First things first, it’s that time of the year again. If you would be so kind as to fill out this quick survey so we can get some general information about the reader demographic, it would be a big help. We use this information to select advertisers that fall in line with the stuff you guys might care about. If you were to tell us you’re into phallus-shaped aluminum siding, we’d try and run advertisements relevant to your interests. Please don’t tell us you’re into phallus-shaped aluminum siding.

Now, on to business. I’m really excited for Splinter Cell: Conviction next week, and you should be too.

I don’t know about you guys, but when a game comes out that offers true stealth, that offers a chance to get from point A to point B without being detected, so help me, it’s that way or the highway as far as I’m concerned.

I replayed the Splinter Cell demo over a few times until I could complete it without raising any kind of alert or attention. I’ll likely play the campaign the same way, and I used to do the same thing with the Hitman games. With Hitman, in most missions, if you were good enough it was possible to complete the objectives from start to finish without ever being noticed, and I always felt it was the way it was meant to be played.

Sure, you can “recover” from a fumble, a small shootout with some alerted guards and your cover may still be intact enough to complete the mission. That’s not good enough for me. Instead, I save often and reload if I botch something.

I’m sure this seems strange to some of you, and perfectly normal to others. My reasoning is two-fold. First of all (and especially since Demon’s Souls came into my life), I’m all about challenge in video games. These days, if a game has a difficulty setting, I automatically set it to the highest one. I figure, if I’m going to play through this game, I may as well do so at the highest challenge level, because let’s be honest… the chances that I’m going to go back and play it a second time are pretty slim.

Second (and this is a fairly thin argument but it still holds at least a little bit of water), it extends the playtime of the game. If there’s a game I’m excited for (a la Splinter Cell), I don’t want to just tear through it and be done with it. I like to get as much as I can out of it, and setting little challenges for myself such as clearing a stage perfectly draws out the play time a bit and lets me walk away from the game saying “yep, I beat that game the best way possible”.

When Red Dead Redemption comes out you can bet I’ll be traveling all over the damn place, doing side missions and whatever, for the very same reason.