Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow

What going on? 7.5/10

A fantastic action stealth game that iterates on mechanics from the first while maintaining the same gameplay elements. Level design is a complete step up from the original, with far more memorable locations. The story feels like a downgrade from the original, and oftentimes feels poorly paced and underdeveloped/underexplained. As with all of the old splinter cell games; widescreen fixes and texture patches are highly recommended for a better experience.

A nice follow up to the first game, even if it feels more of the same. It has some great music and a good story, though it is a shame the voice actors for Lambert and Grim are different and a little underwhelming. Gameplay wise, it's very similar to the previous game with it's controls and mechanics, but also adding something new like moving from cover to cover, aiming from a corner, jumping after a split-jump or opening doors while carrying someone. The rest is the same: only a light meter, 3 alarms and it's game over, crouch walk, retinal scanners, etc. Graphically it still holds up with it's amazing use of lighting and shadows, good character models and nice FMVs. This game, contrary to the first one and its follow up, was made by Ubisoft Shangai (the people in charge of the PS2 and Gamecube ports of said games). And while that has its benefits, like telling you a door code when you are inserting it instead of looking for it in your OPSAT, or adding the optical scope as an option every time you are next to a door; it also has its negatives: * Level design is VERY linear, with ocasionally having 2 routes in a portion of the map (where said routes are literally next to each other either way), having little room for improvisation. * Enemy AI is a little dodgy: they break their previous patrolling routes if they get suspicious and then go back to normal, there are instances where they can hear you no matter how well hidden or quiet you are, some patrols are a little broken. This may be my least favourite from the original trilogy, but it isn't a bad game by any means. It still has some good ideas and the more action set pieces makes this game more unique. 4/5

Люблю стелс

They finally released a semi-competent (it still needs a downloadable fix, which is amazing) PC port of this banger and it [i]still[/i] didn't save Ubisoft's stock from its five-year freefall. Unreal. Time for the bajillionth-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Assassin's Creed until the rapture swallows mankind whole.

I love this series but this game just...isn't technically in a good state. No widescreen support out of the box, weird stuttery low fps etc. The most egregious problem is the enemy AI behavior which appears broken. Enemies seem to manage to trip the alarm within milliseconds of spotting you, in game they make a call to say they've spotted you, but in a lot of the missions they trip the alarm without even making a sound sometimes. Enemies can also spot you taking their friend out in complete darkness from the opposite side of the room and raise the alarm level before they even lift up their gun at you, absolutely ridiculous. Also, if the enemy spots you when you are trying to grab them from behind, they will instantly trip the alarm too, making any sneaking attempts pretty much impossible as you are almost guaranteed to be spotted before you get close enough to grab or melee the guard. It doesn't appear to be intended behavior because when they spot a corpse they can actually make a part of the alarm radio transmission without tripping the alarm, so what gives? Overall, it feels broken and the brokenness makes this very frustrating to play because there are multiple situations where dealing with just a single guard is really difficult.