During a gameplay demo, game director Patrick Redding explained that players might recognize "echoes" of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory gameplay. However, the experience is more the result of everything Ubisoft learned from the Splinter Cell series — up to and including that little identity crisis the game suffered between 2007 and 2009. Development on the multiplayer began in that time period, approximately two years ago, and what grew out of it is a story-heavy "prologue" meant to be played by two people cooperatively. From there, the rest of the multiplayer just sort of fell into place.

What Is It?
Splinter Cell: Conviction is a stealth action game starring Sam Fisher, a National Security Agency operative who may or may not be on the lam in this installment. Fisher doesn't figure directly into the main multiplayer mode — but two operatives (one from Fisher's agency and one from its Russian counterpart) engage in about six hours' worth of black ops work that sets up the story Fisher follows in the main campaign.

In total, the game has five multiplayer modes, four of which being separate from the main campaign. You can find out more about Prologue mode by reading on below — but here's what we know about the special "deniable ops" multiplayer modes:
—Hunter is for one to two players to go in and stealth kill everybody they find.
—Infiltration is a "pure" stealth mode for one to two players where the second you're spotted, you lose.
—Last Stand is a survival mode where one to two players have to protect a warhead within a level from a group of AI that want to set it off.
—Face Off throws out co-op and pits two players against both each other and a lot of hostile AI within a level.

What We Saw
I teamed up with Jose Sanchez from Electric Playground on a couple of Xbox 360s for my playthrough of the first Prologue level. I think Jose wound up being the Russian while I played the American. On this mission, we were tasked with getting into some facility or another in Siberia (although we were told the campaign isn't set in Siberia because it'd be "weird" for multiplayer participants to encounter Sam Fisher on their mission) — and making this dude open some sort of door. The whole thing went by in about half an hour for me and Jose — but I think we were doing exceptionally well for noobs.

How Far Along Is It?
Still sort of early days. The framework is there, but there are some kinks to work out like this one crazy bug that doesn't let you complete the mission. Also, they apparently were unaware that a placeholder idle animation had been left in the game — so we were treated to a surprise when we came upon idle Russian guards dancing. I hope you'll write in to Ubisoft and plead with them to leave this in on account of it being hilarious.

What Needs Improvement?
Sonar Goggles Aren't Night Vision Goggles: Jose is willing to bet money that Sam Fisher's trademark night vision goggles with make it into the game, yet. But for now, all anybody has seen (and gets to play with) are these sonar goggles that let you see the gameplay environment I guess the way a dolphin would. I'm not a fan because it turns everything gray. This gives me a false sense of security because when you're in cover, the world is sort of gray — and when you're out of cover, everything is in color. So if I'm wearing my goggles, I sometimes forget that that doesn't mean I'm in cover, and then the Russians shoot at me and oy...

Don't Leave Me!: You do not want to play this game with people who can't communicate. Often times, you'll need to coordinate your assassinations or attacks perfectly or else one player will wind up shot to shit while the other player gets stranded in some distant part of the level. For example, there was a choke point on the map where I was supposed to shoot one guard while Jose grabbed the other guard to make him use his keycard to deactivate a security gate. I kind of shot the security guard he was holding and then went through the gate and shot the other guy — which made a bunch of Russians show up to shoot Jose because I was already long gone by the time they got there. I think if Jose had said something ahead of time, none of that would've happened — but it also would have been nice for there to be some kind of non-verbal communication in the game reminding me not to be a jerk.

SPOILER WARNING
Torture Team-Ups: When you get to the guy, you have to beat him up three times to make him cooperate. You can take turns with your partner beating the guy up. This very closely resembles a gang bang and I was pretty uncomfortable — so I let Jose bash the dude's head into a printer and a desk while I watched the door.

END SPOILER WARNING

What Should Stay The Same?
Complex Concepts: Sure, I've played co-op with people before; but always in situations where I knew I could carry them if they turned out to be dead weight. Never have I been in a position where I simply can't do it without my buddy. And I'm not talking about getting a game over screen when they die — I really mean that the level would be too hard to go it alone. In particular, the mark-sharing mechanism really reinforces the buddy system. Jose would run ahead, climb a little half wall (because I guess they can't afford real walls in Russia) and mark a bunch of people walking by. I'd wait in a dark corner down the hall and when the marked men got to me, I could activate the quick assassinate mode and then run down the hallway to join Jose. There is also that revival mechanism, but I consider that standard buddy system gameplay.

