on the ground makes it easier to get away with aerial takedowns on guards and even follow up with regular takedowns on unarmoured guards.

 

The 2 hallways also lead to a walkway that overlooks the Luggage scanning room and stairs that lead to a lobby area which is the other "regular entrance". The stairs have a pipe and wall overlooking them you can climb and are isolated enough to easily get the drop on enemies making it one of the best spots in the game. The lobby room is also connected to the luggage scanning room by windows only the player can climb. The lobby room also has walls you can climb around to get the drop on Enemies or use to climb around to the luggage scanning room. Finally on the west side of the embassy, there is a blocked door you can slide over that enemies can't.

 

The pros of this map: This map seems to understand the general constraints and requirements this mission needs to be fun. You need lots of densely packed rooms to provide lots of blind spots to let the player takedown enemies without getting spotted by other enemies. You also need to provide rooms with openings only the player can use to quickly move around. Either  to get to enemies and bypassing more dangerous/occupied areas or escape enemies when inevitably detected. A quirk of Blacklist's guard AI is that they don't "learn your tricks" and try to rush to where they can shoot you (or shoot your last known location) which you can exploit. 

 

For example. I mentioned the west room on the top floor with the windows. Lets say you get detected on the top floor and have jump out the window. Enemies will see you do that and opt to all run outside the embassy towards the western side so they can shoot at you. However, the fastest way for the enemies to reach that position is to go down the stairs and out the garage entrance. In scenarios where there are no enemies already outside when you jump out the window, it can take around 5-10 seconds for guards to reach you while your silhouette is hanging outside the window. So you can exploit this by jumping back into the room and watching every enemy go outside. Or drop down and use the blocked entrance on the West Side to slide back into the Embassy into the Garage Area. This area gives you at least 2 potentially safe ways to shake off enemies depending on the situation.

 

There are other examples of routes helping you out. If you get spotted in the lobby, you can climb into the luggage scanning room. Every guard will then attempt to pathfind to the luggage scanning room. You can exploit this by jumping back into the lobby or going to the walkway above the luggage scanning room, climbing onto that and using the pipes above it to move to safety or hide. The luggage room is a great area to use the Sleep Grenades since its so tight so alerted guards will crowd it to try shooting at you. Or if you're spotted outside, you can rush the garage entrance and climb into the Luggage Area, or break line of sight and climb up to the second floor. That's the biggest strength of this map. The embassy gives you lots of routes, places to climb and rooms that are isolated for enemies allowing you to shake them off. It's not foolproof as you can get shot to death if not careful but it is still a fun map. Even the road and ruins area aren't too bad on earlier waves as the amount of cover can let you take the initiative and stealthily go after some enemies that are patrolling outside despite the mission being set during the daytime. The ruins have balconies and walkways you climb onto and use for takedowns or quickly enter/exit the area.

 

The main cons of this map is that many windows are permanently boarded up for some reason. For example, that eastern staircase I mentioned that connects the lobby and upper floor with the pipe that's fantastic for getting takedowns? It has windows that would connect to the outside similar to the windows in the upper floor western room. But those windows are boarded up. Having those be open would add so much by giving you a more convenient way to get in and out of that area which ends up being sorely missed in higher ways when more of your routes are covered and you need to use higher ground/ledges as much as possible to even stand a chance. I also wish there was a zipline on the Western side that lets you zoom from the Embassy to the ruins and bypasses the road area as another option. As well as pipes and ways to connect the blocked Western entrance to the upper floor from the inside safely.

If the map had these, it would be an S tier easily. But as it currently stands, I could even make the argument for it being in B+ tier.

 

C Tier (The map is passable but has potential to easily be better with some improvements): Russian Embassy

 

Out of all the maps in the game, this one feels the closest to what a stereotypical Splinter Cell level would look like. It's the only map that's set at night and actually feels like it (Sorry Swiss Embassy). The Embassy itself looks more like a high tech spy building than an embassy.

 

You spawn in the southern edge of the map in a parking lot with enough cars that it is feasible to go out and hunt down a few isolated enemies. The embassy in front of you has a main entrance. An alley to its eastern side that lets you move behind the embassy and towards the back gardens. This alley has stairs to get to the roof off the embassy. The gardens have a fair amount of cover and even a zipline from the embassy rooftop to cross a bit of it. Returning to the parking lot spawn, if you go towards a 10 o'clock direction, left of the main entrance, there's a wall that separates the parking lot from another alley that connects to a few of the embassy's rooms and a path to the gardens. The wall also houses a walkway that provides another path to the rooftop, a window to enter the embassy and stairs that lead down to that alley. The rooftop is also covered in pipes for cover that give you plenty of spots to take out enemies from. The inside of the embassy consists of tight rooms with plenty of cover.

 

Pros: I love how atmospheric this map looks being set at night, with rain/lightning. Enemies are wearing goggles that make them look like Soldier 76. The verticality and separation points on this map are pretty good. When I got spotted, it wasn't impossible to quickly climb the main building. Enemies would try pathfinding up there like in the Pakistani embassy which gave me a chance to give them the slip. The high amount of cover also makes it easier to sneak up on enemies. This also would be a fun Call of Duty Map.

 

Cons: The biggest I issue is funnily enough, the inside of the embassy. There are only 3 safe entrances, the front (and the windows on the front), the back and the western side. There is a laser grid and windows for a collectible you can use to enter/exit which triggers an alarm that draws in every guard (which has its uses).  But most other windows on this map are boarded up. This makes actually going inside the embassy too risky since it's easy to get trapped. The only times I went inside were to KO a few stragglers or when I was forced in because every other way was too dangerous.

