I know what everyone’s expecting. I know, because I was expecting it too. When I saw Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow for Game Boy Advance, I thought “Oh great, another cheesy port, just what we need.” This is usually what we think when we see a GBA version of a popular console game, and with good reason- these GBA versions are usually really bad. But, I have good news- and it’s not about car insurance. The Game Boy Advance version of Pandora Tomorrow really is not bad, even usually I find interesting just tier list of heroes in sdsgc.
Granted, it’s not a game of the year contender, and it pales in comparison to the console version, but as a portable alternative, this one gets the job done.
Don’t believe me?
Well, read on and see if I can change your mind. I’m pretty sure that anyone reading this will already pretty much know the Splinter Cell storyline. But, here’s the quick rundown. You are Sam Fisher, a unit in the Third Echelon, a secret government organization. It is the year 2006, and you are trying to stop guerrilla leader Suhadi Sadono without him releasing the smallpox carriers that he has planted throughout the world. Sound hard? Well to anyone else it might be. But remember- you are Sam Fisher. Now you must neutralize Sadono without him activating his “insurance policy”, all the while remaining completely covert, and leaving behind no trace of your presence.
Now, the most obvious drawback to the GBA version of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow is the fact that the game is in 2D, as opposed to the 3D console version.
But, there is still a lot of stealth action in those two little dimensions. A lot of the favorite Splinter Cell moves are still here, including the wall sneak, the drop attack, and shooting while you’re hanging. Even though they’re all scaled-down, you still get the feel for them. In fact, when performing moves like the drop attack, I sometimes found myself thinking that the 2D gave me an advantage, since there was no camera to worry about. So, if you find yourself getting easily annoyed at the camera in Pandora Tomorrow, this might be the way for you to go. Also, the loss of the third dimension doesn’t limit your hiding spaces.
There are still recesses in the walls that you can pull into, or plants and furniture that you can hide behind. The developers really did a nice job of making sure that Fisher still has plenty of options in his mission. Of course, it can’t all be good. For one thing, the NPC’s behavior makes it so that you don’t really need to use stealth all of the time. For example, in the Embassy level, I went through once running the entire time. Any time I was spotted, the NPC would run to the alarm, and I would run with him (at the exact same speed). He would stop for a couple seconds in front of the alarm before doing anything, so I would use those seconds to grab him, knock him out, and then continue running. True, this won’t really limit the gameplay for those who stick to the stealth plan, but it does take the difficulty down a few notches, since it’s so easy to recover from a mistake. However, in later levels, the enemies get a little faster, and there is more than one by each alarm, so the need for stealth increases. A minor complaint, but still something that I felt I should address.
Even in 2D, Sam still finds places to hide. Here he’s about to break up a rock-paper-scissors game.
One other problem is the fact that the levels tend to get repetitive. Sure, there is enough variety in the game to keep it generally interesting, but the varied elements don’t change much. There are some safe-cracking puzzles scattered throughout some of the levels. These puzzles are really cool, and a nice break from the regular action, but after doing it for the fifth or sixth time, it gets a little old. Even though there are a few different safe-cracking/code-breaking puzzles, most of them repeat themselves enough to get kind of stale.
The main game stays pretty constant, but there is enough variation from room to room that you don’t get the feeling that you’re doing the exact same thing over and over again- just that you’re doing a similar thing over and over again. Graphically, the game might not look like much, but the screens don’t really do the game justice. Once you see the game in motion, and you spend a little time playing, the graphics are really pretty good by GBA standards. The game sort of has the look of an old NES side-scroller, but the graphics are obviously more refined. The background music goes kind of along the same lines. At first it seems very unobtrusive, and doesn’t seem to add a lot to the game. But, after a while playing, you start to notice the music again, and how the quiet, slowly pulsating tracks lend themselves well to the stealth missions.
Bottom line, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, when compared to most GBA ports of console games, is a triumph.
You can tell that the developers really took the time to make a game that is worth playing, not just slapping a Splinter Cell label on a half-hearted game. On somewhat of a tangent, between this game and Prince of Persia, Ubisoft is starting to get a reputation of making solid GBA ports. Keep it up! Anyway, back to the bottom line. Although it has some flaws (many of which are due to the limitations of the system, to be fair), and it doesn’t look like much of a game at first, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow for the Game Boy Advance is definitely worth checking out. And I’ll be willing to bet that if you stick it out for a couple hours and really get the feel of the game, it’ll be one you keep coming back to.
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