Spys will have their trinkets...

After playing Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow for an hour or so, it seems very similar to what many people have said about it in numerous reviews.

Since I've just been playing the original Splinter Cell I guess it makes it easier for me to compare the two. First of all, Pandora Tomorrow is much harder than the original right off the bat. The second level alone requires you to use many of your skills just to do a few simple things. There seems to be more lights to shoot out this time round which can make it easier to go undetected. However, the AI has been greatly improved and now guards are alerted to gunshots and lights being shot out much easier, especially if a guard is already on alert and another light is taken out. This alone adds to the difficulty, or can work as an advantage as it provokes guards to move over to a certain area.

With regards to the graphics, they have been improved over the original, there not as ground breaking as the original SC but the lighting is now much smoother as well the environments having more character and detail. One this though, I can't get over this weird effect that you get when Fisher is in a dark area, the light on the back of his suit creates this weird distortion. It kind of looks like low quality video, when MPEG-2 video breaks up. It's really the only thing that ruins the great looking graphics. Though the guys at Gamespot also noticed it, so it's not just me.

The audio is a delight in Pandora Tomorrow and Dolby 5.1 shines as always. One thing you notice now is that everything seems to make so much more noise. Wooden stairs creek as you walk down them and broken windows are something to avoid.

A few other smaller additions to the game that a nice are the inclusion of a meter showing you when a body is well hidden. The alarm meter, this shows you how many more alarms can be set off before mission failure, and a little notice at the bottom of the screen telling you when you can use lethal and non-lethal forces.

After just playing a little of Pandora Tomorrow you really get a feel for what's improvements have been made to it.

I'll play through some more and write up anything else I find that's interesting.