cool levels, just have odd objectives and checkpoints
This needs a remake NOW
This review contains spoilers
Coming from one of the most aggressively average games ever made, I didn't expect this to be much more than an expansion pack disguised as a sequel to give people something before the actual sequel got released. I mean, Pandora Tomorrow is exactly that (it wasn't even made by the same studio that made both Splinter Cell and Chaos Theory), but what I didn't expect is for it to be worse than the previous game.
First off, mechanically it is exactly the same. Yes, it has some new things but those are merely details or gimmicks used for certain situations, but not something meaningful. One good thing I'll say about this one is that it is less restrictive than the previous game. The three alert-limit is still there, but if you don't raise the alarm too continuously it will be reset back to 0, and now with each of the three stages of the limit before it's game over, enemies will start wearing bulletproof vests after the first alert and helmets after the second one. When you reach the third stage it is game over, obviously. And while this is a much better approach than last time, not only half of the levels are still “trip the alarm once and it's game over”, but also I find it really stupid how after having spotted the bodies of various of their comrades, they still decide to reset the alert level to 0 like nothing happened.
I don't know how, but they fucked up the enemy AI. For some reason, if you kill someone, regardless if you killed it in the shadows or under the light, if there's another enemy around, he will know where the body is and go there to raise the alert level, or they will even spot the body from afar anyways, who cares. These time they are way too sensitive to anything you do. If you knock-out someone in the shadows they'll STILL notice it if it's somewhere near, even if there's a wall in-between. In the original Splinter Cell, the enemy AI could be exploited in some ways that made them look stupid, but it worked since it was a really, really straightforward and linear experience. Don't get me wrong, it's still straightforward and linear, it's just that now they've gotten smarter. They also used to move erratically and unpredictably when you alerted them, which is something more notorious this time around. The whistle button is, probably, the only useful addition this game has is necessary to walk past certain enemies, and will come in handy for these moments, and they happen very often, so now you'll need to become best friends with the whistle button, and if you don't you'll get many, many game over screens.
It still has a lot of gimmicky set-pieces (although maybe less than in the previous game), and it still has a lot of trial and error. Especially this last one. It has a fuck-ton of trial and error. More and more annoying than before. Since enemy AI is smarter, now you'll need to make millimetrical movements and follow the script without failing just once if you don't want to get noticed. This wouldn't be so problematic if enemies didn't drain all your health and effectively kill you so goddamn fast, but they do, and when the alarm goes off, soldiers will come from out of nowhere to kill you. This got to a point of annoyance where I dreaded about the simple thought of inserting the game disc. I didn't want to play this.
All this makes an already bad game an even worse one, but what is significantly worse is the story. The story in the first Splinter Cell was so ridiculously basic, uninspired and generic that I wasn't paying much attention to whatever super-serious crimes were being committed by super-serious terrorists with super-serious plans. It was cheesy more times than anything, but it did get me interested enough to finish it. This made the patriotic propaganda more bearable. But this time the story is bad, it's really bad, and the propaganda levels are off the charts. If we decide to look at this as a simple story, putting the propaganda aside, it is bad. No character has any personality or development, the conflict is poorly told and extremely overdone, the enemy leaders are so cartoonishly evil that it's ridiculous. Nothing about it works. But then, there's the propaganda. Every character is constantly reminding you that you're working for THE GOOD GUYS™ while the other factions are THE BAD GUYS™. Obviously, what THE BAD GUYS™ want is to destroy the free world, end democracy and kill a lot of innocent people in the way. Of course that's what they want! That's what real life leaders against American interventionism have always wanted! To kill people! Mindless murderers! How barbaric those third world leaders are, and how great are we, Americans who fight for the freedom of the world! I think I might need to rethink the ratings I gave to all those COD games. I know this isn’t strange considering the Tom Clancy label plastered on the title, but like, it's so blatantly morally corrupt that it becomes genuinely disgusting. It's black or white, no greyscale, no good intentions, no nuance, no nothing, they're just bad because bad.
