This week’s new Xbox LIVE game is Splinter Cell: Conviction. This one was announced long long ago in 2011, but it’s finally becoming available tomorrow on February 22nd. This isn’t your average casual pick-up-and-play-whenever game that many are used to for smartphone games. This is a real shooter with lots of controls and buttons to learn. You’ve got a virtual joystick on the left to control the direction in which your character will walk or run, then you’ve got buttons on the right for doing all sorts of actions including shooting, sniper mode, crouching, jumping over things, etc. (depending on the context of your environment). Then you’ve got an area at the top right where you can choose between weapons and grenades. The rest of the screen is your view of the environment and you can touch and drag anywhere that isn’t a button in order to change your viewing angle. It’s pretty complicated for a phone game! I personally found it a bit frustrating, but I know many people have been waiting for some Windows Phone games with a lot more depth and complexity, so this might be it.

It seems like a very straight-forward port of the iPhone game however, so if you’ve played that, there’s not much new here. You won’t find any fancy Xbox LIVE features here either like Xbox 360 connectivity, Live tiles, ring-tone unlocking, or avatar awards.

Splinter Cell: Conviction will be available in the Windows Phone Marketplace tomorrow for $4.99 and of course a free trial will be available as well.