According to major web publications present during a small demo of the game provided by UBI Soft, Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow is expected to be just as captivating as the original. IGN reports that all of the stealth moves made famous by Sam Fisher are back with enemies being a lot smarter than in the first Splinter Cell. IGN also mentions that the difficulty of missions should still be challenging but perhaps a bit easier than the original SC. Those of you frustrated into buying a strategy guide or seeking help online should be happy to hear this. Although something tells me that there will still be plenty of mind pondering missions to deal with.
Also mention in the various previews was the non linear aspect of the missions. Linear missions are ones that must be completed or executed in a specific order. For those of you familiar with Medal of Honor or Return to Castle Wolfenstein those missions are linear. Non linear gives gamers a great deal of freedom during game play, your actions in one missions can affect other missions, characters, or storyline further down the road. Kind of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" style of gameplay.
One example of the non linear gameplay of Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow was noted in GameSpy's preview from the UBI Soft demo. The particular mission places Sam Fisher on a moving train and somehow moving him from the back of the train to the front. How you do this is entirely up to you. Crawling underneath the bottom of the train risking flying debris from the ground to risky? Then you can try running on the roof tops of the cars, dare you do that? Terrorists are certain to hear your footsteps. Why not just try to walk straight through the cars avoiding detection using the classic Splinter Cell technique.
Another huge aspect to Pandora Tomorrow that was missing from the original Splinter Cell is multiplayer capability. According to GameSpy the multiplayer portion of the game will not be a bunch of Sam Fishers's running around trying to kill one another. This mutliplayer will pit nameless special operatives from Shadownet with all the spy goodies such as night/thermal vision, gadgets and more, and pit them against "evil-doing Counterparts" in a 2 on 2, 3 on 1, etc... format.
They do not however go into detail on what the characteristics of each of the online multiplayer characters will be, but you can be assured that behind every character is a real human being.
With Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow still in the development stage, it's difficult to go into great detail as to what the game will actually look like when it hits store shelves in Q1 2004. Rest easy though Sam Fisher is back along with all the favorite moves and gadgets.
References
1). Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow GameSpy (2003)
2). Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow Preview IGN(2003)