After the main conflict starts with the takeover of the American embassy in Indonesia by generic third world revolutionary leader in protest of having an American military base in their country (something I also happen to have here where I live, relatively close to my home in fact, and I wish was gone), it is revealed they have stolen smallpox from a cryogenic lab in France to threaten the US with releasing it and then you go to Israel and get betrayed by the Israeli Secret Service and the you go to Indonesia to do a bunch of stuff and then you capture the bad guy and in the last level you kill the other bad guy in an extremely anticlimactic shootout where he dies unceremoniously despite planting a virus-bomb in the L.A. Airport. There, I summarized the 10-hours plot. It is as generic as it sounds. Everything is so anticlimactic that it feels like they forgot what was even the point of all this halfway through and just gave up. I didn't connect to anything I was presented to the point where I really, really did not care about whatever happened to any of these characters or if the entire world blew up.
One of the worst things that can happen to any narrative in general, is having yourself in the situation where you actively think to yourself “I do not care about whatever happens to these people” while playing. And that's the feeling I had during the entire game. I just wanted it to be over. Nothing about it engaged me. It is miserable as a game. It is miserable as a story. And still, someone will compare it to Metal Gear just because it's a stealth game and there's a guy in a sneaking suit or whatever superfluous details. But this is indeed the perfect Metal Gear-like for all the people who entirely missed the point of Metal Gear.
First off, mechanically it is exactly the same. Yes, it has some new things but those are merely details or gimmicks used for certain situations, but not something meaningful. One good thing I'll say about this one is that it is less restrictive than the previous game. The three alert-limit is still there, but if you don't raise the alarm too continuously it will be reset back to 0, and now with each of the three stages of the limit before it's game over, enemies will start wearing bulletproof vests after the first alert and helmets after the second one. When you reach the third stage it is game over, obviously. And while this is a much better approach than last time, not only half of the levels are still “trip the alarm once and it's game over”, but also I find it really stupid how after having spotted the bodies of various of their comrades, they still decide to reset the alert level to 0 like nothing happened.
I don't know how, but they fucked up the enemy AI. For some reason, if you kill someone, regardless if you killed it in the shadows or under the light, if there's another enemy around, he will know where the body is and go there to raise the alert level, or they will even spot the body from afar anyways, who cares. These time they are way too sensitive to anything you do. If you knock-out someone in the shadows they'll STILL notice it if it's somewhere near, even if there's a wall in-between. In the original Splinter Cell, the enemy AI could be exploited in some ways that made them look stupid, but it worked since it was a really, really straightforward and linear experience. Don't get me wrong, it's still straightforward and linear, it's just that now they've gotten smarter. They also used to move erratically and unpredictably when you alerted them, which is something more notorious this time around. The whistle button is, probably, the only useful addition this game has is necessary to walk past certain enemies, and will come in handy for these moments, and they happen very often, so now you'll need to become best friends with the whistle button, and if you don't you'll get many, many game over screens.
It still has a lot of gimmicky set-pieces (although maybe less than in the previous game), and it still has a lot of trial and error. Especially this last one. It has a fuck-ton of trial and error. More and more annoying than before. Since enemy AI is smarter, now you'll need to make millimetrical movements and follow the script without failing just once if you don't want to get noticed. This wouldn't be so problematic if enemies didn't drain all your health and effectively kill you so goddamn fast, but they do, and when the alarm goes off, soldiers will come from out of nowhere to kill you. This got to a point of annoyance where I dreaded about the simple thought of inserting the game disc. I didn't want to play this.
All this makes an already bad game an even worse one, but what is significantly worse is the story. The story in the first Splinter Cell was so ridiculously basic, uninspired and generic that I wasn't paying much attention to whatever super-serious crimes were being committed by super-serious terrorists with super-serious plans. It was cheesy more times than anything, but it did get me interested enough to finish it. This made the patriotic propaganda more bearable. But this time the story is bad, it's really bad, and the propaganda levels are off the charts. If we decide to look at this as a simple story, putting the propaganda aside, it is bad. No character has any personality or development, the conflict is poorly told and extremely overdone, the enemy leaders are so cartoonishly evil that it's ridiculous. Nothing about it works. But then, there's the propaganda. Every character is constantly reminding you that you're working for THE GOOD GUYS™ while the other factions are THE BAD GUYS™. Obviously, what THE BAD GUYS™ want is to destroy the free world, end democracy and kill a lot of innocent people in the way. Of course that's what they want! That's what real life leaders against American interventionism have always wanted! To kill people! Mindless murderers! How barbaric those third world leaders are, and how great are we, Americans who fight for the freedom of the world! I think I might need to rethink the ratings I gave to all those COD games. I know this isn’t strange considering the Tom Clancy label plastered on the title, but like, it's so blatantly morally corrupt that it becomes genuinely disgusting. It's black or white, no greyscale, no good intentions, no nuance, no nothing, they're just bad because bad.
