GDC 2010: Hands on with Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction on iPhone

Sam Fisher has been about as stealthy as a raccoon fishing through a tin garbage can in the middle of the night. Despite Gameloft trying hard to discard rumours of his iPhone and iPod touch debut as rubbish, we've finally taken the lid off the covert operative's mission.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction follows the events of the console game, though obviously tailoring the series' hallmark stealth-action for touch-enabled play. Striking a nice balance between stealth and straight up action, this phenomenal-looking portable version was the highlight of Gameloft's GDC line up.

As previously mentioned, the game adheres to the major plot points of the console title, which sees rogue agent Sam Fisher pursuing his daughter's murderer. Vengeance fuels his mission, which takes him across the world to Malta, Iraq, Washington, D.C. and other locations. A total of ten missions comprise the single-player campaign for a few hours of gameplay.

The third-person format mirrors action game Terminator Salvation - movement is handled via a virtual analogue stick, whereas sliding a finger anywhere on the screen adjusts the camera - though the introduction of stealth mechanics provides a wide range of possibilities.

Shooting your way through a level is an option, but often your best chance for survival lies in manipulating the environment and utilising gadgetry to outsmart enemies.

During the introductory mission in the beautiful European city-state of Malta, for example, the mark and execute feature enables you to target multiple enemies at once. Having Fisher take cover by pressing the blue action button in the lower-right corner, I was able to get two enemies in his sights and then tap the attack button to initiate two quick, successive shots to take them both down.

Contextual take downs are an alternative to shooting enemies from afar. Sneaking up on a guard prompts a stealth kill pulled off by tapping the red attack button in the lower-right corner.

You can even pull off these sneaky executions while hanging from a ledge or climbing up a ladder. While breaking into a secure complex in a later level, for instance, I was able to quietly dispatch guards by climbing ladders and tripping them up.

In these stealth stages, outright shooting at enemies proved fairly ineffective. A soft-targeting mechanic automatically locks onto the nearest enemy, which allows you to then riddle them with bullets - however, enemies don't go down as easily as when marked.

There are stages in which setting your guns on fire is the only option. The last level I played - set in a dilapidated Iraqi city - had Fisher moving from points of cover while firing on scores of enemies.

Honestly, it was nowhere near as satisfying as the stealth levels. Hopefully the level design focuses more on stealth or at least offers the option to sneak about most of the game.

Much remains to be seen of Splinter Cell: Conviction and I'm curious to toy with the full array of gadgets at Fisher's disposal - grenade cameras that can be thrown and then provide you with a first-person view of the action are particularly useful.

Hopefully it won't be long until that's possible, though Gameloft has yet to set a release date for the game.