The story of Splinter Cell: Conviction, so far? It goes something like this: ‘Now you see him, now you don’t, now you see him – crikey, he’s got a beard, what’s the story there then, Ubisoft? And why’s there so much daylight? Oh, now he’s gone again. Oh, there he is. Yay, he’s had a shave. Gosh, he just smashed that man’s face into a toilet.’ Sort of like Jack Baeur doing a pantomime, then.

Last month VGD slipped on some PVC pants, screwed three Magilites to its forehead and skulked down to south London to interview Maxime Beland, Creative Director on Sam Fisher’s much-delayed, grim-faced return to the world of gaming. Set your jaw and read on.

VideoGamesDaily: Conviction has had quite a troubled development period. We hear earlier builds were scrapped because it was felt the game was becoming too similar to Assassin’s Creed. Is that a worry now? What did you change, in particular?

Maxime Beland: It was actually never a worry, that it was too much like Assassin’s Creed. The stress and the reason why we changed was because it didn’t feel like a Splinter Cell game anymore. So many things had changed – there were no gadgets, there were no lights and shadows, there were no athletic moves – a lot of the core values that Splinter Cell depends on.

And that’s what we changed, we brought them back. We were delivering them in a different way, it’s faster, it’s more dynamic – as you’ve seen, it’s still stealth but it’s a new type of stealth. I’m happy because I think we’ve succeeded in delivering stealth that is going to reach more people. It’s going to ring true with a lot more people, because it’s more permissive.

VGD: Some of our forum members have expressed the worry that the changes are still too drastic. If nothing else, Sam himself looks very different – the three-scope visor no longer graces the box art. What would you say to reassure fans of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, for instance, that this is still recognisably the same sort of experience?

Beland: I think it’s interesting what you say, because I think everybody has a different perception of who Sam is. I think to me the three dots are probably one of the best icons of the game industry – it’s so powerful, it’s such a powerful image, we know they’re very iconic for the franchise, and that’s why they’re back, that’s why Sam gets his goggles back in the game. Our main menu has the three dots.

So to me, that is still Splinter Cell. What is also Splinter Cell is Sam Fisher himself. But to me, a black wetsuit is not Sam Fisher. It’s one of the tools he uses when the situation asks for that. But in Conviction, because it’s much more of an urban environment, because there are moments with crowds, because Sam is not dropped off a chopper into a Siberian base, he is dressed in a way that fits the crowd, that fits the context for Conviction.

So we didn’t change Sam because we didn’t like the wet suit, I love the wet suit, he looks great in a wet suit – for me Sam is dressed for the party he’s going to. And for the next Splinter Cell, the context will define his uniform.

VGD: Will the crowd play more of a part later in the game? Or will it be more a question of secluded interior areas and patrolling guards?

Beland: There’s a lot of variety. A big point for me in Conviction was trying to give a lot of variety for the player. So we’ve got all kinds of maps. We’ve got maps that are more open, outside, with crowds, where you get to do some exotic gameplay in there in the crowd, and we’ve got moments like you saw where the crowd is a bit more window dressing – they’re there, but if combat starts they’re just going to run away and that’s going to be it. We’ve got maps that are completely isolated from civilians, more classic Splinter Cell if you want. So I think we’ve got a good variety of those.

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The creative force behind Grasshopper’s eclectic output, Goichi Suda enjoys a huge reputation outside of Japan and the reasons are many – not least the fact that he appears to be a thoroughly amiable chap.

Unlike the Kojimas or Miyamotos of the development community, Suda’s work isn’t the most widely played or the most commercially successful. Even the most ardent follower would have to admit that the likes of Michigan: Report from Hell or Flower, Sun and Rain can be deeply esoteric and often lacking in polish. Yet despite such variation in acclaim, Suda’s games all share one commonality – they all leave an indelible impression on the player. From Killer7, to Contact, to No More Heroes, each shows that streak of individuality – that unwillingness to conform, that wry wit, that radical design. His output is the very definition of cult.

In a nod to the less adventurous, No More Heroes 2 can be controlled with either the remote and nunchuck or just the classic controller.

What better place then than London, the home of punk, to sit down and discuss design philosophy, retro gaming and cranberry chocolate sundaes? “Punx Not Dead” reads the title of No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle – a fairly self-evident axiom given what we know about Suda’s style, but what does it mean to the man himself? “I’m happy to be back in London because the soul of punk is in London, but like we have no samurai in Japan, it’s hard to see a punk in London,” says Suda disappointedly. Grasshopper’s motto is as much about what it seeks to avoid as it is as a statement of defiance. “Punk to me means to create something that has never been done – always something new. That kind of spirit I want to be in the game and in the studio and never to be dead”. 