 

Another issue us that the rooftops don't actually give you a full view of the map. The north western side of the rooftop has this massive structure that blocks your view and movement. The map is also too large I feel. You can trim down a good chunk of the Garden area. The Pakistani Embassy was perfectly fine with just the roads and ruins as additional areas.

 

In terms of improvements, I feel this map is capable of reaching S tier. Firstly, open up more of the windows so it's easier to get in and out of the embassy especially from the rooftop. I would add in a skylight or something as well. So now the player has more of a reason and its convenient to move back and forth from the embassy. As well as multiple escape routes.

 

D tier (The map has potential and could be salvaged or improved slightly but its current design makes it a pain to play): Swiss Embassy.

 

This map looks fun for the first few waves but quickly shows its true colours. The setup is interesting. You start in a larger foyer area with columns around you. There's a balcony that houses a collectible which you can use a barely useful sniper shot and safe spot for dogs and drones. The foyer's northern side connects to a hallway. The foyer's western side has a door that leads up stairs to another upper floor hallway that overlooks the ground floor one. The ground floor hallway leads to an area with a walkway above you that you can access with stairs on the right side. The upper floor hallway also connects to the walkway. Past the walkway, there's doors and stairs that connect the upper and ground floor hallway. There also also a few side rooms and windows you can jump into in a pinch.

 

The pros: This map looks so cool. I like the idea of the walkways and upper/lower floors encircling the map. This map would be really fun as a Call of Duty Multiplayer Map honestly. You have wide open areas for shooting, balconies and walkways for varied elevation. Add in a few ladders and it would be a blast.

 

Sidenote but this barely even looks like an embassy. It reminds me more of a giant train/metro station lol.

 

Cons: The first major issue with this map is how disconnected all the ledges, pipes and routes are. In the foyer, there are pillars/ columns you can climb..... and that's it. You can't full encircle them because there's a lamp that blocks your way. You can't side or back eject like in classic Assassin's Creed to move between columns. When you climb this column, you can't even use them to properly turn around and shoot enemies from a vantage point. They often serve better as emergency hiding spots.

 

This idea of disconnected routes extends throughout the map. You can't circumnavigate the ground floor hallway by handing from the ledge of the upper hallway because there are obstacles. There are no ledges on the right side of the ground hallway. In the staircase on the west side of the foyer, there is a pipe you can use to climb above the doorway and ledges that lead around the stairs but these don't connect so the pipes feel useless to use. The worst are the stairs at the back side of the map. There is a pipe that goes over the walkway but in order to access it, you need to climb the columns surrounding the walkway. So if you are on the walkway and want to get on the pipe above you, you need to drop down the walkway to the ground floor hallway below, then move forward and climb the column, climb the pipe on the column and then position yourself to where you were on the walkway.

 

The map is also lit up like crazy. It may be set at night but it feels brighter than many actual daytime levels in this game. Areas like the foyer and hallways can easily become deathtraps when you're spotted as there is minimal cover, few rooms to lose enemies and super easy to get cornered/trapped. Later rounds had me exploiting the collectible safe balcony far more than I would have liked.

 

The first improvement I'd suggest is just make the hallway entirely circumnavigatable while hanging. The player's movement and sightlines are already limited enough as it is so giving players the means of actually moving back and forth would be invaluable. Have wires going from the columns to the walls so the player can hang from the columns in the foyer and shimmy from there to the walkway pipe without needing to even touch the floor. I'd even go a step further and add another upper floor walkway/hallway to the right side of the ground floor that can't be accessed by enemies quickly to give the player an escape route. I'd also add stuff like a long bench that cuts through the ground floor hallway to give the player something they can use to sneak along the ground floor without being as exposed.

 

I feel all this would bump this map up to B tier. It would still be hurt by how open the map is compared to the Pakistani one but it would be more fun to play with.

 

 

F Tier (This map is unsalvageable in it current form ): Egyptian Embassy

 This one is just painful and the only one I didn't bother to play past the first 5 waves. It completely misses the design of the better embassies. 

Lets start with the layout. You spawn in the southern side of the map. Above you is a walkway that gives you a great view of most of the map. To your left is an enclosed wooden staircase you can use to break line of sight and climb up to the walkway. The first area to the north of you is a mess of wrecked cars that reminds me of the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 2022 map Border with more open areas to the left and right. To the north of that is the Embassy which consists of a balcony 1 story up with stairs on either side.

 

The eastern side of the map has scaffolding you can use to climb up to walkways that connect to the main walkway from earlier.  The map is also quite small and almost circular shaped. And it's possible to circumnavigate around 70% of the perimeter of the map without being on ground level as the edges of the map have ledges/wires you can use to move from the scaffolding from the 4 o'clock position all the way around to the  12.5 o'clock position of the map if you look at it from the top down.

 

That's unfortunately where all my praises end for the map. The negatives drag it down. For starters, this map is 95% in the open. Aside from the enclosed wooden staircase at the 7 o'clock position (from the centre of the map) and the dead end room at the 12 o'clock position (and also the secret collectible room that doesn't overlook anything), there are no rooms or buildings you can use. The map seems to intend you to use the cars for cover when approaching anything on foot, the ledges and wires for circumnavigation and the southern walkways to quickly climb to break line of sight and escape. This isn't ideal because the layout (and the fact the map is set during daytime) makes it hard to even approach enemies safely. I wished when playing this map that I had the Octocamo from Metal Gear Solid 4 as that would have given me a better way to hide and approach enemies and I could crawl.