Branching Paths: There are points where you have to go a certain way in the mission we were playing on — but every so often there would be open areas that presented options for how to progress. For example, there was one place where we didn't have to shoot anybody at all. Jose could go along the ceiling panels and I could cut right and (using his verbal communication) know when the guard in my area was looking elsewhere so I could book it past him without killing him. I wound up doing it anyway, because I accidentally hit the trigger button instead of the slide-into-cover button, but it's nice to have options.

To The Rescue! There's a cool thing where a bad guy can grab your partner in a choke hold. You've got a limited time to reach him and once you do, you have to make the difficult decision about whether or not to shoot the baddie and risk hitting your partner. Or get your partner to throw an elbow and then shoot the baddie as he's doubled over in pain. Decisions, decisions!

Final Thoughts
I wish I could've followed the plot more assiduously, but I spent way too much time trying not to die.

New Footage of Splinter Cell: Conviction Co-Op Emerges [1UP]

Splinter Cell Conviction's collectors edition variant for "all European, Middle Eastern, Asian and Pacific territories" will contain the following, including an exclusive gameplay mode.

- An exclusive Sam Fisher statue
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction game in unique SteelBook™ case
- Infiltration Mode : Eliminate all hostiles in the mission area without being detected
- A special playable skin: Shadow Armor
- Early access to 3 weapons: SC300, SR2 and MP5
- The official Splinter Cell Conviction Soundtrack (more than 17 tracks)

That applies to both the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game, due to hit the territories listed above on or about February 26.

CVG cites PC Zone as the source of that cooperative multiplayer reveal, also pointing out that Conviction won't be the first Splinter Cell title to feature the option. But what Ubisoft Montreal has planned for the Xbox 360 and PC game we won't know until the feature is officially unveiled.

Splinter Cell Conviction has co-op, "new mode" [CVG]

The Ubisoft guy who preceded them? Maybe joking.

He was talking about smashing people into urinals in next February's Splinter Cell: Conviction. He was getting big laughs when he set up one of the game's interactive interrogation scenes by saying, "You might have several moments in the game [when] it's like a choose your own adventure, but it's choose your own torture." Chuckling and guffawing from the crowd. He was showing Sam Fisher bashing a guy into a urinal and noting that there was a deodorant ad next to that urinal.

"You will see a deodorant ad," he said.

You will be bashing a bad guy into porcelain.

And you will wonder, he said — joking? — "Is that the new Degree deodorant I want to buy?"

More laughter. And his kicker: "It's going to be very effective."

Credit the man, Jeffrey Dickstein, head of digital advertising at Ubisoft, for getting a reaction from a crowd of ad buyers. They were gathered in midtown Manhattan at a Lincoln Center theater space usually used for jazz performances. This wasn't the most game-savvy crowd, though they were there to be coaxed into buying ads for placement in the video games supporting Massive's in-game ad network. The buyers didn't seem to get the Big Daddy joke. They chuckled when descriptive ESRB ratings warnings appeared on a big screen, as if they'd never seen them before.

This was the second "Upfront" hosted by Massive, an attempt at an annual event.

I've attended both and look forward to, I guess, the fifth or sixth one. In theory, they'll get really good if they follow the model of more established media.

Upfronts for TV networks sound like wondrous things. NBC shows off its fall line-up to advertisers and does everything it can to dazzle its audience of prospective advertisers. They bring their stars on the stage. Maybe Conan O'Brien or Jay Leno does a stand-up routine.

Video games? Not quite there with the upfront yet. We're past the awkward first one from last December, when an Activision representative stood up at this press-invited event and blabbed the existence of Modern Warfare 2 and a new hands-free Tony Hawk.

At the second one, held earlier this month, the messaging was more disciplined. Straight-laced, you could say. As in when Dave Anderson, head of business development at Activision, talked about ad placement opportunities in Guitar Hero, described how new ad-showcasing camera angles were introduced into this year's DJ Hero, and mentioned something we may not have mentioned here on Kotaku yet, that Tony Hawk Ride is primarily targeted at 10-14 year-old boys. He also said that "I've wanted to be here since I was a small boy," assumedly referring to the jazz hall at Lincoln Center we were in, which was opened five years ago. Joking?

