Tomorrow never dies.
Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow was one of the most important
titles ever released for the
Xbox. It managed to capture the stealthy essence of the original Splinter
Cell while adorning itself in some gorgeous visuals, topping it off with its
own unique brand of addictive online play.
Unfortunately, very little of that made it into the Gamecube version. Instead,
Gamecube owners are left with a solid single-player campaign, but not much
else, turning what was once a fantastic game into merely a decent one.
The campaign begins with the violent assault of a U.S. Embassy in East Timor,
a small nation in the Indonesian island chain, and takes you all over the world
searching for the meaning behind the words âPandora Tomorrow,â as well as their
author, Sadono. In a storyline that is eerily applicable to current events,
one wonders if between the lines in the news can be discerned the secret wars
of real Sam Fischers. Regardless of its ties to reality, Pandora
Tomorrow is
plenty believable.
Most of Pandora
Tomorrow is unchanged from the Xbox version in terms of gameplay. Sam can creep,
walk, run, roll, jump, climb, hang, SWAT turn (a fancy move that takes him
stealthily past doorways), creep along walls, shoot his gun standing, crouching,
hanging, around corners, upside down and over enemy shoulders, as well as carry
bodies, snipe, whistle(!), elbow slam, pick-locks, disarm bombs and, I think,
bake a cake.
Heâs also got all the nifty gadgets from before. Using his optic cable or
sticky cam (which can enter both heat and night vision modes), he can case
an area for passive defenses such as motion detectors and cameras as well as
check out the lighting/guard situation. The only new gadget in the single-player
campaign is the camera jammer, and itâs sadly the most useless gadget in Samâs
arsenal. When pointed at a camera, the jammer has the ability to suck the battery
power out of it. But I always just shoot the damn things.
When combined with his physical capabilities, Samâs options represent a practically
inexhaustible source of new methods and strategies. Sam is constantly in puzzling
situations, but is never distracted by the banality of hunting for keys or
solving ridiculous mini-games. Itâs just the best stealth gameplay on the planet.
The rules of engagement change scene by scene and level by level. While Sam
is occasionally allowed to act with extreme prejudice, his missions are frequently
defined by restrictions such as âNo Mortalitiesâ and âNo Sightings.â Such restrictions
change the methods available, and as a result create a dynamic play experience.
For example, if fatalities are out of the question, Sam can still knock people
out as well as shoot them with non-lethal ammo. The non-lethal stuff is usually
in pretty short supply, meaning most personnel will have to be dispatched manually.
Thatâs easier said than done thanks to Pandora Tomorrowâs overall difficulty.
Hiding bodies this time around is actually more unforgiving than it was last
time. On a âNo Sightingsâ mission, if you donât hide a body in room A and move
to room B, youâre dead, period. With such unforgiving objectives, Pandora requires
its fair share of trial-and-error play. As a result, youâll be spending a fair
amount of time staring at a loading screen, especially since the Gamecubeâs
loading times are notably longer than the Xboxâs.
Generally
speaking, the AI has improved since the original Splinter
Cell. Enemies occasionally
work together as squads and sweep rooms. If you fire from a shadow and an enemy
sees the muzzle blast, heâll get you, and enemies call for help if they see
fallen comrades. This leads to usually one or two enemies rallying to help,
and theyâre enemies that are actually in the level; they donât magically spawn
in. However, the AI in the Gamecube version is a bit more forgiving than the
AI in the Xbox version. Guards are easier to lure and mislead and simply donât
seem as nervous as they were on the Xbox.
But thanks to AI teamwork, sneaking up on a bad guy and snapping his neck
is not as easy as it sounds. Shooting enemies is often a better option; most
enemies can take a lot of rounds to the extremities, a few to the torso, or
one to the dome. Itâs usually easier to just go for the kill, but using the
ring foils and sticky darts, you can take guys down without lethal force nicely,
too. Sam is a very clever killer.
Pandora Tomorrow is very similar to the original Splinter
Cell, which is
mostly a very good thing. Still, that means the game is quite linear and you
can still only save during checkpoints. Some will find this frustrating, though
I think the game would be too easy with a âsave anywhereâ function. New to
the Gamecube version is a screen that tracks Samâs stats at the end of each
mission. The lists are robust and give hardcore Fischer addicts an official
benchmark to compete against: themselves.
This is especially significant in
the Gamecube version since you wonât be competing against anybody else. I
canât stress enough how big of a bummer this is. A good chunk of Pandora
Tomorrowâs brilliance lies in its multiplayer, but since the Gamecube
isnât online, the whole multiplayer game is gone. Considering that both the
PS2 and Xbox
versions feature sweet online play, the Gamecube version feels incomplete.
This
isnât helped by the somewhat mediocre graphics. The layering of lighting
effects found in the Xbox version is gone, as are most of the brilliant shadow
effects. Instead of enjoying a full spectrum of illumination, Pandora for
the Gamecube seems to rely very heavily on black. The lack of a twilight
effect makes it really tough to tell when Sam is visible and when he isnât.
Since you canât actually see the light shining down, youâll have to watch
your shadow meter very carefully. Also, the number of shootable lights has
diminished. Whereas these things were everywhere in the Xbox version, they
now appear only when theyâll make a room entirely dark, so expect to use
a lot of night-vision.
Sam Fischer himself still looks good, and while people who have only owned
a Gamecube will probably still be impressed by the water effects and remaining
ambience, anyone who has played the Xbox version will be disappointed by the
blocky enemies, reduced anti-aliasing, and the overall lower graphical standard.
Pandora âs music and voice-work are still marvelous, though
the sound effects seem a bit tinnier in the Gamecube version. Michael Ironside
is again great as Sam Fischer, and pretty much everyone involved delivers their
lines well. Given the fact that the plot unfolds almost entirely through these
dialogues, less than spot-on voice acting would have ruined the drama and weakened
the game. Lucky for us, itâs great.
Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow for the Gamecube is the worst of the three
console versions available, due mainly to the absence of the terrific multiplayer
found in the PS2 and Xbox builds. Still, thereâs enough single-player goodness
here to entertain for a bit â just donât expect to be blown away.