Of course the satisfaction of executing the original game's gestures is lost if you opt for the classic controller, but you will expend less energy.

Many modern games have appropriated the stylised pixel art of the 8-bit era – the original NMH flirted with 8-bit aesthetic for the interface and much of the sound design, but NMH 2 drags us right back into the 1980s with the inclusion of an extensive medley of 8-bit tiles. Simultaneously addressing the original game’s most criticised aspect and building a more cohesive 8-bit homage, NMH2’s side jobs are resolutely retro while somehow never stooping to the level of clone. 

Obviously holding the 8-bit era in a great deal of reverence, I ask Suda what his favourite 8-bit game is and his response is characteristically unexpected. “The Star Wars vector scan arcade game” he says enthusiastically imitating the sound of an X-wing. Inarguably the product of the 8-bit era, Atari’s 1983 classic is the last game I could’ve anticipated being Suda’s number one, hailing from the country that bought us Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Donkey Kong, but then his interest in Western culture has always been distinct. 

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At the heart of any consideration of God of War 3 lies the hoariest of debates, a dispute as gnarled and fissured as a Titan’s fingernail, as intense as the flames of Tartarus, yet as monotonous as the River Styx. If you’ve played the demo, you probably have an inkling already. I’m talking about our old friend “innovation versus refinement”. Giant conceptual leaps versus deft baby steps. New stuff versus not so new stuff.

The third God of War is as far to the right-hand side of the equation as you can get. It looks big, talks big, wears big, meaty shoulder guards a-drip with gore and shaders, stalks cavernous, creatively lit environments murdering enormous, billion-polygon enemies, but its technical and cinematic accomplishments are essentially sleight of hand. And the conjuring trick is getting old.

Playing this game, in an age of morally faceted space opera and physics-driven sandbox ingenuity, is a little like making conversation with the school bully right at that point in time when bulk and muscle cease to predominate in the politics of the playground. The chunky bastard still has a certain handshake-crushing charisma, and that pubescent growth spurt has added several cubic feet to his BMI, but his day has come and gone. He just doesn’t know it yet. Besides, there’s a hot chick in the year above.

Auxillary tools include the fire bow, of some service when progress is blocked by flammable undergrowth. Or flammable people.

There are some benefits to keeping the brute company though. For one, you get to play more or less the exact same thoughtfully paced, gratifyingly pissed-off hack and slasher your great grand-daddy once fed into his wheezy old PlayStation 2, right down to the challenges and battle arena that spawn post-story-completion. Which means you’ll once again be picking bones with the gods in the form of the eternally-at-boiling-point Kratos, failing to spare the whip on battalion after battalion of anomalous mythical no-good-niks, square-buttoning them until they detonate under the pressure of bottled-up experience points, right-stick somersalting through gaps in the throng to buy your weapons some cool-off time – time enough, perhaps, to let rip with one of your slower but vastly, vastly more satisfying overarm triangle blows, rebounding particle and bad guy alike skyward, allowing them a brief mid-air respite before star-hopping into their midst to continue the punishment.

Larger and less easily broken opposition rears its head (or heads) with clockwork punctuality, and evasion accordingly becomes more of a priority till at last, by dint of much hit-and-running, the Minotaur or Cyclops or whatever collapses beneath the weight of a huge, spinning circle icon. You rush in jabbing the button, and Kratos promptly launches into the sort of scripted micro-Armageddon that might otherwise be achieved by stuffing a cruise missile full of beef and firing it into a paintball factory. Further jabbing is required. You oblige, Kratos bellows a lot, tendons snap, arteries gush, the orchestra thunders to a halt and your health and magic bars sop up the remainder of the victim’s lifeforce.

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Shrouded in mystery for over half a decade, Remedy’s psychological thriller wears its influences on its sleeve – the troubled writer seeking inspiration in a mountainside retreat, the unexplained threat of a mysterious foggy presence wrapped up in tight episodic content, the use of a flashlight to exploit your enemy’s weakness.

If public response to James Cameron’s Avatar has taught us anything, it’s that people love a nice digestible analogy. Alan Wake is The Shining meets Lost in Luigi’s Mansion. Of course I do Remedy’s work a great disservice. It’s fair to say that survival horror games have waned in popularity over the last few years – clear evidence that the well had run dry or at least been clogged with the putrid remains of J-horror rejects, Romero zombie wannabies and Jacob’s Ladder-lifted twitching monstrosities.

In taking their lead from the psychological horror masters – Alfred Hitchcock, Stephen King and David Lynch – Remedy have created a world that is familiar enough to elicit feelings of discomfort and fear while exploring them in a medium than rarely looks beyond viscera for its thrills and scares.

