Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow Hands-On Impressions

This week, we were fortunate enough to receive a near-final build of the Xbox version of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow, the follow-up to Ubisoft's blockbuster stealth action game, and we're here with impressions of two of the game's original missions--one set in Jerusalem and the other set in Kunang Camp in Indonesia. Pandora Tomorrow features the same sort of gameplay and follows the same basic formula as its predecessor, which means you'll be playing as ultrasecret operative Sam Fisher, who conducts highly classified raids and rescue missions around the world while always using stealth and the element of surprise to his advantage. Of course, Pandora Tomorrow features a completely new story and new scenarios, and while Fisher does have a few new moves this time around, we think the new settings are going to steal the show.

Sam Fisher's back to do more of the government's dirty work. This time, however, he's in places like Jerusalem, Israel, and Kunang Camp, Indonesia.

Let's talk about Fisher's new moves first, though. For one thing, he moves noticeably quicker than before, and he seems even lighter on his feet. (It seems he's been practicing!) One of his new abilities is rather amusing. He can whistle (at the touch of the black button), thus calling attention to his position. Why on Earth would a stealthy guy like Fisher want to draw his enemies toward him? Well, when he's working in the dark, he can summon his foes to investigate the noise and can then quietly move to the side and set them up for an ambush, for example. Fisher's main way of disposing of pesky guards is still the same--he uses his elbow, which can be employed to swiftly and silently incapacitate any unsuspecting characters.

Another new ability is that while Fisher is climbing upside down along a horizontal pipe, he can aim and shoot while dangling from the pipe by his feet. It's a cool-looking maneuver that might just come in handy in a few key spots. Also, Fisher's split-jump, which allowed him to prop himself up by using only his feet in narrow alleyways in the first Splinter Cell, has been modified so that Fisher can now shift his weight from one foot to the other, allowing him to possibly prop himself up in such a way that he can climb to higher places. Sadly, his ability to triangle-jump off of any nearby wall seems to have been removed, perhaps because the move was only used in a few specific places in the original Splinter Cell. On the plus side, though, Fisher now has a very cool SWAT-turn maneuver for when he's got his back pressed against a wall and is peeking over his shoulder and through a doorway or another opening. By pressing the jump button, you can make Fisher quickly pivot to the other side of the opening both quietly and without stirring up much attention.

Fisher's got some new moves, and fans of the first game will notice that some of his old ones sport fresh animations this time.

Fisher's enemies will have some new tricks up their sleeves, too. We saw an enemy take a hostage and then use the civilian for cover while firing upon us. In another sequence, we had to figure out how to get past a guard who was wearing night vision goggles. Still other foes are carefully camouflaged or armed with light amplification units that can easily expose Fisher's position. At least the game's heads-up display now does a better job of keeping you informed. In the first game, it wasn't made clear that you needed to hide the bodies of your victims, for example, but in Pandora Tomorrow, you're given a clear indication that you should be doing this. Furthermore, you also now have an idea of where it's safe to toss an unconscious or dead body without anyone else running across it for a while. Those who played the first Splinter Cell would naturally assume that hiding evidence in pitch-black darkness is always going to be the way to go, but there are actually other options. For example, the Kunang Camp mission takes place in the daytime, so because there's dense foliage all around, you can safely dispose of a victim in the overgrowth.