 

When you get spotted, you have no easy way to lose pursuers. Running through the scrapped cars doesn't help because needing to zig zag through cars means you can't put much distance when trying to escape guards. The lack of rooms means you can't quickly break line of sight and then have options to move elsewhere based on the guards' pathfinding. 

The map being open means even climbing is dangerous as you're entirely exposed as enemies shoot at you. Even the circumnavigation isn't ideal because enemies can spot you from balconies/walkways and you have no safe places to escape to. Dropping down returns you to the car scrapyard and all the worries that entails. Continuing circumnavigating isn't ideal because you're an open target. There really isn't much to help you out here. And when the waves throw snipers and HVTs you have to capture under a time limit, then you have no options aside from just brute forcing quickscopes and using your grenades to quickly take down guards and hope the RNG was in your favour. I'm glad I didn't play until dogs and drones spawned because those would have been nightmarish on this map.

 

Being generous, this map could work as a Batman Arkham Predator Map. Place a few gargoyles and its suitable for Batman to glide and grapple around. I can see it working for Batman gliding next to cars and using them for a few stealth takedowns and grappling away. Or as a mode in Metal Gear Solid 4. But it doesn't work for Blacklist. I spent quite a while thinking of minor additions that could improve the map. My first idea (besides setting this map at night for some small aid) was actually allowing players to circumnavigate it. Which helps but doesn't solve the problem what happens when enemies spot you. The next idea was cording off entire sections of the map. For example, the Eastern/3 O' Clock position could be separated by a line of cars and maybe a barricade/checkpoint setup that Sam can jump over but enemies need to pathfind around using the massive scaffolding to give the player 10-ish seconds to hide after jumping over similar to the Blocked Entrance in the Pakistani Embassy. Do a similar thing for the Western side as well. Also have more wires criss-crossing towards the centre of the map to allow the player more aerial takedown opportunities. You could also have a few watchtowers dotted around connected by wires and only accessible via a ladder to keep the player safe from drones and dogs. You could also have the Collectible Laptop room connected to the balcony above it to give the player another escape route and way to move between the balcony and ground floor safely.

 

All this could possible bump this map to D tier. But ultimately this map being an open outdoor map constrains it too much and requires so much reworking to even be passable that it would end up becoming a different map altogether.

 

In closing, what have we learned so far from this? Ignoring whether these kinds of missions make sense for a Splinter Cell game, I feel the Embassy/Charlie's missions have potential as a replayable series of Predator challenges. I remember Conviction had Deniable Ops. A series of missions set in large maps that tasked you to take out a number of enemies per section of a level with more enemies spawning if the player got spotted. I remember this being some of the most fun stealth gameplay in Conviction (not a huge bar but still). I feel Blacklist's Embassy missions had potential in being the most replayable stealth missions. The kind I could just pop in and play on a whim if I just wanted something to play in the future. The Pakistani Embassy is the best one and its pros of a more open ended map with plenty of exits, windows and isolated rooms with elevated entrances to throw off pursuers are fun. While stuff like the Swiss and Egyptian Embassy show how not to do it. If we ever do get a new Splinter Cell game in this style (as opposed to the classic SC games), I'd be looking forward to seeing if these missions reappear and if they are improved.

 

 

 

 

 

I platinummed God of War 3 on PS3

 Hello everyone. I recently platinummed the PS3 version of God of War 3 (my second PS3 platinum) and I wanted to talk about it. I found my old PS3 and my 2015 save file and saw I already had most of the trophies and decided to go for the platinum.

 

Overall, this is a pretty straightforward if somewhat challenging platinum. Similar to past GOWs, most of the trophies come from completing the story, finding all the collectibles and doing a couple challenges along the way (although most are missable so you have to look out for it). You can even platinum this game in 1 playthrough.

 

There's a trophy for finding all 10 Godly Possessions ("Priceless - Collect all of the ‘Godly Possessions’ ") . 2015 me already found 9/10. I missed Hephaestus' Ring. These collectibles are usually close to the God or Boss you fight and aren't super out of the way. The other collectible trophies: "Feather Plucker - Collect all of the Phoenix Feathers", "Are You Horny to Win? - Collect all of the Minotaur Horns " and "Eye Candy - Collect all of the Gorgon Eyes" throw you a bone as even though you need 12 of each of these 3 to both get the trophy and max out magic, item and health respectively, the game has multiple redundant chests for these (like its predecessors) so you can miss a few chests and still max these out. If anything, GOW3 feels the most generous of the classic Greek GOW games in this regard. 2015 me managed to find all the Feathers and Horns and most Gorgon Eyes. Compare this to GOW1 and 2 where I felt like I barely got 50% of the collectibles on my first run and GOW Chains and Ghost of Sparta where I got around 60-ish percent.

 

There are also trophies for grinding or using your tools a lot such as "Nice Tan - Blind 100 enemies with the Head of Helios" and "It’s getting hot in here... - Burn 100 enemies with the Bow of Apollo". Not too hard to do and there are a few places that spawn infinite enemies you can use to grind if you want. I personally just used the bow and head as much as soon as I got them to get these ones over with as soon as I could.