Could these cryptic sreen shots could be from a cut-scene or does Alan get to go off-road?

We recently had the opportunity to speak to Remedy’s Head of Franchise Development, Oskari “Ozz” Häkkinen to learn more as Alan Wake emerges from a long slumber. “Alan Wake’s been in development for about five years which is a long time obviously, but we’re a small studio of about fifty people. It’s been a labour of love,” says Ozz, casually revealing that one of Microsoft key exclusive triple A blockbuster titles has been in the hands of a mere 50 people. XBLA games have 50 person development staff. Handheld titles even. It’s a testament to the exceptional ambition and build quality of the game that it’s so surprising to learn how few people were involved in realizing such a product.

Alan Wake doesn't look like your average hero - just a regular guy in an extraordinary situation. At least that's what how he's explaining those goofy genetics to his children.

A portion of that protracted development time can be attributed to building a proprietary engine: “We looked out for gaming engines that could play with this light and dark mechanic that we needed and we realised quite soon that there wasn’t anything out there that could do it”, says Ozz. The resistance to fall back on restrictive and expensive middleware has proved to be a wise, if time consuming, choice. Alan Wake is an extraordinary-looking game, rich with dense foliage, dramatic lighting and genuinely perceptible depth of field.

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Lengthy CGI cutscenes? A broody, brooding protagonist? Surly space marine ex-boyfriends? This certainly isn’t your father’s Metroid. Not that any of this should be a surprise from a developer like Team Ninja, the somewhat unlikely current custodians of Samus Aran. Yet an hour or so with Other M suggests the franchise is in safe and capable hands.

It starts with a CGI action replay of Super Metroid’s denouement – Samus defeating a quite frightening re-imagined Mother Brain thanks to the intervention of a larval Metroid. As she opens her eyes and sees the friendly face of a quarantine officer, it becomes clear her vision was a dream, our heroine reliving her harrowing experience. Curiously, she seems more than a little perturbed at the demise of the Metroid she refers to as ‘the baby’. Aside from owing a debt to her improbable saviour, it seems there’s a deeper connection between Samus and the Metroid, the repetition of the word ‘baby’ in her inner monologue likely to become more significant as the game progresses. It’s certainly clear that Other M’s obvious anagram isn’t accidental.

Power Rangers meets Blue Man Group.

After a lingering shot of Aran’s curves in her skintight Zero Suit – classic Team Ninja – she steps into that familiar armour to test out her powers. In a sterile grey chamber, the player is introduced to the new Samus Aran. Those expecting either a return to the series’ 2D roots or a kind of Metroid Gaiden in the style of the developer’s most famous work may be surprised at just how Other M works. With the remote held sideways, players guide Samus around 3D environments with the d-pad. Digital movement in three dimensions? It sounds like madness, but this unusual idea works, partly thanks to the responsiveness of the controls. Holographic enemies are sent in for Samus to blast, with a helpful auto-aim ensuring that shots fired roughly in the right direction will hit their target, while dodges are executed with a jab of the d-pad just before enemies or their projectiles hit.

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If you were paying close attention to the internet last night, you might have noticed an explosion of silence, a colossal wave of nothingness that swept from one corner of the globe to the other. The epicentre of that great non-event was Sony’s announcement of SOCOM 4, an “all-new SOCOM coded from the ground up for PlayStation 3” in which you lead “an elite, five-man squad” armed with the “latest weaponry” into combat with an “army of rebel fighters” in the midst of “inhospitable jungles, crumbling city streets and urban ruins”. We think we’ve seen this movie before. The black dude dies, right?

We don’t have a particular problem with SOCOM in itself – the Americans quite like it, apparently, and we enjoyed the PSP versions – but we do have a problem with SOCOM when it’s the “surprise Sony sequel” lurking behind several days’ worth of PR cock-teasing. SOCOM, let’s be clear, is far from surprising. Perhaps Zipper Interactive’s new game will take the franchise to unimagined heights, but for the moment at least you’ll forgive us not getting all hot and bothered at the idea of exploding jeeps, glued-down haircuts and people yelling “GOLD TEAM” into earmikes. Bad Company 2’s out today, chaps. This gutsy militaristic shizzle is ten-a-penny.

This iteration's major new feature? Women with guns. Lara Croft says hi.

You know what isn’t ten-a-penny? Space dogfighting games. Non-combat-centric, third-person action-adventures. Old school Zelda killers. Sony’s back catalogue is stuffed with landmark IPs, elderly gems craving another lease of life on PS3. Here are a few of the names the publisher could and should have mentioned yesterday evening. (Bear in mind that we’re operating in the realm of wishful thinking here, and thus far, far away from any tedious commercial realities.)

