Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction

This is an action game/third-person shooter in which players assume the role of Sam Fisher, a former secret agent who has returned to Washington DC to seek the truth behind his daughter's death. Players track down and interrogate suspects, complete various espionage missions, engage in frenetic gun fights, and perform stealth moves against enemies. While players use pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles, and grenades to kill enemies, stealth combat represents the largest component of gameplay: sneaking up on enemies and breaking their necks, throwing them out of windows, slamming their heads into objects (e.g., mirror, furniture, doors), etc. Most injuries and deaths result in blood spray, splatter effects, walls and floors stained with the red streaks.

The most intense instances of violence occur during character interrogations, sequences in which Sam Fischer (sometimes another spy) questions enemies to obtain valuable information: some characters are grabbed by the throat, pinned to walls and tree stumps, threatened at gun point; information can also be obtained with the aid of environmental objects—windows, urinals, piano keys, and electric heaters; a co-op mission depicts a spy slamming a soldier onto a burning stove top; and at least one interrogation scene depicts the protagonist shooting a villain in the leg, kneecaps, or head. Thus the violence accounts for the Mature rating and the Intense Violence descriptor (the strongest descriptor at M for violent content).

During the course of the game, players can encounter exotic dancers dressed in lingerie—some passed out on beds, others performing on stage in front of mobsters; references to sex can be heard in the dialogue (e.g., "trafficking . . . young girls," "pay[ing] for an hour with an American girl," and "passed out hookers")—factors for the Sexual Themes descriptor rather than the Mature rating. Other pertinent content in the game includes strong language (e.g., "f**k," "c*cksucker," and "a*shole") and references to drugs (e.g., "he's coked up and freaking out"; "transporting a ton of poppy every month"; more lines about the drug trade; "blow," "oxycontin," "tranks").