TOM CLANCY'S SPLINTER CELL CONVICTION is a stealth-based shoot-'em-up game for the Xbox 360 console in which a military agent goes renegade from his special operations outfit when he discovers that their betrayal led to the death of his daughter - and that certain members are also involved in a terrorist plot that threatens millions. The game was classified '15' for strong violence and language.

The game is the latest in the SPLINTER CELL series and the gameplay is similar to previous editions. The player character moves through various missions in which he encounters enemies who will impede his progress and who he must evade or kill. Although the stealth element is a significant part of the gameplay, the level of threat to the player character means that he must resort to more extreme measures resulting in strong violence which is conducted through the use of an array of firepower, as well as in hand-to-hand combat. Impacts from bullets or blows result in blood spurts that vary in strength depending on the range from which they are delivered and bloody detail decorates the game environments during the various encounters. There are also 'stealth kills' in which the player character can break the neck of an enemy in order to dispatch him quietly. There is, however, no significantly sadistic edge to this violence since the player engages in combat only to complete the missions and cannot, for example, inflict post-mortem damage on downed victims. There are, occasionally, more personalised moments of violence when the player character has to interrogate an enemy in order to obtain information that will aid his progress and uses objects in the environment (for example, a toilet bowl) to inflict damage on the victim. But again, there is no invitation to take undue pleasure in such action since it is necessary only to enable game progression and the overall impact of the violence in the gameplay - which is set in a world of high-tech counter espionage that is removed from everyday reality - sits within the allowance of BBFC Guidelines at '15' which state that 'Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury'.

The '15' category was also required for the presence of strong language throughout the game which includes uses of 'fuck' and 'motherfucker'. The Guidelines at '15' allow for 'frequent use of strong language'.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction