Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (Xbox)

Wow! What a game! Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation set the benchmark for stealth 'em ups but Splinter Cell has picked up the baton and proceeded to run out of the arena and around the corner, leaving Metal Gear languishing in mediocrity.

In Pandora Tomorrow, you take control of gravel voiced bad-ass Sam Fisher - ex marine, intelligence operative and all round ball breaker. Now working for some high level government operation, Sam takes orders from various characters via his forearm based PDA. The missions are pretty open in that you can achieve your objectives however you like - either by sneaking past guards in the shadows or by pulling out one of the fantastic weapons and squeezing off a few rounds. Either way is satisfying, if only because of the outstanding enemy artificial intelligence.

The game is viewed from a third person perspective and you control Sam's direction with the left analogue stick, and the right stick manipulates the view. The abilities that Sam has are nothing short of genius. You can jump and grab most overhead object and shimmy past guards, or you can bring your legs up and move in a totally hidden manner. Even better, you can than silently hang down by your legs behind an unsuspecting enemy and take him out! Fantastic! Other moves include a new 'swat' turn where you can swiftly spin across gaps in walls unseen, and the new wall jump.

The game is heavily story driven and is written by political thriller author Tom Clancy (of Rainbow Six fame). The story, and graphics are totally flawless (you wont believe the shadows and detail in the locations), and the use of sound is great (just don't walk across broken glass!). If faced with an impassable section, you can actually create your own pools of light and dark by shooting out lights and thus manipulating the environment. The learning curve is totally fair throughout, although there are occasions where you'll be totally stumped as to what you have to do to avoid detection, which means a trial and error approach must be taken.

However, it never gets so annoyingly difficult that you want to destroy your joypad (like the first Splinter Cell did). If you buy Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, expect so be completely blown away by the experience. It truly is like being in a big budget Hollywood espionage thriller - all it's missing is Harrison Ford.

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow Review: We drop down from the roof, landing in the dense foliage below, hoping that a guard hasn't spotted us. Damn, we think he has! We creep furtively trying to sneak up behind him, panicking in case he'd seen us but still anxious to take him out. We grab him and suddenly, dumph, he goes down, not making a sound, the butt of our rifle then wiped clean of the sweat from the guard's hair. We smirk and give an evil chuckle; Sam Fisher has done it again

If-somehow-you aren't familiar with the whole Tom Clancy Splinter Cell thing, let us comfortably guide you through its excellent subject matter, oh, and plot of course. You play Sam Fisher-a stealthy git to say the least-who works for a government agency 'Third Echelon', covertly spying on any acts of extreme terrorism occurring all over the world, from Nigeria to Nice. In this current instalment of Splinter Cell, Sam Fisher and friends have received threats from a wannabe terrorist, called 'Sadono'. Broadcasting from an unknown location and with an army of followers backing him up, he fulminates the release of a 'smallpox' virus that-if effective-will contaminate an entire country, resulting in the death of millions of people. Pretty serious stuff, eh? Once again, the stealth-meister and the guy you'll trundle through the game with, Sam Fisher is called in to help foil Sadono's acts of terrorism covertly and without being seen. To do this you'll travel through many new locations ranging from Paris, France all the way up to where the game is primarily set: Indonesia. Drugs factories will be raided and jungles will be conquered in order to reach your goal, which, ultimately, will result in many twists and turns in the storyline. The plot has quite political content- as is evident in most Clancy games-but is easy to grasp nevertheless. Its subject matter has of course not changed since the last title. You basically hide in the shadows, waiting for an unsuspecting guard to pass so you can charge out, Manhunt style; to either blow his brains out or-more humanely- grab him by the neck and knock him out. The game primarily revolves around suspense and natural instincts, which is probably the reason the original was so successful and is why the game is so fantastically good!

More importantly, the thing we really want to know is: has the game changed since its predecessor; what new features are in store for us here? Well (drum roll), it's changed! Quite considerably in fact. A thing you'll first realise when playing Pandora Tomorrow is the graphical paintjob. The gaming environments are detailed down to the last blade of grass. Every location is bustling with individuality and variety be it a long street or even a small shop. There are literally no bland designs on the levels that would make the game boring; there're all incredibly satisfying to sneak around. A new pleasing improvement is the actual character models, especially Sam Fisher. He looks much leaner and muscular than in the last instalment where he looked more disproportionate than Lisa Riley on a sunbed. Similarly, he also runs and crouch-runs much more fluidly and his acrobatic manoeuvres are way more life-like and realistic. Also, the guard AI has been vamped up substantially. They no longer predictably venture off into the shadows on their own, not even looking behind them to see if anyone is there. No, this time round they stick to groups, intentionally making it harder for you to take them out. It adds a deeper involvement to the game and makes it an even more ultra-compelling pragmatic stealth experience.

Another update for Pandora Tomorrow are Fisher's new acrobatic abilities. This time, he can move around while doing split jumps against two walls and also has the ability to climb to higher ledges while doing them. There's also an opportunity to whistle to attract the guards' attention so you can run around behind them and seize 'em by the throat and knock them out, but you'll have to be careful hiding the bodies in the shadows because if the guards find them, off goes an alarm which will then mean your concealment will become much more crucial to ensure your survival. However by far the best graphical and playable delight in the game are the new jungle levels, set deep in Indonesia. Obviously taking a leaf out of Snake Eater's book, these sections are pure videogame beauty. At the start of one of the jungle levels, you'll be dropped into an area full of tall grass and swaying trees. You'll feel like a sneaky bloke moving slowly through the grass, smirking devilishly as you approach the hapless guard ahead of you. In fact you'll feel like Rambo, only without that immense arsenal of guns at your disposal. Likewise the mist and fog effects really express the natural humid temperatures of the jungle.

IMPACT POINT

You creep through the shadows then stop. Equip your weapon, hold your breath to steady your shot and bang! Down goes that pesky little git of a guard. Exciting but tense stuff!

Regrettably though, exactly like the last game, the levels in Pandora Tomorrow are fundamentally linear. Sure, they're nice and vast and scrupulously designed but they suffer from linearity massively, which was a slight disappointment since the rest of the game is so open-ended. Still, it's a small price to pay for such a resourceful title full of graphical exquisiteness and thrilling stealth action. Hiding in the shadows and taking out guards inaudibly without exposure is a very imaginative concept that the developers Ubisoft have grasped exceptionally well. Everything is executed to great effect and, it's very uncommon that we say this about games, but we have become emotionally attached to this breathtaking, graphical, stealthful, delight of a game. And that-surely-is reason enough alone to go out and get your hands on this game. Splinter Cell: Pandora tomorrow isn't just a game; it's an experience, so goddamn it experience it now!