Just another sleepy little village caught up in Save-The-World shenanigans.

Alundra

Long before the now defunct Clover Studios rattled Link’s cage with the wonderful Okami, Matrix Software was kicking the yelping little twerp into touch with the sumptuous, plainly derivative but masterful Alundra. Beneath its large, crisp sprites and layered backdrops dwells a surprisingly mature storyline – players step into the boots of a Releaser, entering people’s nightmares to cure them of demonically inflicted psychological maladies – and some cracking, level-wide puzzles (think teleportation pads and movable blocks, lanterns and ice pits). You can get it on PSN these days. No excuses. The sequel’s funnier, but more of a trial and error experience.

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Ubisoft’s Red Steel 2 lacks a certain something. What is it now? Oh yes. Fear. Self-doubt. The insecurity you’d expect from the successor to an underwhelming launch title, the confidence issues that ought to attend on flying the flag (once again) for grown-up, growly, hardcore-leaning action gaming on the Wii.

You could write a book (or at least a couple of paragraphs) on the things Red Steel 2 isn’t afraid of. Crates, for starters. This game doesn’t care that you’ve bisected, blasted and high-kicked enough cuboid storage units to fill that warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It doesn’t care that you were precision-popping oil barrels to incinerate nearby enemies from your third birthday onwards. Both cliches are here in abundance. Red Steel 2 never tires of them, nor of the twinkling coins and juicy MGS-ish ammo packs they invariably contain.

It’s not afraid of formulaic level structure, either. It doesn’t mind in the slightest that its sand-papery steampunk environs readily boil down to a handful of hubs and square-cut combat arenas, held together by frayed lengths of Cheesy String plot and passably screened loading transitions. It’s not afraid of telling you to go rescue women with unnecessary cleavage (or for that matter men with unnecessary cleavage), or of talking head cutscenes, or of nuke-X-number-of-Y side quests. It’s not even afraid of QTEs, though it possibly should be.

Jackal gunslingers have low health, but are a nuisance nonetheless.

Red Steel 2 doesn’t have the time to be afraid, see. It’s too busy being the finest, most intelligently assembled example of Wiimote combat the console has to offer. And in return, it asks that you not be afraid. Afraid of Nintendo, that is. Afraid of what the Kyoto giant has wrought of the gaming ecosystem. Afraid of a future that includes three major motion sensitive gaming devices and a healthy population of SD screens.

It wants you to keep your cool during play, too. Moving between our God of War 3 review build and Ubisoft’s “Red Western” has been painfully enlightening. In the former, after all, you can lay down frenzied, earth-shattering hundred-hit combos without any marked increase in heart rate. Try the same trick in Red Steel 2 and they’ll be picking bits of shoulder tendon out of the sofa cushions for years to come.

The game inspires a more considered, thoughtful approach not only by way of such familiar tactical quandaries as ninjas who can knock bullets aside, or hammer-wielding juggernauts with impenetrable frontal armor, but because actually, literally waving a blade at somebody in a damaging fashion is hard. Even when you’re a cowboy-samurai crossbreed with a highly intimidating neckscarf, and even given the developer’s decision to split proceedings between rigorous 1:1 control and scripted, accelerometer-triggered actions.

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Few companies can claim such domination of the Xbox driving landscape. In pole position at the birth of Xbox Live and responsible for one of the few games to demonstrate the power of the 360 at launch, Bizarre Creations are synonymous with being there first and doing things right.

Having ended their close relationship with Microsoft Game Studios following 2007s meticulously comprehensive Project Gotham Racing 4, their subsequent acquisition by publishing giant Activision has given the Liverpool-based studio some well-earned reflection time as they prepare to take their dominance multi-format.

The barge attack can be used at close range to blast surrounding cars or if well timed can even defend against attacks.

Ged Talbot, co-Lead Designer on Blur, explains: “After PGR we had a very open map. Activision basically said ‘What do you want to make?’ so we pitched them a few ideas and the action power-up racer seemed to float to the top”. Action here is the operative word – during our time with Bizarre Creations it became clear that they weren’t billing Blur as a racing game, but as an action game.

When broken down to simple video game mathematics, Blur takes everything Bizarre have learned about the grounded arcade racers over the last decade and adds a touch of violent abstract futurism, not unlike the Wipeout series created by Bizarre’s Merseyside neighbours at Sony. Throw in a bewildering set of modification options and some inventive approaches to online networking and you have an intriguing package that has more in common with a multiplayer-focused action title than simply a race for first place.