 

"Hit Man - Perform a 1000-hit combo" was a tricky one. There aren't many places to farm this. The only 2 places I know are the Skorpius boss fight where once you break its armour and stun it, you can keep hitting it with the Nemesis Whip to wrack up the 1000 hit count. Or use the section in Tartarus where you get jumped by 12 skeletons and use an unupgraded Claws of Hades L1 + O attack behind some pillars the enemies can't reach you to get these weak floating skulls to attack your enemies. On Titan difficulty, the enemies have so much health and the Claws so weak that I could get to 1000 hits and none of the enemies even died. I chose this one as it felt safer.

 

The hardest trophy is arguably "Unhuman - Beat Titan Mode". Titan is GOW3's hard difficulty mode.

 

Bit of a tangent but I always liked that that the first 3 GOWs hardest difficulty modes corresponded to the factions Kratos was aligned with at the time and changed per game. GOW1 had Mortal (Easy), Hero (Normal), Spartan (Hard) and God (Very Hard) since Kratos was in service to the Gods. In GOW2, it went Mortal (Easy), Spartan (Normal), God (Hard) and Titan (Very Hard) since Kratos was now working with the Titans. And in GOW3 it goes Spartan (Easy), God (Normal), Titan (Hard) and Chaos (Very Hard) since now Kratos is working on his own and causing the apocalypse.

 

I am glad that GOW3 only asks you to play on Titan (Hard) mode for the platinum. The jump from normal mode to hard is intense. Enemies deal more damage and have more health. Even basic legionnaires can take sizable chunks out of your health. Tougher enemies hits can tear off 80 points off your health bar minimum (for reference, 100 points is how much health you have at the start of the game) with their heavier attacks doing more.

 

The end result is that almost every combat encounter with anything greater than basic legionnaires becomes more tense and memorable as its easy for mistakes to snowball. Armoured Legionaries for example, can't easily be grabbed, come in packs and do a variety of attacks. Not too challenging to deal with on their own but mixed with other enemy types like Satyrs or shielded enemies, they can form a team that can throw off your rhythm and leave you open for attack. I died quite a lot in fights with mixed enemy groups involving foes I couldn't easily grab. I had to really learn enemy attack patterns, get more comfortable with parrying, get better at resource management so I could use magic attacks at the right moment or to get me out of a tricky spot. As well as learning more about how the GOW3 combat system worked. Shout out to ExtremeGameplays GOW Combat Guide to teach me a few tricks.

 

GOW3 takes away a few of the "tools" I used in GOW2 to make my life easier. It reworks how enemy throws and collisions work. In GOW1 and 2, throwing enemies into each other did bonus damage depending on your difficulty. Throwing a weak enemy into another on Easy barely did any damage. But throwing a weak enemy into another on Hard melted enemy health bars. GOW3 removes this feature. Now thrown enemies deal a flat 10 points of damage to each other no matter what and on what difficulty. The game does sorta make up for it with Kratos' new grab and battering ram move where he grabs an enemy and rams them into other enemies which can work in a pinch but only deals 50 damage max in the best case. Still, in cases where there are a lot of basic legionnaires, such as Hercules' boss fight, it can still trivialize most encounters.

 

The other ability GOW3 takes away is "tricking" or "i-frames on certain moves". In GOW2, quickly equipping Typhoon's Bane or Euryale's Head made Kratos phase through attacks for a second. I exploited this to let me phase through enemies and keep attacking without needing to dodge, roll or parry as the timing was a lot more generous. GOW3 doesn't have that so now, I gotta parry and dodge better.

 

However, GOW3's hard mode does feel more manageable than GOW1 and 2 (those were beyond brutal). I could get through most fights after multiple attempts and learning how it worked and by saving all my magic and rage powers for near the end to quickly end the remaining amount of health. The hardest fight by far was the Cerberus fight near the end of the game. This one was rough. Cerberus moves and attacks quickly. His ranged and melee attacks seem difficult if not impossible to parry. He's surrounded by exploding hellhounds that damage you. I tried kicking the dogs at Cerberus which felt unreliable. Later phases summon Satyrs who can move quickly and tear huge chunks off your health. Most of my deaths happened quickly as I'd mess up, get hit which set me up to get hit by something else which took most of my health. My approach ended up double jumping above the enemy, doing a single L1 + Triangle Attack and air dashing away and repeating as the safest way to damage Cerberus and then getting out danger range. Even then, it felt like I took close to 30 tries on this one fight. I'm just saying, if Zeus wanted to stop Kratos, he should have just sent multiple Cerberus after him.

 

I remember seeing a lot of talk online about Zeus being a nightmare on Titan mode. And he can be but there are ways to manage him. His first phase is a 2D Street Fighter-Eqsue encounter. The trick here is parrying and the Nemian Cestus L1 + O attack and blocking. Zeus has a 3 hit melee combo where he does an overhead punch with a long wind up I could parry around 70% of the time. He follows up this punch with a quick jab I could parry 90% of the time (it was easier since it was so quick after the first punch that by the time I stopped blocking and started blocking again, it was usually enough to count as a parry) and a 3rd attack which is a thunderclap that cannot be blocked or parried and must be avoided. Getting a parry here interrupts his attack string and lets you get several free hits on him.

 

His other attacks in this phase such as jumping and shooting lighting can be easily interrupted by attacking him or using L1 + O with the Cetsus to smack him and end the attack early. His final attack of lightning on the ground can be blocked and he usually follows that with his melee combo string. If he ever blocks, I used the Cetsus L1 + O move to break his block. Once I got the pattern down, I was able to complete his phase 1 with at least 80% of my max health intact.

