| VGLN.com
Xbox >> Previews
>> article
Splinter Cell 2: Pandora Tomorrow
by Jolex Del Pilar
Thursday, August 7, 2003
Check out the first U.S screens of this much anticipated sequel from Red Storm and Ubi Soft.
 |
|
|
Title:
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
|
Platform:
Xbox |
Publisher:
Ubi Soft
|
Developer:
Red Storm Entertainment
|
#
of Players: 1
|
Genre:
Action
|
Origin:
United States
|
Expected
Release: Spring 2004
|
Grapevine:
"The Splinter Cell series has sold over 3,000,000 units in its brief history. Pandora Tommorow is expected to be at least as successful." |
--- Updated 01/06/04
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell redefined a genre that was held in a choke hold by Konami’s Metal Gear Solid series, and with Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, UbiSoft is once again hoping to change the way gamers play stealth games. Pandora Tomorrow promises to offer more stealth-based animation, more interaction between Sam and the game world and a few twists and turns that'll make you love Tom Clancy's universe even more. Online play is the biggest addition, but even starting with the basics of the single player game, we can see Sam Fisher isn't playing around this time.
The arsenal of covert operative moves Sam will have at his disposal in Pandora Tomorrow should be enough to get gamers drawn even deeper into his world of espionage. The split-jump for example was underutilized in the first game, but something tells us it's going to be a huge part of the sequel since you can now shift Sam's weight when he's straddled between two walls and prep him to jump to a higher ledge. It's one of the things you'd expect from a highly trained operative.
In Pandora Tomorrow, Same Fisher has a whole rundown of moves that he can perform while on a moving train, but right now it’s not clear how these moves will be applied to other parts of the game, if at all they are applied elsewhere. We saw him climb out of a window of a moving train and maneuver underneath, on top of and along the side of the passenger car. The third person camera re-positions itself to provide the most dramatic angle, but you still have some camera control on the right analog stick since there are some significant gameplay elements to deal with once you've gotten over the fact that your character is hanging outside the window of a speeding bullet train.
The original Splinter Cell on the Xbox made a lot of gamers who played the game smarter, but also it left a lot of people behind. While UbiSoft claims the difficulty in Pandora Tomorrow has been mainstreamed, you will still need to wear your thinking cap while playing the game to be able to accomplish your missions. On the train level, which was mentioned above, you will have to be courteous of the folks, whether they’re the civilians or the bad guys, inside the train who will probably have strong reactions about a guy hanging outside their window on a speeding train. With the addition of civilians and other traffic in Pandora Tomorrow should, and probably will, add another huge layer of strategy to your game as you maneuver Sam Fisher on whatever his latest mission is. You'll have to time your movements along the outside of the train to avoid lights shining on you and reading the head movements of Aunt Sally sitting at her window seat wouldn't hurt either since you don't want to alarm her. If she spots you, be ready for trouble since she’ll alert the guards of your presence.
In Pandora Tomorrow, don’t expect the enemies to be as stupid as they were in the original Splinter Cell. Oh no, this time they’ll be carrying around flashlights, they will react to any red dots that may somehow make its way to their chests, possibly from the new laser targeting device that will be equipped on your weapons, and your enemies will also go get armor to toughen themselves up if you’re not keeping your mission stealthy. If the enemy keeps seeing your handiwork (also known as dead bodies), or if they spot you, they’ll stay on the hunt for you until they find and kill you, or until they find you and you kill them. So be warned, this time around, you control how many enemies you’ll encounter in your mission, depending on how stealthy you’re being.
The Xbox version of Pandora Tommorow will allow Xbox Live players to either play coop or hunt other Sam Fishers...
The weapons that Mr. Fisher will be equipped with will now have a secondary function, and you’ll be able to equip them and many of his new (and old) gadgets on the fly without pausing to navigate an inventory menu. Also, the rumble feature on your controller will get a nice…rumbling, should you get too close to a mine or some other booby trap that’s located in the environment. So be careful, or you may get a rumbling…or worse. One of the many good features in the first Splinter Cell was that there were no timed missions, so you could take your time and get the job done right. Well, sorry to tell you, but timed missions will be in Pandora Tomorrow, putting a little more pressure on you to move swiftly and decisively, and still hoping you get the job done right.
