Pandora Tomorrow is a fun and engaging game. But the others in the series are just so much better.
The Bad: Too short. Alarms go off too easily. Graphics not really any better than original. Voice-acting is of lower quality. Story is not very engaging. Must have Xbox live to play multi-player.
The original Splinter Cell was arguably the best stealth action game of it's time. It featured amazing gameplay, great visuals, and cool moves. The second one feels very similar to the original. And in some ways feels more constricting. The gameplay is basically the same as the first one. Sneaking around or silently incapacitating enemy's in order to rescue some hostages, gather some sensitive data, or the like. Meanwhile, using some high tech gadgets and special ops moves. And all in all, being an ultra cool secret agent. This game offers some great new moves, being able to hang upside-down from your feet from a vertical pole and shoot someone is my favorite. But there's also the stealth door move. And the new and improved split jump, as well as a handful of others. The new split jump is great because you can use it in more places than the first since you can also do a half-split-jump, and you can also use it to reach higher areas.
One problem with the game is that it feels less flushed out and just a little half-baked. You can't climb up onto some objects that you should be able to. You can't perform some moves where it looks like you they should be possible. But these are just minor annoyances. The bigger problems arise in the gameplay when you notice just how easily the alarms go off. If someone sees you, you have about one second before he sets off his shoulder alarm. It would have been a nice touch, except that ALL enemies have these. From grunts, to the Israeli Police, to normal soldiers, they all have this shoulder alarm device. It just feels really overused.
The level design is good, and there is a good variety to the levels, that take you all over the world. One level will have you sneaking around and on top of a speeding train in France. Another you will be killing off disguised terrorists inside LAX without setting off any alarms. The main problem with the levels is that they are pretty short. And despite what the box may tell you, there are only eight levels. Eight! The first one had eleven, and they were longer. Eight is just a letdown.
One other thing that I found annoying is all the loading times. Just to start a simple single player game will have no less than three loading times before you ever get to play. All of which are fairly long. It's not a big deal. It's just another straw they pile on the poor camels back.
The multiplayer is unique and fun, though I've barely gotten to play it, since the only way to enjoy this great new feature is over Xbox live. Basically it involves two teams of two players each. One team is stealthy and plays similarly to Sam Fisher. They try to accomplish certain objectives, like hacking computers or something. The other team plays like a first person shooter, trying to stop or slow down the other teams efforts. It's a fun and unique idea. I know why it won't work with split-screen. It just makes it less valuable to people who don't have Xbox live.
The graphics look the same as the first game. Back than they were amazing, now there just good. And would it have killed them to stop those arms and heads and legs from poking through the walls. Or maybe make some different character models.
The sound quality is about the same, and there is quite a bit more voice and line variety from the first game. But the main characters don't sound as good. They aren't too bad, but...
All things considered this isn't a bad game. It's just that the first one has a better single player, the third has a better multiplayer. So if you don't already have both of those, don't even look at this game.