 

Phase 3 inside Gaia's heart is a doozy.  The gimmick here is that Zeus becomes more aggressive as you attack him, spawning more clones that can overwhelm you easily. As well as periodically being able to heal off the damage you dealt him by healing off Gaia's heart. The trick here is to avoid being "too aggressive". Here, the saviour is the Nemian Cestus' L1 + O move. It doesn't count as being aggressive for some reason. So you can chain L1 + O moves to slowly whittle down Zeus' health and he rarely spawns more than 1 clone and repeats the same basic moves you can learn and avoid. Periodically punching Gaia's heart to get the healing instead and parrying/reflecting back Zeus' lighting blasts back at him. It's a long battle of attrition as I suspect the L1 + O move doesn't do a crazy amount of damage. But this slow and steady strat guarantees victory after a really long fight. All this for the "Unhuman" Trophy.

 

There is an exploit to make this easier. Supposedly, if you go the combat arena, set your health, magic and item power to infinite, set the difficulty to Titan, die several times until the game asks if you want to lower the difficulty, refuse and quit out, then start a new playthrough, the game carries your maxed out character with the infinite stats into this new playthrough. And you can cheese the 3 Judges to sequence break the game. I didn't try this out since I needed to find all the collectibles and beat the Labyrinth for the platinum but supposedly, it still works on both the original PS3 version and the PS4 remastered version.

 

Speaking of which, another challenging trophy is "aMAZEd - Beat the Labyrinth without dying or failing" The Labyrinth is a long and challenging section near the end of the game where Kratos has to solve some puzzles and deal with enemies while facing environmental traps or is on a timer. It's very easy to fail especially in the spikes room. I died close to 27 times or so. It would be painful to restart the entire sequence from scratch every time....... but there is a way around it. When you die, the game gives you the option to reload the last checkpoint, which voids the trophy, or quit to the main menu. If you quit to the main menu, you can load the autosave for the most recent checkpoint which doesn't count as a death. And I exploited the hell out of this lmao. I am not doing this legit on Titan difficulty!

 

The final trophy I earned was "Up to the Challenge - Beat the Challenge of Olympus". Like in previous GOW games, GOW3 gives you 7 bonus challenges to do after beating the game. The first was "Population Control - You have 50 seconds to make sure that no more than 50 skeletons are spawned at a time". Not too bad. Just spam the Cetsus and it shreds the enemies. "Bare Hands - Defeat all enemies without any weapons in less than a minute". The challenge has 2 statue enemies and one cyclops as well as a lot of skeletons. The goal here is to grab skeletons and use the battering ram move to damage them since Kratos doesn't have any other unarmed attacks. The time limit here is very tight and any slight mistakes can cost you the attempt. The main trick is to avoid the QTE execution move with O when the enemies' health gets low as that costs too much time. You're better off just ramming them more and killing them quicker and even damaging other enemies along the way. This one took a lot of attempts.

 

The 3rd challenge is "Get Stoned". You have to let the Gorgon turn you into stone 10 times and thankfully there is no time limit. The trick here is to go against every instinct you have as a GOW3 player. If you stand still to let the Gorgon petrify you, it takes a really long time and isn't even guaranteed to happen. You have to press O to attempt to grab a Gorgon which will fail and force them to immediately try to petrify you, then press L1 to attempt to reflect it, then intentionally fail the QTE to instantly get petrified then break out. The main issue here is luck as the game starts spawning Satyrs and Cyclopes that can one shot you in a petrified state, ending the attempt. This one took a long time and a lot of restarts.

 

The 4th challenge is "El Matador - Olé - Don't get gored by minotaurs and don't get piled upon by skeletons. No Time limit". This one also took a while. If a single minotaur hits you with their charging attack (even if you block it) or if a single skeleton grabs you, it's over. The strat I found was positioning myself to let the Minotaurs either fall off the stage or letting me do a L1 + O with the Blades of Exile to knock them off. And doing an airborne L1 + Triangle to clear out some of the skeletons gathered beneath me. You have the Rage of Sparta which seemingly renders you immune to getting gored or grabbed. I used it in the final wave to clear out most of the enemies and make my life easier. I still choked a lot in this final stage which was embarrassing.

 

 The 5th challenge was "Knockout - Ring out enemies to earn 1000 points. Sentries are worth 15 points. Minotaurs are worth 30 points and Wraiths are worth 60 points. You have 60 seconds". The game starts out summoning a cyclops you have to weaken enough to be able to ride which summons all the enemies for you to start knocking out. I only failed this twice. The trick here is to rush down the Cyclops as soon as you can so you have as much time as possible for the ring outs. I took too long on that. 

 

The 6th challenge was "Hades' Kids". Here, you have 60 seconds to kill 5 Cyclops with more Cyclops spawning as you kill them. The challenge being the large number of Cyclopes can make it harder to get in to hit them. The trick is do the full Square combo plus triangle at the end to try killing them as fast as possible and skipping the low health QTE execution to save time. This one took me 3 attempts.

 

 The 7th and final challenge was "Simply Smashing". You have 20 seconds to destroy 30 urns. The Time limit is strict. The best strat is to use just the first square attack and not any more moves as those burn too much time. The spawns for the urns are static so you can eventually optimize the run for the win. This one took 4 attempts.

 

So yeah, overall, a really fun game to Platinum. I feel it's reasonable to get the platinum in under 10 hours start to finish. The combat and challenges were really fun and engaging. Most of the more difficult ones had some strat to help me out and it was cool to learn more about the game to succeed. I recommend trying this one out.

