After a huge delay (which had nothing to do with the game itself), I recently started up the first
Splinter Cell again on my PC. This time, I played it all the way through, having just finished it last night.
Wow, what a great game! I literally felt like I was playing in a Tom Clancy novel... it was
that good!
After completing the first game, I uninstalled it and installed
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, having only had a bit of time to play it so far.
For those who still aren't familiar with
Pandora Tomorrow: it takes place in 2006, two years after the events of the first game. As with the first game, the first mission is a training level, as Sam Fisher covertly makes his way to the U.S. embassy in Dili, East Timor, after it was invaded by the Indonesian guerilla group "Darah Dan Doa" led by Suhadi Sadono (apparently in retaliation for the installation of a U.S. military base in East Timor).
Judging solely on the first level, I can already tell that they've improved on the graphics and sound (which is saying a lot, as the graphics and sound from the first game were phenominal). I've also heard that this game has twice as many levels in the singleplayer campaign than its predecessor.
And unlike the first game, this one also includes a multiplayer mode, and an interesting one at that: One team plays SHADOWNET, a group of spies/covert operatives who must either neutralize, extract or sabotage (depending on which of the three multiplayer game modes is being played) ND133 viral containers, while the other team plays a group of mercenaries hired by the ARGUS Corporation, whose job it is to stop the SHADOWNET team from completing its objectives.
Both teams have their unique strengths and weaknesses, and it seems that each team is even played in a different view: SHADOWNET plays in third-person view (ala Splinter Cell), while ARGUS plays in first-person view (ala Rainbow Six 3).
I can't wait to really dig in with the singleplayer and the mutliplayer modes!
-G
