Ubisoft drew inspiration from Uncharted, Max Payne for Conviction

Splinter Cell: Conviction's game director, Patrick Redding, has revealed the development team's inspiration for the game to OXM, citing games like Max Payne and Uncharted.

Chatting about gameplay elements and invisibility, Redding said looking at other popular games gave the team an idea of what the player spent their time doing.

"It's safe to say that we drew inspiration from a lot of different sources - both in games and out of games," said Redding. "We paid attention to everything from Riddick to Max Payne. Obviously we took a good, heavy look at the way Uncharted works too. It's not just about production value, a lot of it is looking, at the lowest level, what the player is going to spend his time doing.

"One thing that we felt needed to change was the stealth gameplay that's just about being invisible - just about hiding in the shadows waiting for that perfect moment for the guard to walk by so you can drop on him. That's great for guys like you and me who've been with the franchise for a long time and are hardcore enough to sit there and do that, but since the last Splinter Cell games came out the audiences of movies like the Bourne and Bond films have come to expect a more explosive way in which espionage-action is going to work.

"They'll understand that Jason Bourne is going to walk through a corridor and grab a fire extinguisher, look at a map, move around and try to be invisible - but when he turns a corner and runs into two dudes that are looking for him he's going to break their faces and get the hell out. I think that that explosiveness of violence, the ability to very aggressively get into trouble and then get out of trouble - and then disappear - is the thing that we needed to bring to it".

Splinter Cell: Conviction is out for 360 on Tuesday in the US and Friday in the UK. Reviews so far are good.

The Collector's Edition has also been given a $10 markdown due to faulty USB devices included in some of the boxes.