Splinter Cell:
Pandora Tomorrow
review by Head Cheeze

After a solid weekend of Pandora Tomorrow, I developed a curious desire to shoot lightbulbs. You see, in the latest adventure of Sam Fisher, you are in hot pursuit of a terrorist who plans to unleash a smallpox virus somewhere in the United States. While a lesser agent would simply rush right in and plant a seed of hot lead in said terrorist's noggin', Fisher likes to do things the stealthy way, and that involves a lot of slow-crawlin', shadow-huggin, lightbulb-shootin' tactics.

The game is spread out over 17 levels, ranging from the shadowy jungles of Indonesia to a daylight operation at Los Angeles International Airport, but the objectives vary from mission to mission. Fisher is given a constant stream of audio information from his handlers, who tell him whether or not lethal force is authorised, the movements of his targets, etc. Of course, these handlers also provide scolding when Fisher fucks up, ie: killing his contacts/civilians, getting spotted, or doing just about anything they've to you not to do. I heard the phrase "Damnit Fisher, Mission's Over!" about 300 times in the past week, and it made me want to hunt down the actor who voiced that sentiment and snap his spine with my knee.

The charm of a game like Splinter Cell, however, is the fact that it's more about what you don't do than what you do...err..do (he said doo doo...hehehehe) that makes or breaks a mission. For example, there's a mission at an Indonesian village/terrorist camp in which you have to stick to the shadows as you trail behind the head terrorist in an effort to overhear the alarm codes to his bungalow. Once you arrive their, you must hack into his computer while he's walking around the house merely a few yards away, sneak off into the night, and avoid landmines, traps, and dozens of guards. It would be easy to simply snipe them with your silenced weapon and move on, but leaving bodies in the open triggers an alarm (you get three alarm triggers before the mission is blown), so each guard you kill/disable has to be carried to the shadows and hidden. When there are multiple guards, it's almost impossible to shoot more than one without another triggering an alarm, so that's when Fisher has to improvise. Various objects, such as bottles and cans, can be thrown to send guards off to investigate, while Fisher can also whistle to draw attention to one area, and scamper away to another. Whistling also gives Fisher an opportunity to draw a single guard away from a group, club him over the head, and repeat, until the path is clear. These touches are really immersive and unique, and are a welcome change of pace from the traditional run-and-gun first person shooter.

Graphically, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow is a technical marvel, with gorgeous light rendering and detailed landscapes. Water ripples as you wade through it, grass bends and parts as you crawl past, and Fisher's body animations are fluid and based on real world special ops tactics. My only graphic complaints are that much of the beautiful scenery is constantly bathed in darkness, so that you have to use Fisher's night-vision goggles more often than not. I also found that Splinter Cell's engine lacked the "ragdoll physics" of the excellent HITMAN series, which led to a lot of bodies falling into walls, and floating in mid-air. Still, none of this really effects the gameplay, and that's really what it's all about. This is one of the most exciting and compulsive gaming experiences I've had in a long while. I felt a real sense of urgency playing this game, and it's real world settings, weapons, and protagonists made for a "game" that could very well be playing out in some shadowy part of the real world as we speak.

Splinter Cell also features a multiplayer mode that I only dabbled in briefly. I've heard it referred to as "revolutionary" and "groundbreaking", but for me it was just a confusing variation on hide-and-seek, in which one team plays as Shadownet (Fisher's agency) and one team plays as Mercenaries/Guards. Essentially, you run around in darkness and club each other on the head while attempting to steal data/weapons or access rooms. It was fun, but nothing like the stealth experience of the single player game, and I found myself being killed by my own teammates well before any opposition force made it's presence known. I guess them's the breaks when you give people machine guns in the dark.

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow is available for most platforms, but I played the PC version, so I imagine that, graphically, it may differ from system to system. With the wide graphic options provided by PC, it'd be hard to imagine that the game would look as good on any other system, but the nuts and bolts oughta be the same, and that's what really makes this game such a blast!