 

As for the game itself, I love GOW3. It may be my favourite GOW game. I do feel there are aspects the other GOW games do better but GOW3, overall, does the most things right.

 

For example, one of the things I loved about GOW1 was the "world design". The majority of GOW1 is set in Athens with the player crossing some areas multiple times but the game tries to make these revisits feel more novel. For example, there's a floor with an ornate decoration. It's striking but otherwise unremarkable. But later, you open a stairway that leads you back to the area. It feels like a Dark Souls 1 style shortcut but in a linear game. You may not be able to use these "shortcuts" to manually explore the world on your own but it helps so much in making Athens feel like a bigger world with its own shortcuts and paths. It makes you feel like this is a Dark Souls 1-like world that Kratos is exploring but the player is experiencing only a part of. It's a similar case with Pandora's Temple with the player revisiting previous areas that open up new ones. The game's fixed camera angle also helps guide players to the right paths. The game also foreshadows elements through its environment. For example, the giant sword you cross as a bridge comes up in the final fight against Ares.

GOW2, Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta on the other hand, do this less often since those games are typically longer journeys from A to B rather than exploring a singular location. Kratos for example, doesn't have much reason to revisit the area close to the Steeds of Time nor is there as much environmental foreshadowing. Not a knock against those games. You kinda need a more "A to B" based game to work like this.

GOW3 operates a bit more like  GOW1. Kratos revisits places like the entrance to Hades, Hephaestus' workshop, Aphrodite's room, the Chamber of the Flame, the Chains of Balance and these areas are flagged and foreshadowed. It's cool to see the chains in the first 15 minutes of the game, and then be climbing them several hours later. However, the use of Portals and the sometimes homogeneous visuals (especially in Hades) hurt the variety. Show me a screenshot from GOW1 and I can usually make a pretty good guess where in the game this is and what the rough plot progression is at that point. Show me a screenshot from GOW3 and I'd have a tougher time. But for what it's worth, the environments in GOW3 are beautiful and detailed and cool enough to be impressive in the moment.

 

I'd be remiss not to talk about the visuals. I remember as a kid, playing GOW3 and Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands at the same time on my PS3. Both games open with a really cool CGI cutscene. But when both games transitioned back to in-engine, only GOW3 looked as good. GOW3 was the first game I ever played where I felt like we reached photo-realism. Kratos on the main menu screen looks so detailed. You can see every pore and wrinkle on his skin and this is maintained into the game. This even helps the storytelling as you can read emotions on Kratos' face that would have been harder to render on the PS2. For example, Kratos slight eyebrow raise at Hercules or his twitch when Hephaestus tries to appeal to Kratos' feelings as a father. The sense of scale is fantastic. Stuff like Kratos fighting on top of moving Titans truly looks and feels epic in every sense of the word. GOW3 is the kind of game that feels like it could have been released as an early PS4 game as is and people wouldn't have felt like it looked like a PS3 game.

 

The visuals also help sell the violent appeal of GOW games. The executions feel more gory and visceral. Kratos ripping out a Cyclops eye in GOW2 was fine. But Kratos doing the same in GOW3, when you can see the optic nerve and Kratos getting showered in realistic looking blood and it sticking, it hits harder. To the point I even started feeling sorry for the poor monsters and enemies in Kratos' way. (Which is kinda the point but more on this later).

 

This was actually a complaint I had with GOW2018. The game tones down a lot of the violence and gore with only the werewolf execution coming close. There's a point when Baldur impales Kratos in the hip into a wall with a large stone and there's no blood. Even ignoring the spectacle argument, it also weakens the power of the moment. Seeing Kratos angrily do a violent execution (especially to protect Atreus) would help in reinforcing the idea that this guy can go hardcore and still has monstrous tendencies. Or showing Kratos in a rough spot where a particularly rough fight leaves him covered in blood and requiring him to use his Wolverine-like healing factor after the fact.

 

 

One odd thing  I want to highlight is the way the game saves. In past GOW games, you'd step into the beam of light, the game would give you a GOW themed save screen and you'd be on your way. In the PS3 version of GOW3, it uses the PS3 save menu and takes ~45 seconds to do a save. The game goes quiet and uses the PS3 sounds which..... feels so ..... haunting? Quiet? lonely? unsettling? It's hard to describe. You go from the generally loud and bombastic soundscape of the game to this extremely quiet respite. It often made me reflect the stuff I just played and despite not fitting the theme the way the PS2 GOWs save menu did, I think I prefer the way GOW3 does it just for that brief unsettling serenity and respite from the action. I remember having a similar feeling when I played the PS3 versions of Dead Space 1 and 2 but not the PS5 remake Dead Space 1. I guess there's something about the PS3 save menu that's unusually haunting?

 

-The Combat:

 GOW3 retains the same combat system as its predecessors (you even start the game with the same combos and moves from GOW2) but generally builds and improves on it in almost every way without taking out or compromising the system (sorry GOW: Ascension). The main change are the new "Blades of Exile" Kratos gets as his main primary weapon which give you generally faster and safer versions of moves from past GOWs. For example, the L1+ Square move from GOW2 was really long and powerful but made you quite exposed. GOW3's L1+Square gives you a quicker version initially you can optionally extend if you want. Same for how you can hold L1+ Triangle to extend/charge the move.