The Take Two people were the most entertaining. They threw free t-shirts to the seated ad folks. They aired a mock ESPN segment that showcased ad placement opportunities in the virtual arenas and fields of 2K Sports' hockey, basketball and baseball franchises. Their segment ended with the BioShock joke, which went over the heads of most of the people there.

The Massive folks, affected as they may be by some department cuts this year, can still cite some strong numbers. They've served 1000 ad campaigns in the last year and a half, an executive announced at the presentation. Massive research indicates that 63% of gamers recall the ads they've seen in games, a number Massive says is on the rise. People see in-game ads, and they send text messages the numbers the ads encourage them to. They visit product websites. They buy cars.

Massive is selling packages to these ad buyers. Advertise in the biggest games that third-party publishers have allowed to be in the Massive in-game-ad network. Or just advertise in the sports ones. Or be the only advertiser in an entire genre category. Or take over the entire Massive network for a day.

The Massive people and the game publisher people mostly say things that wouldn't horrify gamers. Even at a conference like this, in-game advertising doesn't sound like the mood-killer gamers have been wry that it could become.

The THQ exec talks about putting ads on the mat of a virtual UFC ring. The Blizzard person talks about keeping ads out of that company's games, relegating them to surrounding websites, log-in pages and the like.

Our Ubisoft man explains how the Splinter Cell team has generated heat maps to determine where players look in a level, and ensured that ad-placement locations are situated in those lines of sight — which might sound potentially irritating, but he's the one talking about making advertising in games as innovative as gameplay. And he's the one talking about selling deodorant to players as they make a bad guy tumble into a urinal.

Or was that part a joke?

Yves Guillemot, the head of the Ubisoft, described Uplay at an event in New York last week as a "frequent flyer" program for gamers. The effort that resembles Disney's DGamer program an EA's attempts to unify its sports games some years ago.

The Ubisoft service is free to join, and rewards gamers who complete feats in a Ubisoft game with points that can be spent on unlockable content in the same or other Ubisoft games.

I registered for my account over the weekend and, in the course of completing Assassin's Creed II, accomplished the four in-game "actions" that Uplay could recognize. They each involved simple progression through the game's adventure. I also was rewarded for logging onto Uplay from my PS3 and from a PC, for six actions in all. Each earned me Uplay "units."

I could spend my Uplay points through an interface in Assassin's Creed II on some unlocks for the game. But, according to what I found on the Uplay website today, I can also spend those points on unlocks for the upcoming games Splinter Cell Conviction and R.U.S.E. For Assassin's, the unlocks include a PS3 dashboard theme, a new outfit for Ezio Auditore, the game's hero, the ability to hold more throwing knives or, most notably, access to a family crypt.

(I'm running Splinter Cell Uplay pics here instead of Assassin's Creed ones to lessen the spoiling of Assassin's; unlocks for Splinter Cell seem to be the same across the Xbox 360 and PC. Note that there's not a one-to-one correlation between the amount of units you earn for completing an action and how much the rewards cost.)

I've earned 120 Units. I've spent 40 of them, on the Auditore crypt of course.

I got more than I was expecting. Clearly hoping to motivate players to connect, Ubisoft is offering what feels like a key piece of Assassin's Creed content in the form of that crypt. The crypt is actually a "secret location," a classification used for the game's platforming-centric enclosed challenge levels. This one requires some crafty jumping and climbing. More importantly, it provides access to writings about the Auditore family history, which greatly elaborates biographical details hinted at during one cut-scene of the game. Want to know how the Auditore's got to Italy — actually, want to know why, in story terms, you're even playing this adventure in Italy rather than in another country? — then get the Uplay crypt.

I am certain that I did not download the new content for the game. It was unlocked. That may produce complaints that Ubisoft is withholding content, but it is, at least free.

Both the PS3 and PC interfaces of Uplay indicate that the service will also host cheats and community sharing options, including leaderboard comparisons and user screenshot galleries, on a case by case basis.

Sam Fisher is a walking, talking action movie cliche in Splinter Cell: Conviction. The super secret agent set free from all of the restrictions placed on him by his controlling agency, using his skills for selfish reasons, driven-by-passion and revenge, et cetera, et cetera. Luckily he's a cliche that we'd really like to play as, or our delicate sensibilities would be offended.