After the main conflict starts with the takeover of the American embassy in Indonesia by generic third world revolutionary leader in protest of having an American military base in their country (something I also happen to have here where I live, relatively close to my home in fact, and I wish was gone), it is revealed they have stolen smallpox from a cryogenic lab in France to threaten the US with releasing it and then you go to Israel and get betrayed by the Israeli Secret Service and the you go to Indonesia to do a bunch of stuff and then you capture the bad guy and in the last level you kill the other bad guy in an extremely anticlimactic shootout where he dies unceremoniously despite planting a virus-bomb in the L.A. Airport. There, I summarized the 10-hours plot. It is as generic as it sounds. Everything is so anticlimactic that it feels like they forgot what was even the point of all this halfway through and just gave up. I didn't connect to anything I was presented to the point where I really, really did not care about whatever happened to any of these characters or if the entire world blew up.
One of the worst things that can happen to any narrative in general, is having yourself in the situation where you actively think to yourself “I do not care about whatever happens to these people” while playing. And that's the feeling I had during the entire game. I just wanted it to be over. Nothing about it engaged me. It is miserable as a game. It is miserable as a story. And still, someone will compare it to Metal Gear just because it's a stealth game and there's a guy in a sneaking suit or whatever superfluous details. But this is indeed the perfect Metal Gear-like for all the people who entirely missed the point of Metal Gear.
A visible evolution of the first game, with its more fluid gameplay and more options in its arsenal. It's a shame that its missions are so linear, not allowing the player to have a margin of choice on how to proceed in each level. But it's definitely more fun than the first one.
Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow can basically be seen as an expansion of the first game. Same great gameplay, just with a new story and levels. I'm not complaining as I love the first splinter cell and think it's one of the greatest stealth games, and getting more of that is not a problem at all. Some say the levels here are weaker than the first game, but I feel like they're just as good.
My first stealth game.
É um jogo legal, mas eu esperava tão mais do que ele entrega que no final é só decepcionante…
Pandora Tomorrow, tal qual muitas sequências atuais da Ubisoft (e até a elogiadíssima por esse que vos fala, trilogia Hitman World of Assassination), pega tudo que foi criado de positivo em seu antecessor, replica, muda uma coisa ou outra e então o lança como algo novo. No caso de Splinter Cell isso não é ativamente ruim, já que, como dito em minha review anterior da franquia (recomendo a leitura), Splinter Cell 1 é realmente incrível. E justamente por eu ter me impressionado com o jogo de 2002 eu esperava algo a mais do que simplesmente uma nova história com os mesmos gráficos e uma jogabilidade quase que 1:1 com seu antecessor.
Pandora Tomorrow infelizmente abandona os poucos elementos de Immersive Sim que o primeiro tinha para dar lugar a uma ação mais desenfreada, dando um ar ainda maior de linearidade pra esse jogo já curto. Não é como se o jogo saísse de um Arma (hiper realista) e fosse abruptamente para algo mais exagerado entupido de explosões ala Velozes e Furiosos, mas em comparação ao primeiro (que já tinha elementos presentes de ação), este apresenta muito mais características do gênero.
Em 75% da campanha, ao longo de suas 8 missões, esse título é mais fácil que seu predecessor, e tal qual sua interação de 2002, em dado momento aqui a dificuldade se eleva de maneira artificial. O problema disso é que essa elevação na dificuldade é muito grande. Durante as 2 missões finais, não só qualquer ação fora do que o jogo esperava me causavam falha na missão, como também ao longo dessas missões em específico, além de existirem mais inimigos por metro quadrado, estes se tornam muito mais sensíveis a passos, seja de forma coerente, graças a detalhes do cenário, seja de forma extremamente artificial.
