Splinter Cell is one of my favorite genres of game (Stealth!) and a series that holds a pretty special place in my heart, despite not being super on top of the series in general. One of my fondest memories of my old Xbox was playing through the first VERY difficult Splinter Cell game and being entranced by the tactical gameplay and slowed down pace of action. The main character is a gruff old goat voiced by Michael Ironside who very much brings his A-Game in terms of growl and depth. The first game I replayed very shortly prior to my first 52 game challenge so I do have a decent memory of it and decided to skip it in a Splinter Cell series playthrough. So I decided to buy 3 games on my Xbox One because they're on sale and backwards compatible and started with the second game in the series - Pandora Tomorrow. I never actually got to play this back in the day, I skipped right to Chaos Theory.. so how was this very old stealth game to start off with?
Actually pretty darn good!
Sam is back for another generic adventure with a Bad Guy of the Week, this one an East Timor 'freedom fighter' who plays himself as a new Che Guevara trying to lead a revolution against the US on the world stage. He's basically just a jumped up terrorist and drug dealer however who has a major edge - several smallpox bombs he has smuggled into the US. Plus, he has a dead man's switch on all of the bombs - if he goes down, they go off. So how do we settle this? Sam sneaks about a bunch of a BROAD variety of locales, konking folks over the head and snooping around to get the thing that Lambert snidely wants! While the in-mission goals don't vary too much, the level designs themselves and the art directions for each are pretty wildly different. There's a dense jungle you're sneaking through in the late evening (that sun is still up don't you worry..), a fast moving train that's quite a stand out, a base leading to a fricken' submarine you get to fight your way out of, LAX airport!, and a couple others that were all at least decent if not pretty good? Quick aside as well on the art style - friggen' outstanding. There is such an EXCEPTIONAL use of dynamic lighting in every single level, it makes the darkness you are supposed to be hiding in feel good to make use of. There were several spots in each level where I'd say "Damn this looks tight for a 15+ year old game)
While the maps are solid, and the gameplay fundamentals themselves are good (the light/shadow and sound mechanics are fuckin' rock solid stealth systems, they give the player the perfect amount of info on how concerned the player needs to be on being discovered) sadly the levels a bit too linear to be genuinely great.. 90% of the time there is a very clear path the devs wanted you to take and no derivation from it is acceptable or will be rewarded. There were plenty of low fences I wanted to hop over, doors I wanted to go through out of order, or areas that just respawned bad guys for no reason other than the plot needed to. It was very unfortunate knowing that the sequel (we'll get to that one soon!) does such a great job with it, but honestly I was shocked when I replayed the original a couple of years ago to discover it had the exact same issue.. Well it was one of the first real attempts at the stealth genre on console, you gotta' start somewhere! Also the game lacks a proper save system other than checkpoints, and there were some damn ANNOYING sections I had to do 5+ times to get exactly right because I really had no fuckin' idea where the game wanted me to go or do so I had to wander around - and in a few of those places one mistake period meant going back to the damn load screen... very frustrating.
I don't often love replaying older games - the clunkiness, the graphics, the voice acting and storytelling are just not up to our standards... and in a lot of ways, Pandora Tomorrow has all of that. Picking up items and objects are rote animations, abysmal checkpoint system, voice acting is BAD except for Lambert and Ironside, the story/villain are pretty one-note and simple with no real overarching plot for the series... all of these things are true, but ultimately I had a damn good time just exploring these levels, marveling at a work more than 15 years old and being delighted to lurk in the shadows and pounce on some unsuspecting mercenary goon then slink back off into the shadows to strike again...
Actually pretty darn good!
Sam is back for another generic adventure with a Bad Guy of the Week, this one an East Timor 'freedom fighter' who plays himself as a new Che Guevara trying to lead a revolution against the US on the world stage. He's basically just a jumped up terrorist and drug dealer however who has a major edge - several smallpox bombs he has smuggled into the US. Plus, he has a dead man's switch on all of the bombs - if he goes down, they go off. So how do we settle this? Sam sneaks about a bunch of a BROAD variety of locales, konking folks over the head and snooping around to get the thing that Lambert snidely wants! While the in-mission goals don't vary too much, the level designs themselves and the art directions for each are pretty wildly different. There's a dense jungle you're sneaking through in the late evening (that sun is still up don't you worry..), a fast moving train that's quite a stand out, a base leading to a fricken' submarine you get to fight your way out of, LAX airport!, and a couple others that were all at least decent if not pretty good? Quick aside as well on the art style - friggen' outstanding. There is such an EXCEPTIONAL use of dynamic lighting in every single level, it makes the darkness you are supposed to be hiding in feel good to make use of. There were several spots in each level where I'd say "Damn this looks tight for a 15+ year old game)
While the maps are solid, and the gameplay fundamentals themselves are good (the light/shadow and sound mechanics are fuckin' rock solid stealth systems, they give the player the perfect amount of info on how concerned the player needs to be on being discovered) sadly the levels a bit too linear to be genuinely great.. 90% of the time there is a very clear path the devs wanted you to take and no derivation from it is acceptable or will be rewarded. There were plenty of low fences I wanted to hop over, doors I wanted to go through out of order, or areas that just respawned bad guys for no reason other than the plot needed to. It was very unfortunate knowing that the sequel (we'll get to that one soon!) does such a great job with it, but honestly I was shocked when I replayed the original a couple of years ago to discover it had the exact same issue.. Well it was one of the first real attempts at the stealth genre on console, you gotta' start somewhere! Also the game lacks a proper save system other than checkpoints, and there were some damn ANNOYING sections I had to do 5+ times to get exactly right because I really had no fuckin' idea where the game wanted me to go or do so I had to wander around - and in a few of those places one mistake period meant going back to the damn load screen... very frustrating.
I don't often love replaying older games - the clunkiness, the graphics, the voice acting and storytelling are just not up to our standards... and in a lot of ways, Pandora Tomorrow has all of that. Picking up items and objects are rote animations, abysmal checkpoint system, voice acting is BAD except for Lambert and Ironside, the story/villain are pretty one-note and simple with no real overarching plot for the series... all of these things are true, but ultimately I had a damn good time just exploring these levels, marveling at a work more than 15 years old and being delighted to lurk in the shadows and pounce on some unsuspecting mercenary goon then slink back off into the shadows to strike again...