For $79.99 the "limited run" version of Ubisoft Montreal's stealth action game—still due February 23 in North America—packs in the requisite art book, "collectible" decals, an embossed Steelbook DVD case, one Splinter Cell comic book and a pair of in-game items.

Also included is a USB drive "loaded to the max" with collectors edition exclusive content. On top of that, you'll get a game disc and manual. Those two alone are worth $59.99 at least!

For the full description, straight from Ubi, read on. It's all them from here on out.

CUSTOM USB DRIVE - This credit card–sized 3rd Echelon USB drive can stealthily fit in your wallet, is compatible with Xbox 360, and is loaded to the max with exclusive content you won't find anywhere else, including:
• Full-length 'Making of Splinter Cell Conviction' video
• Wallpaper
• Concept art
• Renders
• Screenshots
• Storyboards
• And more…

"FIFTH FREEDOM: THE ART OF SPLINTER CELL" BOOK
• Relive the best of Splinter Cell from past to present. This comprehensive hard-bound art book by Prima(TM) includes detailed art from the original Splinter Cell, Pandora Tomorrow, Chaos Theory, Double Agent, and Conviction, as well as in-depth commentary and notes from the developers.

TWO EXCLUSIVE IN-GAME CONTENT ITEMS
• Gain first access to the MP5-SD3, a lethal close-quarters submachine gun with an integrated suppressor.
• Customize your multiplayer character with an exclusive 3rd Echelon outfit.

COLLECTIBLE DECALS - Available only in the Collector's Edition are two unique Xbox 360 decal stickers.
• 3rd Echelon Logo Decal
• Iconic Bullet Hole Decal

"DIGGING IN THE ASHES" COMIC BOOK
• Watch the sequence of events preceding Splinter Cell Conviction unfold before your eyes in this one of a kind digital Splinter Cell comic book.

STEELBOOK DVD CASE
• Premium embossed metallic steel case packaging with iconic imagery.

This is the same mission Totilo played through at TGS earlier this year, only this time around they've got Ubisoft developers playing the game, so they didn't need to turn off God Mode. I actually understand where Stephen was coming from though. My first instinct when given a gun and a bunch of guards is to run in and shoot them all before they shoot me. It generally takes me at least an hour to slip myself into the stealth mindset required to guide Sam through his missions, and I definitely have to be in a stealthy sort of mood or it just doesn't work.

That having been said, Splinter Cell Conviction definitely has me in a stealthy sort of mood. Let's hope it lasts until February.

What you shouldn't do when trying out a level of Splinter Cell Conviction is to make Sam Fisher run through a warehouse, shooting wildly. That's not what Max Beland, creative director of the game at Ubisoft, wants, because it doesn't work when the cheats are turned off.

In Japan last week at the Tokyo Game Show, Beland showed me a new sequence of Conviction, a chunk of a level excised for examination by the press. Since early June, Beland and his colleagues had only been showing a special demo version of one of the game's earlier levels, a shortened sequence designed to show off named features like "Mark and Execute" and "Last Known Position." The level shown in Tokyo, however, represented a more complex gameplay scenario. It offered a taste of how Conviction will play past its training-wheel stages.

This new night time level involved Fisher infiltrating a warehouse where a terrorist group was creating EMP bombs to detonate in Washington, D.C. Fisher approached the mission in his spy gear, signature tri-lensed goggles on his head. I'd need to use Sam's new moves. but I'd have to be careful.

The Mark and Execute feature lets the player tag a few enemies for the kill, marking each with a tap of a controller shoulder button. That causes small icons to appear over their heads. Fisher is able to rapidly and automatically shoot and kill any marked opponents with the single press of a button — but only after he's killed one with a melee move. The catch is that melee kills only work when an enemy is approached from behind.

So imagine the possible tactical approaches needed to successfully mark and execute when Fisher, outside of the warehouse, comes upon three soldiers standing near each other for guard duty. Trying to melee any one of them as they stood together would alert the other two and result in a quick death.

I marked a pair of them and waited for a third to wander off. I then had a creeping Sam spring out of the shadows to beat down the wanderer. As soon as the guy was dead, I held down the execute button to cause Fisher to wheel around and quickly pop shots off at the two marked guards. The set-up took 30 seconds. The finish occurred in a flash.