Pelo o que eu li de outras reviews, o maior alicerce de Pandora Tomorrow está no seu multiplayer (que eu não joguei) e eu não duvido que seja. A gameplay é uma evolução EXTREMAMENTE tímida. A história não é (pra mim) algo que eu foque em um jogo do gênero - por mais interessante que esta é, já que aborda tópicos minimamente atuais como fake news e guerras biológicas -. Os momentos cinematográficos voltam a aparecer mas não são tão impressionantes como no título inicial. A HUD é só uma versão piorada e mais feia da de 2002. Musicalmente este jogo é legal, porém, por algum motivo as músicas são extremamente intrusivas nas fases, literalmente começando do nada e terminando do nada e de maneira estridente.
No final é difícil comparar este com o primeiro jogo de Sam Fisher. Enquanto Splinter Cell 1 é quase uma obra prima do gênero Stealth e totalmente mandatório, o segundo título é no máximo uma sombra do que poderia ser de fato.
Pandora Tomorrow, tal qual muitas sequências atuais da Ubisoft (e até a elogiadíssima por esse que vos fala, trilogia Hitman World of Assassination), pega tudo que foi criado de positivo em seu antecessor, replica, muda uma coisa ou outra e então o lança como algo novo. No caso de Splinter Cell isso não é ativamente ruim, já que, como dito em minha review anterior da franquia (recomendo a leitura), Splinter Cell 1 é realmente incrível. E justamente por eu ter me impressionado com o jogo de 2002 eu esperava algo a mais do que simplesmente uma nova história com os mesmos gráficos e uma jogabilidade quase que 1:1 com seu antecessor.
Pandora Tomorrow infelizmente abandona os poucos elementos de Immersive Sim que o primeiro tinha para dar lugar a uma ação mais desenfreada, dando um ar ainda maior de linearidade pra esse jogo já curto. Não é como se o jogo saísse de um Arma (hiper realista) e fosse abruptamente para algo mais exagerado entupido de explosões ala Velozes e Furiosos, mas em comparação ao primeiro (que já tinha elementos presentes de ação), este apresenta muito mais características do gênero.
Em 75% da campanha, ao longo de suas 8 missões, esse título é mais fácil que seu predecessor, e tal qual sua interação de 2002, em dado momento aqui a dificuldade se eleva de maneira artificial. O problema disso é que essa elevação na dificuldade é muito grande. Durante as 2 missões finais, não só qualquer ação fora do que o jogo esperava me causavam falha na missão, como também ao longo dessas missões em específico, além de existirem mais inimigos por metro quadrado, estes se tornam muito mais sensíveis a passos, seja de forma coerente, graças a detalhes do cenário, seja de forma extremamente artificial.
Pelo o que eu li de outras reviews, o maior alicerce de Pandora Tomorrow está no seu multiplayer (que eu não joguei) e eu não duvido que seja. A gameplay é uma evolução EXTREMAMENTE tímida. A história não é (pra mim) algo que eu foque em um jogo do gênero - por mais interessante que esta é, já que aborda tópicos minimamente atuais como fake news e guerras biológicas -. Os momentos cinematográficos voltam a aparecer mas não são tão impressionantes como no título inicial. A HUD é só uma versão piorada e mais feia da de 2002. Musicalmente este jogo é legal, porém, por algum motivo as músicas são extremamente intrusivas nas fases, literalmente começando do nada e terminando do nada e de maneira estridente.
No final é difícil comparar este com o primeiro jogo de Sam Fisher. Enquanto Splinter Cell 1 é quase uma obra prima do gênero Stealth e totalmente mandatório, o segundo título é no máximo uma sombra do que poderia ser de fato.
They tried to fix the issues from the 1st game, did ok-ish job...
on the other hand delivered a SUPERB multiplayer mode.
on the other hand delivered a SUPERB multiplayer mode.
Features much the same jank as SC1 with quite a few instances of inexplicable enemy detections but is overall more balanced than the original. Story line feels a bit rushed but classic SC gameplay is present and on point. Rewarding and challenging down to earth stealth gameplay that will make you feel like a badass when you master it. One of the big new additions in this game is daytime missions which ups the difficulty by making you more visible.
