I’ve been working my way through Splinter Cell: Conviction this week. The first few nights I would play a mission and then move over to some Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Last night, however, I couldn’t put it down. I put in a good 5 hours last night and loved every minute of it.

I had a moment of just “WOW!” during one sequence early on in my session. There’s a scene where you’re infiltrating a building. You come in through the top of the building and I found myself standing at a doorway. I peeked under the door and found a half dozen guards in a well lit environment. With stealth in mind, this is seemingly a tough instance to get through. I looked to my right and noticed a window. So I jumped out the window and strafed across the ledge to the other room. I marked two of the enemies, equipped my remote mines, opened a window towards the back of the room, and prepared to take down the house. I tossed a mine against the wall where I had opened the window and performed an execute on the two marked targets. As soon as that happened, the rest of the guards were alerted to my position. I strafed down the ledge a bit to get out of my known position. Once the guards came to the window, I detonated the mine. As the remaining guards closed in on my position, I performed hand to hand take downs on them, as they fell from the window. With the room clear, I jumped into the room from the window ledge, and moved forward.

Now that was an awesome sequence to the game and one that really got me hooked. Once you learn to think about alternative routes that aren’t glaringly obvious, the game really opens up for you. Since then, I’ve had a number of similar experiences. So many instances of just amazing fun.