Creeping closer to the building, I encountered a man i from whom Fisher needed information. He looked like the other guards, but Fisher's crosshairs turned into an X when they drifted over him. I couldn't kill the guy. Instead, approaching the man triggered a change in the game's lighting. I had begun an interrogation sequence. The background darkened as Fisher and the man were isolated, as if by spotlights during a play. With limited freedom of movement, I could make Fisher smash the guy into a truck's door, against a tree or just into Sam's fists. This is how you get information from the bad guys in Splinter Cell: Conviction, punctuated, in this sequence, with a knife stab through the hand. No Geneva Conventions here.

I crept through some dark areas as I worked my way into the building. Even in darkness, I did not need night vision to see, notably. In dark areas the game's graphics become grainy, but the expected night-vision overlay doesn't come into play. Beland doesn't like green night-vision sequences in games and told me that Fisher's goggles aren't used for anything like that; just for sonar scans, which show enemy positions through walls.

Inside the warehouse the situation would get tougher. The big warehouse room was full of guards who were on the move. Standing still, they'd be easy marks. In motion, they weren't. I tried to mark them, then tried to drop onto another for the starter melee kill. I messed it up and started the running and gunning. Beland must have been shaking his head. He told me he was going to turn god mode off. My Fisher would now take damage and was quickly nearly bullet-shot to death.

To shake the enemies, I used the Last Known Position feature, which, during alert moments, automatically displays a ghostly after-image of Fisher's body where the enemies last have sight of him. I got the bad guys looking for Sam in one spot as I dropped into the shadows. A white translucent Sam Fisher outline remained above, marking the last known position. I made Sam creep through an underground tunnel, turned on sonar radar when he emerged to orient their positions, and crept back up and over for the kills. Who needs god mode, huh?

Running out of time to play much more, I brought Sam to a smaller room and threw a sticky camera onto the ceiling above a trio of guards. The camera can be used to mark distant enemies for execution. That helps for a set-up, if you can find someone closer to melee — and if you have the marked targets in Sam's line of site. He can't execute if his view is obstructed, after all. I had no time to find a melee victim. So I detonated the sticky camera. Enemies defeated.

Before I had gotten my hands on the game, Beland and a colleague had run through the same level. They'd reached a more advanced area that did an even better job of showing how Conviction's maneuvers need to be used in combination. Fisher had come across a room dug-out in the middle of the floor. It was no bigger than a bus and it had no ceiling. There were three or four guards in it and it didn't have many shadows in which to hide. Fisher could easily mark all of the guards from above, but he'd need a melee kill in order to execute them. He could drop into the room and just start fighting or shooting, but the guards would overwhelm him. The solution to the problem was to mark the guards, then activate a flash bang to stun them all, drop down and melee one of the guys during the confusion, then… execute the rest.

Back at Penny Arcade Expo earlier this month, Beland told witnesses of a different Splinter Cell Conviction demo that he wanted players to experience a more active version of stealth gameplay. He wanted players to take to the shadows like a panther rather than like a grandma, to stalk rather than to hide. With god mode off, I learned, you can do that. The results in Tokyo were disturbingly violent at times, but, in terms of gameplay, quite satisfying.

Splinter Cell Conviction is set for release in February on the Xbox 360 and PC.

(NOTE: The top two images for this post is a screenshot for the game. The last is concept art of the level I played at TGS.)

As the headline says, that exact date is February 23. To celebrate, Ubi released the video below, which I like, because it features the lost art of shooting another man in the hands.

Let's have a look at what games will be on display:

Bayonetta (PS3/Xbox 360)
Puyo Puyo 7 (DS/Wii/PSP)
The House of the Dead: Overkill (Wii)
Chin Sports (Wii)
Super Monkey Ball Athletic (Wii)
J LEAGE Make a Pro Soccer Club! 6 Pride of J (PSP)
Phantasy Star Portable 2 (PSP)
Resonance of Fate (PS3/Xbox 360)
MADWORLD (Wii)
Up (Wii)
Ryu Ga Gotoku 4 (PS3)
Valkyria Chronicles 2 (PSP)
LUNAR -HARMONY of SILVER STAR- (PSP)
Little Busters! Converted Edition (PS2)
Tomoyo After ~It's a Wonderful Life~ CS (Xbox 360)
Poupée Girls DS (DS)
Umihara Kawase (DS)
Kyokugen Dasshutsu (DS)
Coropata (DS)

Titles like Heavy Rain, Bioshock 2, Red Dead Redemption and Bayonetta were all moved to 2010.