The level concepts and level design in this game is definitely a step up from the original. The airport mission, the train mission, and the tv station mission all stand out for sure. The design of Pandora Tomorrow, like that of the first Splinter Cell, definitely does create moments where trial and error feels like the only way to progress. This is thankfully a bit less prevalent here than in the original.
Overall Pandora Tomorrow is very similar to the original Splinter Cell with some minor improvements in balance and level design. The story in this game is a bit of a mess and gets rushed over in places, but this is something I can excuse due to the gameplay being the real focus of this title.
The level concepts and level design in this game is definitely a step up from the original. The airport mission, the train mission, and the tv station mission all stand out for sure. The design of Pandora Tomorrow, like that of the first Splinter Cell, definitely does create moments where trial and error feels like the only way to progress. This is thankfully a bit less prevalent here than in the original.
Overall Pandora Tomorrow is very similar to the original Splinter Cell with some minor improvements in balance and level design. The story in this game is a bit of a mess and gets rushed over in places, but this is something I can excuse due to the gameplay being the real focus of this title.
Improvement over the first game, better story too. Aiming is improved too though not perfected. Stealth and movement more refined. Pretty much a better version of the first game, they're both very similar.
Not quite as good as the first game, but still a nice experience for those that miss and crave the splinter cell formula.
i hate filler arcs
Improved upon the first in many ways but still keeps a lot of the annoying parts. First 3/4 of the game is quite strong and atmospheric, but the last 2 levels are a slog. Chaos theory the undisputed goat.
Ya pasaron 10 dias y todavia no llega pandora
Another masterpiece in the Splinter Cell series. While Chaos Theory does look and play better, Pandora tomorrow is just so captivating with its mechanics and level design that it's a tough call to say which is the better game of the series.
La messa è a orari particolari?
really wasn't feelin this one, felt like SC1 with QOL improvements but with shittier level design
They put a laser sight on the pistol to make it more reliable, that was good. They also made it so that you get an alarm the moment a guard spots you instead of the guard needing to run to an alarm button. Didn't like that very much. Playing this wounded my pride but I enjoyed it enough to stick with it to the end. Play a version with quicksaves if you can, I played it with checkpoints and it was miserable.
They called it "Pandora Tomorrow" because "Killing All Terrorists Today" wasn't well received by marketing
É tão bom q vc acha em nenhum lugar pra jogar
PC port is terrible, but good game with forgettable story.
Still as janky and buggy as the first one, it may be a little better all together, specially atmosphere wise, it manages to be even more immersive, but that immersion is quickly broken when a bug or a softlock happens. Other than that, the ending of the game seemed very out of the blue to me, alsmost like they were trying to rush the game
I got this on launch day and very quickly discovered all of the multiplayer secrets on my own. This allowed me to carry every match for the first two or three weeks and be one of the top ranked PS2 players. I got bored after that. The campaign was fun too.
what a blast! couple of shoddy gameplay moments here and there and it shares a lot of issues with the first game, but definitely a step up in quality in every way. ubisoft shanghai really knocked it outta the park with this bridge between S.A.R and chaos theory
Most Splinter Cell games are better than Pandora, but the levels still have some real high points.
A step above the original in almost every aspect. A damm shame Ubisoft keeps this one locked away in a vault for some reason. Sail the high Seas for this one.
The difficulty and quality of the last two levels soured my experience. I can hardly remember the game before those two levels. I had similar issues with the first Splinter Cell, but I gave up on that game. I was able to basically finish this one apart from the very very last scenario...
Anyway, if I try to remember really carefully I think most of the levels were quite good. I can't really remember much of the story apart from the terrorist version of a Che Guevara. Plot is silly, but whatever.
Anyway, if I try to remember really carefully I think most of the levels were quite good. I can't really remember much of the story apart from the terrorist version of a Che Guevara. Plot is silly, but whatever.
Improves some things from the previous game like variety in levels or being able to open doors while holding bodies xd
Sam finds himself in many more scenarios in this game, which is really refreshing after the first game's levels, which were mostly just building (oil rig level was cool tho).
I think except for the last, the level design in this game was very solid :>
It does have a few issues of course.
