Critical Mass

Splinter Cell: Conviction Insurgency pack coming May 27

The first premium DLC for Splinter Cell: Conviction has revealed itself. The Deniable Ops Insurgency Pack will be available to download from May 27 on GFWL and XBL for 800 Microsoft Points or $9.99.

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Ubisoft ditches printed manuals, goes green

Ubisoft is doing away with printed game manuals. Starting with Shaun White Skateboarding this winter, the manuals for all of the company’s Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 titles will be included on the game disc in digital form — an environmental initiative that allows for “easier and more intuitive access to game information” as well as more robust manuals, they say. And, it saves the trees.

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‘We need to stop making super hardcore games,’ Conviction’s creative director says

In today’s videogame industry there lies a delicate balance between making games accessible to the masses and pleasing long-time fans of a franchise. Speaking on the subject, creative director Maxime Beland recently gave some revealing insight into the struggle of making the upcoming Splinter Cell: Conviction appealing to a wide range of gamers. “I think it’s a subject that is very touchy right now because as an industry we want to grow,” Beland said when commenting about the effort to appeal to casual players

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Splinter Cell: Conviction loves you for days

Splinter Cell: Conviction will pack 30-35 hours worth of entertainment, creative director Maxime Beland says. Game director Patrick Redding’s estimate of 12-16 hours apparently didn’t include the hours for the game’s competitive multiplayer mode, Deniable Ops. “Deniable Ops is going to last people like 20-25 hours, easily – there’s a lot of modes and maps,” Beland said in a recent interview

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Splinter Cell delay “the best possible scenario” for Ubisoft

Speaking in an interview with CVG , game designer on Splinter Cell: Conviction , Patrick Redding, called the game’s delay from late February to mid-April “the best possible scenario,” which he said has allowed the developers more time to fix issues with the AI and add different challenge levels. “In some ways it was the best possible scenario for us because we were angling towards our original release date in February. You know, as is always the case, you develop this kind of laundry list and think: ‘Aw man if only we had an extra bit of polish time to really go after that and that and that, plus all the usual debugging, that’d be wonderful,’” Redding revealed

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