"We now have a situation where there are a lot of good games due for release in the first half of next year, but I think some publishers will move again," Guillemot told website MCV. "The first quarter of 2010 is looking pretty crazy. So I expect some movement from the other players — some of those delayed games will be moved again."

Prediction or warning? Ubisoft's Splinter Cell: Conviction was moved from Holiday 2009 to early 2010. Will it be moved again? Will it, Yves?

More game delays coming – Guillemot [MCVUK via Joystiq]

Giant Bomb editorial institutions Ryan Davis and Vinny Caravella had made a bet — for pride and maybe a nominal amount of money — about whether Sam Fisher would have his trademark three-lensed night vision goggles in next year's Splinter Cell Conviction. There was room for doubt, as Fisher appears to have gone rogue in his new game, using none of his standard gadgets in the Conviction demos presented since E3.

Ryan had bet that Fisher wouldn't have the goggles in the game, a sign of just how fully re-invented the franchise would be.

Vinny said there would be goggles.

On Friday night, just a couple of hours before I had the opportunity to join the men on a special edition of their Giant Bombcast podcast here in Seattle, one of the game's developers speaking at a Penny Arcade Expo live stage demo revealed the answer. That sealed it. I had to attend. I had to go on the show and settle the bet.

I had been in that stage demo audience. A developer played through the same chunk of the game that I'd sampled and covered at E3, receiving raucous applause and cheers throughout as Fisher shot guys from shadows and threw some of them out of windows. The Ubisoft developer followed his demo by showing a brief clip that he said would settle a question he knew people were asking. The short in-engine snippet that may have lasted 10 seconds merely panned up Fisher's body to reveal the famous goggles on his head.

I Tweeted this fact. Then I notified Giant Bomb's Brad Shoemaker that I would be en route.

A couple of hours later, I was one of nine people in a Wu-Tang-sized special Giant Bombcast. I settled that bet on the air. Well, I thought I did. Ryan is holding out. After all, he said, the goggles could still be cut from the game. Or the game could never come out.

Hear it all for yourself, plus plenty of other chatter among me and what amounted to a Gamespot reunion. Bonus content includes lots of MAG and Eyepet talk as well as discussions of a Val Kilmer video game and how I would improve Steven Seagal's reality TV show.

Giant Bombcast: PAX Edition

(The image in this post is from an earlier Splinter Cell game.)

That Sam Fisher sure is... versatile? Thanks for the heads up, Mike.

By nearly 100 they actually mean 90, with everyone from 2K Games to Zalman USA packing the show floor with stuff to see and do. Notable events include Bioware's first public showing of Star Wars: The Old Republic, demonstrations of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed II and Splinter Cell: Conviction, and concerts and parties galore. Totilo and I will be there as well, so be on the lookout for his good looks and my astounding sweatiness. Seriously, it's like I am walking around with another me made entirely of water.

You want a full list of exhibitors? You can't handle the full list of exhibitors! But go ahead and try.