The alarm system is just unfair and I can't imagine playing this game without save states/quick saves. Unfortunately, this makes the game very trial and error. This is my main reason as to why I recommend playing the game emulated, even if emulation isn't butter-smooth for this game.
Then there's the NPCs having a weird combination of being legally blind and having wall hacks. At some points they can't see you in kissing distance and at other points they spot you through objects.
Now, in case you're interested in playing this game, I recommend that if you want to play it emulated you either choose PS2 or Gamecube and if you want to play it on the real thing, then play it on Xbox (I've at least heard that the Xbox version is the best).
PC just doesn't work from my experience and isn't even worth a try, unless you have a PC from around 2004 xd.
Sam finds himself in many more scenarios in this game, which is really refreshing after the first game's levels, which were mostly just building (oil rig level was cool tho).
I think except for the last, the level design in this game was very solid :>
It does have a few issues of course.
The alarm system is just unfair and I can't imagine playing this game without save states/quick saves. Unfortunately, this makes the game very trial and error. This is my main reason as to why I recommend playing the game emulated, even if emulation isn't butter-smooth for this game.
Then there's the NPCs having a weird combination of being legally blind and having wall hacks. At some points they can't see you in kissing distance and at other points they spot you through objects.
Now, in case you're interested in playing this game, I recommend that if you want to play it emulated you either choose PS2 or Gamecube and if you want to play it on the real thing, then play it on Xbox (I've at least heard that the Xbox version is the best).
PC just doesn't work from my experience and isn't even worth a try, unless you have a PC from around 2004 xd.
Some QOL improvements over the first game that I can appreciate, but I found the alarm system to be brutally unfair and the AI (for the most part) being insanely smart and unforgiving. I'm not the greatest with stealth, but the trial-and-error aspect made it an infuriating play-through.
It is with a heavy heart that I also slap an 'ABANDONED' on the PC version of Splinter Cell 2. While functionally much, much better than the PS2 version, my first two hours with it were pretty dull -- feeling like a samey retread of the first game, but with much less interesting level design.
A cardinal sin came for me at the end of the Paris level. You crawl through an air vent, into a locked room some enemies are trying to get into. After some brief story dialogue, you see enemies priming a bomb to open the locked room. I died on my escape (they heard me trying to crawl through the vent), so I quick loaded and had an idea! Before entering the room, I dropped a smoke grenade from the vent to the floor below! So the enemies trying to break into the room passed out, and were no longer a threat! I played through the same dialogue as before, but this time there was no bomb-prep cutscene because I had dispatched the enemies.
HOWEVER! The level is unfinishable without the bomb. You need the bomb to blow open the door to allow you to extract. And I had already used up my one quick save slot after taking out those enemies, so my only other option was to REPLAY THE ENTIRE LEVEL AGAIN, AND NOT BE AS CLEVER! Why the enemies are killable when they are needed for story progress I do not know, AND the game doesn't even give you a proper 'hey you messed up, here's a checkpoint' fail state. It's insane that innovative play like that in a stealth game just lets you fuck yourself in that manner.
Anyway, I have no desire to replay the entire level, so we're calling it quits here.
A cardinal sin came for me at the end of the Paris level. You crawl through an air vent, into a locked room some enemies are trying to get into. After some brief story dialogue, you see enemies priming a bomb to open the locked room. I died on my escape (they heard me trying to crawl through the vent), so I quick loaded and had an idea! Before entering the room, I dropped a smoke grenade from the vent to the floor below! So the enemies trying to break into the room passed out, and were no longer a threat! I played through the same dialogue as before, but this time there was no bomb-prep cutscene because I had dispatched the enemies.
HOWEVER! The level is unfinishable without the bomb. You need the bomb to blow open the door to allow you to extract. And I had already used up my one quick save slot after taking out those enemies, so my only other option was to REPLAY THE ENTIRE LEVEL AGAIN, AND NOT BE AS CLEVER! Why the enemies are killable when they are needed for story progress I do not know, AND the game doesn't even give you a proper 'hey you messed up, here's a checkpoint' fail state. It's insane that innovative play like that in a stealth game just lets you fuck yourself in that manner.
Anyway, I have no desire to replay the entire level, so we're calling it quits here.