UbiSoft is now venturing out into an area of stealth gaming that Konami has yet to do for Metal Gear Solid, and that area is called online gaming. Many of the solo game enhancements in Pandora Tomorrow will be carried over into the all-new online component. Now, for you GameCube owners, pay attention to this detail. Pandora Tomorrow is hitting EVERY platform at the same time, and they’ll ALL have online capabilities. The online game will have you competing as a separate branch of Third Echelon against mercenaries. The storyline for that has yet to be revealed. The component will be limited to four players; a team of spies and a team of mercenaries. Both will have specific gear, abilities, and parameters. As an SC operative, you will have to hack a specific number of computers and you’ll also be playing from the conventional third person perspective, while the mercenary team will play from the first person perspective but will come with a ton of equipment designed to compensate for their lack of perception. This is intended to give veteran Splinter Cell players an experience that looks, as well as feels, like the main campaign but with much smarter AI….which is assuming that your playmates aren’t complete and utter idiots, when you’re playing as a spy while also giving players a new perspective on the Splinter Cell universe by playing FPS style as a mercenary. You can customize the game to specify the number of players on each team (2v2, 1v3) as well as the number of kills and respawns available and how much time will be allowed each round.
The moves for the spies online will be the basic moves and equipment that Sam has in the single player game, with the exception of a fancy drop kick off of a wall. The mercenaries, however, are equipped like super high level guards that are in the single player game. They’ll have flashlights, motion sensors, sonar devices, proximity mines with laser triggers (drools), specialized vision modes and electroshock weaponry, among other gadgets.
Since the spies will be trying (and trying is emphasized greatly) just like in the regular solo game, the detection equipment that will be used by the mercenaries is crucial to keep things somewhat balanced and they have a pair of special vision modes that should do just that. The proximity mines (still drooling) will allow the mercenaries to set traps around objectives like computer terminals and will force the spies to use plenty of thermal vision. The big catch here is that, once again, the mercenaries have the special vision modes, and one of them allows them to see any and all electronic devices that are being used, and this includes the night/thermal goggles that the spies at Third Echelon are so fond of. For the mercenaries, surrounding a terminal with proximity mines (finally, stopped drooling) and doing the cowardly thing of camping out near that area with the electro-vision mode on will be a good strategy.
Players will be expected to use all forms of cover in the single player mode to survive...
Now that the electro-vision mode for the mercenaries has been covered, the other special vision mode motion sensor will turn their HUD red and will only display, in clear focus of course, objects that are moving in their field of vision. So spies, if you think the shadows will help you, if you’re in the field of vision of a mercenary, you’ll be found….if they’re smart enough to use this special vision mode.
All of the advantages the mercenaries have to undo the spies' stealth may seem unfair, but the Third Echelon kids have an electro-shock weapon that undoes a lot of that unfairness. This round will cause the mercenaries and their controllers to shake and seize when you hit 'em in the body. However when you hit them in the head, their entire HUD is wiped clean and none of their toys work. So you get the same advantage by hitting human players in the head as you do in hitting CPU controlled bad guys in the noggin.
The scopes and binoculars both spies and mercs can use will allow for multiple levels of zoom and the closes zoom will let you hear what that character is saying.
The ultimate expression of the online spy versus spy thing however is grabbing a mercenary from behind, putting a gun to his head and whispering something cruel to them, which they'll hear your cruelty in real time thanks to the Xbox and PS2 headsets. PC and Cube gamers, I’m sure something will be figured out for you guys.
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow is scheduled for a March 2004 release.
9
--- Kyle Johnson
--- 08/07/03
Not much is known about Splinter Cell: Pandora Tommorow except that the game will probably be here by Spring 2004. Many expect the game to be a much more expansive version of the first game which took elements from Metal Gear Solid 2 and Rainbow Six, mixing both stealthy dramatic sequences with intense, sometimes chaotic, action segements.
Most likely, Bill Brown will be back to compose a track or two for the game's soundtrack like he has done for many of the past Red Storm games (including Ghost Recon, and Rainbow Six). Brown's music is a great tempo and mood setter for the game, and Red Storm would be wise to utilize his talents for the sequel.
Any comments on the new elements in gameplay are purely speculative as beta code for the game isn't even available yet. Regardless, we expect Red Storm to treat this masterpiece with the careful craftsmenship that they bestowed upon the first game.
This preview will be updated frequently as more information about the game comes in. Now enjoy some early screenshots (not magazine scans, actual source images) of the game's early progress. The shots are composed of early gameplay environments and early conceptual art. It's evident that some of the stages will be a lot more larger in scope than the original game, this is especially noticable in the shot which depicts a submarine pen.
--- Jolex Del Pilar
|