 

The biggest Blades of Exile addition is the L1 + O also known as the Hyperion's Ram. This move has Kratos grapple into his opponents from range with a shoulder tackle that can stun and knockback enemies and get in close to resume combat. I love this move as it helps keep the flow going while giving you a safer move to use in more tricky situations. And it even gets some millage in platforming sections by letting you jump between flying Harpies. The game also ties magic attacks to the weapon you have equipped. The Blades of Exile give you arguably the best magic attack in the game with the "Army of Sparta" letting Kratos summon a Spartan Shield and Spear Formation to surround him and bombard enemies with arrows. I got a lot of use out of this to use its I-frames to avoid attacks while wrecking an area.

 

The game gives you 3 other weapons you can switch with the D-Pad or using L1+X to switch and do an attack simultaneously. The first is The Claws of Hades which have wider attacks and uses Magic to summon spirits of enemies that do an attack before leaving. The animations of this weapon are cool (and its L1+O attack helped me get the 1000 hits for the "Hitman" trophy) but I didn't rely on this weapon a lot. What's more disappointing is its magic attack. You can go in the pause menu and choose which Spirit you want to summon but most summons aren't particularly useful. Some like the Centaur do have merit in sending in a charging Centaur that can send enemies flying and cause ring-outs. But the most disappointing is the Gorgon Spirit that acts as this game's replacement of Medusa's Head from the previous GOW games. You press R2 and the Gorgon Spirit shows up, takes a huge chunk of your magic, fires a small beam that may not even freeze an enemy and then leaves. I would have used this magic summon way more if the magic cost was lowered and I could hold R2 to extend the beam longer to petrify and destroy enemies.

 

The next weapon is the Nemesis Whip which has incredibly fast attacks that are great for launching and stunning enemies. You can hold Square or Triangle at the end of certain attacks to have Kratos spin the weapon to keep damaging opponents. Its magic attack works like Chronos' Rage from GOW2. I liked this one.

 

The final weapon you get are the Nemian Cetsus. Giant Close range gauntlets that do absurd damage to enemies and can melt them really quickly. You wanna do some crazy DPS? These are the tools for the job. They're so fun to use with attacks having a satisfying crunch and screenshake. It really makes you feel all powerful. These were the weapons I used to take down Zeus. Its L1 + O lets me yo-yo him. The combos are fast, often launch enemies and have nice AoE properties. Their biggest downside is their R2 Magic Attack which releases a massive shockwave. This attack is nerfed on higher difficulties so you're better off switching to the Blades of Exile if you want a decent Magic attack on the harder difficulties.

 

I remember the biggest complaint from GOW3 at the time was that you essentially only have 2 different weapons. The Cetsus and 3 flavours of the Blades of Exile. I won't dispute that but I feel even though the Blades and Cetsus cover pretty much all the niches in the game and can be all you need, all the weapons at least feel fun to use and don't take away your options in order to accommodate them. Its cool to switch between all of them mid combo. Something less feasible in GOW1 (which required a brief pause to switch weapons) or GOW2 (which required you to go into the pause menu to swap weapons).

 

GOW3 also introduces sub-weapons that have their own separate meter now. The first is The Bow of Apollo which fires rapid arrows or a charged fire arrow. You can use it in a way to deal chip damage and keep your combo going akin to Ebony and Ivory from the DMC games but the raw DPS of the Bow is actually quite good and can potentially melt enemies from a distance so don't sleep on this. It even gets use in some puzzle/environmental sections by letting to ignite traps from afar.

 

 The other Sub-weapons don't feel as useful. Helios' Severed Head lets you blind enemies but is rather cumbersome to use in combat as enemies aren't stunned for long and it takes precious time to charge it. Most of its use comes as an environmental/puzzle item to light up dark areas and reveal secrets. I do wish there was a way to incorporate its full flash into regular combat. For example, if you do a parry + L1 + triangle, you can instantly do a full flash that blinds the room which can help when you're surrounded. I also feel the flash would have been more useful if it worked like the Concussion Detonator from the Arkham Games where stunned enemies awkwardly flail around and become hazards rather than targeting you as it could be a way to get a room of enemies off your back temporarily without completely trivializing them.

 

The last sub-weapon are Hermes' boots which let you do a dash attack on the ground and do a much more useful air-dash. They also let you dash up certain highlighted walls. These were the most disappointing as they don't really offer an interesting niche (aside from the air dash. That's amazing to have).  The ground dash knocks some enemies up. Outside of combat, they feel more like a key to navigate the environment. There's no platforming or timing challenges of doing wallruns/jumps like in a Prince of Persia game. Could have been interesting to have a GOW: Ghost of Sparta like running tackle/grab move with these. Or Prince of Persia Warriour Within style wallrun attacks where you can run up a wall and incorporate that into combat.

 

GOW3 also has a Rage/Devil Trigger mode called "Rage of Sparta". Activating this also makes your weapon the Blade of Olympus. This state initially feels powerful as Kratos zips along the battlefield and uses souped up versions of Blade of Olympus attacks from GOW2. But I didn't enjoy this state as much. It doesn't work as well as a "panic mode/final phase" move like in GOW1 and 2 because Kratos isn't entirely immune to damage. Damage is only significantly reduced. It also seems to run out really quickly and the movement can be tricky to control. GOW2 also had a cool feature where if you try blocking in its Rage mode, it would use your Hit counter to fuel a powerful AoE explosion that would last as depending on your hit counter. GOW3 doesn't really have any kind of "final attack" move here. One Idea I always had was if you parried enemies in this state, it gives you some Rage back, extending how long you could be in this mode and rewarding players for making even more skillfull use of this. As it stands, the Rage mode is useful but as good as GOW2's version.

