'Sam is on the wrong side of the law once more, this time for real'

May 3, 2007 23:36 GMT  ·  By

If anyone tried to come up with a name for the next Splinter Cell game, it would have been anything but Splinter Cell: Conviction. But, as it turns out, this is the name of latest installment from Ubisoft Montreal (developers of Splinter Cell, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and the 6th generation versions of Splinter Cell: Double Agent). The game is set for a release towards the end of 2007, for the Xbox 360 and Games for Windows platforms.

Pelaaja magazine has some info on the game, through GamersReports.com:

"The game takes place in broad daylight this time, but don't worry, it is still a stealth action game. At the beginning of the game, Sam learns that Anna Grimsdottir (Anna is the person in charge of intelligence gathering for Third Echelon, and an old friend of Sam's) is in danger so Sam joins up with Third Echelon once more in order to help. Unfortunately, 3E is not what it used to be, and Sam frequently gets incomplete and bad intel, as well as the wrong equipment. All this, and the 3E bosses are in the middle of a political squabble for control. Sam eventually finds out that the threat is actually coming from inside Third Echelon itself, so he leaves and basically becomes a fuigitive. Looks like Sam is on the wrong side of the law once more, this time for real."

Check out the screenshots on the left (click to enlarge); although they do not reveal a lot about actual gameplay (we can't even know for sure whether this is in-game footage or not), they look fairly good - certainly a lot better than previous installments in the series.

Remember, the game launches sometime towards the end of the year, for the Xbox 360 and Games for Windows platforms.