14 DAY TRIAL // There's quite a glut of weapons in Splinter Cell: Conviction. Enemies drop them when you take them out and for more options, there are stations allowing for both weapon changes and for upgrades to be applied.
Sure, enemies mostly drop the exact same weapons as long as you do not change levels and the stations are sometimes few and far between but most players, those who approach the new Sam Fisher adventure as a tactical stealth shooter, will never notice this. Why? Because the only weapon one needs to get through 90% of the game is the silenced, infinite ammunition loaded, pistol Sam Fisher always carries around.
The basic gun comes in multiple forms, but the differences between them are very, very small and upgrading can take care of any troubles you might have with one or the other. As long as you zoom in and play it easy with the mouse (I am playing on a PC), headshots are all but trivial. They can also shoot pretty quickly, allowing for some suppressing fire when needed, and reload fast. Throw in the Execution move that you can perform after taking down one enemy via close quarter combat and running and gunning sound much better than hiding and stalking.
There's a certain schizophrenic nature to Splinter Cell: Conviction, some of it probably coming out of its long development history and shifts in theme and some linked to the effort from Ubisoft to make it more appealing to fans of cover-based shooters.
The game cannot decide whether it wants to play it old school and punish the player for being seen or heard or whether it aims to be a very forgiving experience where the tedium of sneaking never overpowers the excitement of shooting. Unfortunately, there's little point in offering a player more toys to gun down people with as long as there's a perfectly good silenced pistol that one can always fall back on.