Full List Of PAX 2009 Exhibitors

- 1up
- 2K Games
- Aeria Games & Entertainment
- Alienware
- Alteil
- Ankama Games
- Antec
- Astro Gaming
- Atari, Inc.
- Bethesda Softworks LLC
- Big Fish Games
- Bioware
- Black Sheep Studios
- Blizzard Entertainment
- Capcom Entertainment, Inc.
- CCP Games
- CDV Software Entertainment USA
- Chessex
- Disney Interactive Studios
- Dolby Laboratories
- ECA
- Electronic Arts
- Eminence Group Pty. Ltd.
- Fallen Earth LLC
- Flying Frog Productions
- Flying Lab Software
- Frogster America
- Funcom
- Garage Games
- Geek Chic HQ
- Gunnar Optiks
- Harmonix Music
- Hi-Rez Studios
- Hothead Games
- Hudson Entertainment
- iGlove Inc.
- Ignition Entertainment
- ITT Technical Institute
- Jones Soda Co.
- Klei Entertainment
- Mana Energy Potions
- Mega64
- Microsoft
- Microsoft-XNA
- Mythic Entertainment
- Namco Bandai Games America inc
- Namco Networks America Inc.
- NCsoft
- Nexon
- Nintendo of America Inc
- NVIDIA
- Omni Consumer Products (Tru Blood)
- Oni Press
- Patriot Memory
- Phantom EFX, Inc.
- Pink Gorilla LLC
- Playlogic Entertainment Inc.
- Privateer Press
- Riot Games
- Rockstar Games
- Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC
- Runic Games
- SEGA
- Sony Computer Entertainment America
- Stardock Entertainment
- SteelSeries
- Sweet Kitty
- Swell Games / Simon Fraser University
- Telltale Games
- The Behemoth
- The Dreaming Comics and Games
- The Guildhall at SMU
- THQ
- TN Games
- Tozai, Inc.
- Tritton Technologies
- True Games Interactive
- Turbine
- Turtle Beach
- Twisted Pixel Games, LLC
- Ubisoft Entertainment
- Unknown Worlds Entertainment, Inc.
- Upper Deck Entertainment
- Valve Software
- Vancouver Film School
- Wacom Technology
- Warner Bros. Games
- Wizards Of The Coast
- Y-Bot Classic Video Games
- Zalman USA Inc.

All that and more in Seattle next month, September 4th through the 6th.

Yesterday Ubisoft announced the delay of four of their big titles, including Splinter Cell Conviction. The news popped up on the official forums for the game with a statement from Ubisoft Community Developer UbiRazz.

"Splinter Cell Conviction is a very important game for us. We want to ensure it's a game that long-term fans and gamers new to the series equally enjoy when they play it. Previous Splinter Cell games have set the bar very high when it comes to quality and enjoyment, we are firmly focused on continuing this with Conviction.

After demonstrating the new vision for the game at E3 2009 we won many awards and received a lot of interest from fans and press alike. In order to live up to our own ambitions and your expectations, we strongly feel that giving our teams that extra time will allow us to present a game to you that will fulfill that potential. Due to this, we have decided to move the release date into Q1 2010. This extra time will ensure Splinter Cell Conviction becomes every bit the fantastic experience we want it to be.

Keep posting your thoughts and constructive feedback on the game here, we will absolutely continue to read them."

UbiRazz later added that the additional work being done on the game won't result in any major changes.

"Just so you know: there won't be any major changes or additions to what you saw at E3 but there may be minor tweaks/balancing. With this in mind, this thread is largely defunct."

Splinter Cell Conviction delayed until Q1 2010 [Ubisoft Forums]

Splinter Cell Conviction and Red Steel 2, two of the breakout titles from this year's E3 Expo, won't be making their original 2009 release dates, according to Ubisoft's first-quarter 2009 sales report. The two titles are now slated for release in the 4th quarter of 2009, which in Ubisoft's case places their release sometime in the window of January to March 2010. Two additional titles, I am Alive and Ghost Recon, have been pushed to fiscal year 2010-2011, which kicks off in April of 2010. From Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot:

"We are disappointed that we have to postpone the release of several major games but we consider that this choice is the best one in the long-term interests of Ubisoft. Lastly, we are having to adjust our full-year targets to take into account the fall in business over the first half. The excellent response to our games at E3, as well as the high buzz generated for titles such as Assassin's Creed 2, Splinter Cell Conviction and Avatar, reinforce our belief that the company can achieve strong growth in the second half of the fiscal year."

During the conference call, Yves furthe rexplained that the team working on Red Steel 2 requested more time to polish all of the maps, and that the demo shown at E3 didn't reflect the quality of the rest of the game in its current state.

On the bright side, we should have plenty of money to buy presents for other people this Holiday season, right?

Conviction is coming to the Xbox 360 and the PC this October.

In an interview with Kikizo, Ubisoft's Steven Masters has completely gone against previous Ubisoft comments on the matter and been refreshingly frank, saying the real reason the game won't be appearing on Sony's console has nothing to do with his development team, and everything to do with the suits upstairs:

Ubisoft as a company now has a lot of experience with PS3. Our processes, tools, techniques are very well-developed - we could absolutely execute on the PS3 if we had the opportunity, but like I said it was a business decision.

A "link of heart" my arse. You know, in five year's time, I'd love to see just how much Microsoft spent on securing all these "exclusives".

Interview: Splinter Cell: Conviction [Kikizo]