jimmynash's posterous

 

The demo begins with a lengthy video showing some of Sam Fisher's new abilities. The action looks complex and I'm a little worried about the complexity of some of these smooth moves. Not that I balk at complex control schemes, but the action looks so intense, how does the experience hold up when the player hesitates? How does the AI react to retreat? What if I hide in a corner for a full minute? Do they keep repeating the same phrases? What I'm getting at is: If the player isn't Johnny on the Spot with their reactions, and has to muck around a bit, do they miss out on the Bournesque experience that the early video promises? 

As the demo puts you into the action, you are slowly introduced to the controls. As compared to the older SC games, these controls seem to be a little simplified. Single buttons are used to handle general actions and in many cases, Sam just takes care of things for you. While this may seem like it takes control away from the player, it really serves to let you plan your strategies and not worry about the little things. Sam will just take your simple button presses and execute what needs to be done. Hand to hand take downs are a simple press of the B button. You just make sure you aren't seen and Sam will make the takedown look sweet. 

Cover is similar to Gears of War with holding the left trigger to stay in cover. While in cover, pointing your reticule at another piece of cover will put a small icon on that cover showing you what section of the cover you will hit and what direction Sam will be facing when he gets there. All you do is then hit your A button and Sam takes over moving to the cover and sliding into place.

Combat is a combination of regular over the shoulder shooting and a risk reward game. When you take an enemy down with a hand to hand move, you earn Mark and Execute points. These allow you to smoke multiple enemies in a short amount of time. Once you have some Mark and Execute points you can simply sneak up on some baddies, mark them with the Right Bumper and then just press the Y button. Bang, bang, you're dead. Sam takes out the enemies and makes it look sweet. One trick you can use, is to mark enemies even if you don't have any ME points. With the enemies marked, execute a Hand to Hand Takedown and then hit the Y button. With those enemies already marked, and some fresh ME points in his pocket, Sam takes care of business. 

I found that the first few times I ran through the demo I alerted a lot of guards. It was difficult even on the fourth time through to get them all without making any waves. It was very encouraging to see that I was quickly getting better at silently eliminating folks. This means that as you get used to how to handle Sam, you will make those quick decisions under pressure that will result in that Bourne experience as you play.

For as long as this game has been pushed, I'm expecting to see a really polished experience when SC:Conviction releases in April. The demo was a good indicator that this will be the case. I've always loved the SC series and this one looks ready to top all the rest.