 

I will also complain that GOW3 lacks a NG+ mode like its predecessors and that using alternate costumes and artifacts you unlock voids trophies! 😤 . Why? GOW1 and 2 didn't do that! Let me mess around using my unlocks in NG+ and get some trophies! I also only got 1 costume for beating the game: Fear Kratos. What happened to the joke costumes from past GOWs? I take it back. GOW3 is the worst GOW ever!

 

-The Story:

 

I enjoyed the story of GOW3. The main highlight are the individual Gods and Titans Kratos deals with. They tend to have a decent buildup and spectacle in their encounters that makes them memorable and distinct from one another. You have the opening with Poseidon which, aside from being a spectacle on a massive scale as you're fighting him while being a small speck on Gaia.  Followed by the brutal First Person POV from Poseidon as you see how terrifying Kratos can be. Hades is a bit of a misstep in presentation as he doesn't do much creative such as summoning the spirits of Lysandre and Calliope to mess with Kratos, but the actual fight as a more typical "small Kratos vs a large foe" was just really fun to play. You had Hermes taunting Kratos and Kratos using that against him by sucker punching him with a catapult. The whole section with Chronos where he's the entire level and you move from around onto him. It's all great.

 

But the standout isn't just the cool spectacle but also the emotional arc of Kratos. In GOW1, Kratos, at his best, was a sympathetic anti-hero/tweener. He does some brutal messed up stuff but you sympathize with him given what he's been through and the fact he's ultimately motivated more by his trauma and grief than his anger. Kratos attempts suicide when he learns the Gods can't cure his nightmares. GOW2 has Kratos begin his heel turn where he turns this grief and trauma into anger for the Gods. It starts out in a such a way where you're rooting for Kratos since it appears he got screwed over by the Gods. But step back and realize he was doing the same kind of stuff that justified killing Ares in GOW1. The Gods aren't exactly in the wrong here. The story shows that Kratos' anger against the Gods is as much as a product of manipulation as it is Kratos' misguided attempt to live with his trauma. When the Last Spartan dies in GOW2, Kratos loses all hope and doesn't resist almost getting eaten by the Kraken until Gaia steps in and motivates Kratos.

 

GOW3 is the culmination of that. Kratos is now fully heel. Dude is a bigger threat than any of the Gods. You play as the supervillain here. You play as the Hulk that Bruce Banner lost any and all control on. Every God he kills results in some consequence that only further destroys the planet. Killing Poseidon floods the planet. Killing Hades means souls are now lost in the underworld so death isn't even an escape from the madness. Killing Hermes and Hera kills all plant life and causes widespread disease so any survivors don't even have much hope. The game isn't subtle about the fact that Kratos' quest for revenge isn't noble or justified anymore. Kratos doesn't have any noble motivations of "well the Gods are corrupt and killing them will make things better". Kratos quest for revenge is a misguided projection of his own failures because "it's all he has left". It's literally the "Men will destroy the planet instead of going to therapy" meme. And it works. It's Kratos' rock bottom before he finally becomes a babyface in GOW2018 (and faces the consequences of his past later).

 

Pandora's role is to show that despite everything, Kratos does have a heart somewhere. His desire for revenge (as a way to deal with his trauma) conflicts with his desire to protect Pandora (likely as penance for his failure with Calliope). It's the one thing that makes Kratos (who casually kills everyone he comes across without batting an eye if it makes his journey even slightly easier) reconsider revenge. And its Pandora's death that Kratos brings up in the end as a "I got my revenge, but what does it matter? Pandora is dead". And this is why I am so mixed on the ending.

 

On the one hand, I like the ending. It thematically works. Kratos learns that there is no magic power to cure his trauma nor can it ever be 100% solved. It requires serious self-reflection, personal effort, time and therapy to even begin to move on, forgive yourself and grow. Kratos had the power of hope all along. The literal and metaphoric power to kill Gods but also the power to never have needed to kill them in the first place to deal with his problems. It adds to the tragedy that Kratos had to learn that the hard way. It's also heavily implied that Athena was manipulating Kratos the whole time during GOW3 to kill the Olympians so she could step in and take over once they were all dead, using Kratos as a pawn so even his revenge was him being manipulated. Kratos choosing to stab himself, while almost certainly not enough to take him off Santa's Naughty List, is arguably the first time in his life (or at least in a long time) that Kratos defies the Gods in a way that's actually selfless. He is no longer a pawn and does something noble. Setting the stage for his arc in GOW2018.

 

I will complain that the dialogue however..... is definitely too cheesy. I like to joke that it feels like all the stuff with Pandora was written by someone who writes Shonen "The power of friendship" Anime who got the right idea but wrote the dialogue their way. It's weird because I find myself agree with what's going on and praising it while having it feel so out of place and tonally dissonant.  I don't know how to reconcile this. The concept is rather hokey despite being thematically appropriate.

In closing, GOW3 is arguably the best GOW game (unless we count costumes and unlocks. Then it's the worse 😤). The core combat, aesthetic and flow are easily the best in the series. The level design, story and world are top notch. On top of being one of the best times I had platinumming a game. I 100% recommend this game because no other game I ever played truly feels as much of an epic adventure as GOW3.

 

My next platinum review will be the PS3 version of Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands. See you then