4-player split screen work amazingly well and the frame rate doesn't suffer one bit.

The successful combination of exotic real-world surroundings and desirable sports cars is once again at the heart of the experience, offering upwards of 30 locations and over 50 vehicles each with their own distinct handling and endurance levels, but it’s the introduction of weapons that changes the entire dynamic. Appearing across the tracks as unmistakable orbs of light, Blur’s eight power-ups present a number of offensive or defensive options. Shunt, barge, bolt and mine provide self-explanatory aggressive options, while shock, nitro, shield, and repair help out the less antagonistic player. Expert knowledge of their application grants players secondary functions such as nitro’s cunningly deceptive air brake, or skilfully firing a bolt backwards to deal with incoming fire.

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It’s hard to imagine any game featuring a gigantic bowl of water suspended in space as having “conservative” level design, but that’s exactly what Shigeru Miyamoto thought of the original Super Mario Galaxy. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then, that its follow-up – lest we forget, the first 3D Mario game to appear on the same console as its predecessor – frequently enters the realms of the utterly impossible.

The handful of levels made available to journalists at Nintendo’s European media summit felt at once warmly familiar, yet thrillingly new. Mario Galaxy 2 might not be “more than just a sequel”, as Nintendo would have it, but it expands on ideas touched upon in the original in deliciously inventive new ways.

It’s also more difficult: Nintendo firmly signalling its intention to satisfy a fanbase that has felt increasingly betrayed by the company’s recent casual-focused output. If the generous handful of levels showcased here is any indication, some players are going to be screaming for New Super Mario Bros. Wii’s Super Guide feature. Gone are the invisible checkpoints of the original, replaced by flags Mario must touch if he wants to return there from a later failure. Enemies are quicker – Goombas aggressively waddling towards Mario like angry geese, and deadly flowers spiralling swiftly around a circular structure. Space is tighter, with hordes of marauding Wigglers patrolling the fast-moving platforms of one stage, yet levels are more expansive. Flip Swap Galaxy asks players to rewire their brains, with spin-jumps flipping the platforms underneath Mario’s feet. As if that wasn’t enough, players also have to contend with a tight time limit: four minutes to collect 100 coins. Harder, faster, stronger…

Beats flying Easyjet.

Better? It’s a little too early to tell, but Nintendo has certainly picked some good stuff to show off. Sky Station Galaxy revisits the piranha plant boss battle from the original, but PeeWee Piranha requires a bit more effort to beat than his predecessor. Instead of whacking his tail, Mario must first crack the shell on his posterior, before spin-attacking his exposed backside. It’s tougher than it sounds, with PeeWee moving and jumping around more quickly than expected. This time, three hits merely make him angrier, with a sixth whack eventually releasing the power star.

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Ubisoft’s future, it tells us, is in media ‘convergence’, in migrating top-selling game franchises to non-gaming platforms. The publisher has made determined inroads on home film and cinema in the past couple of years, opening a dedicated CGI studio in Canada and sinking its fingers deep into James Cameron’s wondrous, 3D-flavoured, Avatar-shaped pie (with mixed results, admittedly).

Small wonder, then, that Splinter Cell: Conviction’s Creative Director Maxime Beland is very receptive to the idea of a Splinter Cell movie.

“I’m very hungry for a Splinter Cell movie,” Beland told us at a recent preview gig. “I think Sam Fisher is a great character, I would love to see him right next to Jason Bourne and right next to James Bond, because I think he fits there. So I would love for a Splinter Cell movie to be made.

“Can Ubisoft make a movie? Can Ubisoft make it 3D, like a real footage and 3D movie Splinter Cell? I think so. I would almost say it’s just a matter of time before we end up doing that.”

Of course, the limelight-hogging Assassin’s Creed series is likely to get the silver screen treatment first. Ubisoft put together a sequence of short, highly glossy internet films to accompany the second game’s appearance. “I think Assassin’s Creed right now is such a great franchise for Ubisoft that it makes sense that we make movies out of that also. But I don’t see why we wouldn’t do it for Splinter Cell.”

When asked who he’d cast as Sam Fisher, Beland was uncertain. “It’s probably the biggest question. The biggest questions are probably ‘who is going to play Sam Fisher?’ and ‘do you keep Michael Ironside for Sam’s voice?’

“There is a big decision there, because Michael Ironside is Sam Fisher.” Only balder and not as easy on the eyes, right?

Watch out for the full interview with Beland and our hands-on report later this month. Conviction gets here in April for PC and 360, and it’s looking super-fabulous in a gravelly, smash-your-head-against-the-toilet-door kind of way.

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