[ysbreker]

Just in time before treppie makes this thread: The demo is out!

get it here: http://www.3dgamers.com/games/splintercell2/

Originally Posted by http://www.splintercell.com

The single player demo of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell® Pandora Tomorrow features:

- The complete ?Paris-to-Nice train? mission. The mission is located on a high-speed French train between Paris and Nice. Your objective is to locate and question a man called Norman Soth.

- Many weapons and gadgets are available such as the F7 pistol, night vision, thermal vision and the T.A.K lasermic.

I downloaded & played it (not finished yet) and it's great! pretty hard, but imensly good looking

[Jake]

This new one's got multiplayer, right?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by ysbreker

Just in time before treppie makes this thread: The demo is out!

Bitch, that's a technicality! I was at work, then had to commute home. Ah wellllll, at least someone posted it. Might as well be you, cowboy. Except I can't play it now, it's Saint Patty's Day and though I ain't no Irishman it's a good excuse to go get a beer someplace. Cheers, mate!

P.S. - How about some of us here at AG do some multiplayer this weekend?

EDIT: I changed my mind! I'm not going out for a beer until Friday. Instead, I'll download the demo and while that's going I'll run out downstairs to get a cheeseburger and onion rings and eat while playing. How's that?!

[ysbreker]

This is the single player version, Jake. The multiplayer version should come out soon

I just finished the demo, it's one big awesome obstacle course!

Wooh! I managed to use an actual forum in-joke as an actual fact! yay!

[Intrepid Homoludens]

remixor, you bitch!

[Kolzig]

Hmm the train mission was cool.

The second map was kind of basic stealth map.

Voice acting was good, Michael Ironside never fails.

Is it just me or did this demo look kind of "uglier" etc. than the first game. I mean the HUD and something else was not so good looking.

The medikit in the train was weird, why did they change the real medikit to this "load me up up to 5 times healing kit on the wall"?

Well, I don't care so much about the multiplayer but I guess I'll still try it when the demo comes out today or tomorrow.

[Maquisard]

Originally Posted by Kolzig

Is it just me or did this demo look kind of "uglier" etc. than the first game. I mean the HUD and something else was not so good looking.

I haven't played the demo yet, but I see what you mean from the screenshots... They're probably gonna work on it some more, I hope.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I finished the first mission just a bit earlier. Gawd dammit! Why are they leading me by the f#&king hand?!! This is not tactical stealth game anymore. After achieving the mission goal I wanted to....

Spoiler:

....backtrack through the train cars to get back onto the roof for extraction, but when I get to Soth's compartment the game 'fails' me. What is the big deal? It made me instead sneak forward to the engine car. The copter shooting at me was anticlimactic, all I had to do was run to the rope from the Osprey, I didn't even get hit. Why couldn't going through the front car simply be one of a handful of choices?

In fact, the level was so linear it actually confused me more than it kept things clear. What was I doing wrong, I thought. There was basically no choice but to go where they wanted you to. I never felt so restricted! I could cry. I would not buy this game, but Sam is so damn sexy !!! I really, really hope Thief: Deadly Shadows doesn't turn out like this. I want tactical choices, not handholding!

[Maquisard]

Spoiler:

I played through the demo, and that frustrated me too. I though my escape was timed when he told me "we're out of time" so I tried to run to the back of the train, instead of slowly picking off the henchmen, but then I noticed that, no matter how long I took, it told me I was out of time at that exact spot. Took me a while to find the exit through the front cabin (I tried shooting out the unbreakable glass to the driver's cockpit.) When I finally got out, though, the helicopter shooting at me was a nice JamesBondesque finish to the mission.

I think you can't expect anything but linearity from a mission set inside a train. The second mission gave you more choices...

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Mares

I think you can't expect anything but linearity from a mission set inside a train.

Actually, you did have some choice....

Spoiler:

....in the car where the two terrorists you were warned of were staying. You could either switch the lights off and sneak through the darkened car, which I found deliciously suspenseful because it was timed - get to the other end before the passenger finds the switch, or you could climb out and shimmy off the side of the car to the far end, which was also cool because of the oncoming trains forcing Sam to dangle momentarily.

[Maquisard]

Spoiler:

whoa, I didn't know you could do that! (dangle off the side of the train) I turned off the lights, knocked out the guy who was searching for the switch, then whistled to attract one of the terrorists, knocked him out, then snuck to the other side of the car, whistled and knocked out the 2nd guy. (In retrospect, I guess I didn't have to--for some reason I like to knock out-kill as many people as possible when playing Splinter Cell

[Intrepid Homoludens]

If you do choose to....

Spoiler:

...shimmy along the side of the train it's still dangerous because you have to time your passing over the windows, the passengers can still see your form if you're not careful, and the two guys will shoot at you.

[Kolzig]

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow Multiplayer preview demo is finally available.

http://www.gamershell.com/download_5435.shtml

And here's some fresh new reviews about the game.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/pa...ow/review.html

http://www.gameaxis.com/articles/vie...id=254&gid=622

GameSpot gave 9.1 and editor's award, well I hope they have corrected the HUD & stuff that were wrong in the demo, but I doubt it, because the game went gold before the sp demo was released...

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Thanks for the heads up.

So who wants to get together this weekend for some wicked sneaking?!!!

[Kolzig]

Ubisoft has released a 1.01 patch and also an updated demo of the Splinter Cell multiplayer demo.

The patch corrects a problem that makes the game crash to the desktop, it's a useful patch, I suffered a lot of this crashing when I played yesterday.

http://ubisoft.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/...p?p_faqid=9432

[Maquisard]

I tried out the multiplayer demo. It seemed to have a bit of a learning curve over the single-player game. I though I could dive in and have a Splinter cell experience with real people, but this is different. Part of my disenchantment may be the fact that the point isn't to kill all living things, as it's usual w/ most MP games, but rather, it's objective based. The fact that the objectives weren't clear to me to begin w/ added to the frustration. In any case, I didn't find it enormously fun, playing as either faction. More players, and the ability to kill guards would've fit my tastes better. Is this the only MP mode the game will offer (2 vs 2, I mean) ?

[Kolzig]

The maximum is 4 players but I've been told that you can play 3 vs. 1, 2 vs. 1 etc.

[Royal Fool]

Haven'tr tried the singleplayer version yet, but the multiplayer I did check out. It was wickedly cool. Infiltrating a place in the dead of night and using the shadows and walls for cover was really neat as a spy, and being a mercenary and hunting down the spies was also great fun. I didn't expect the multiplayer to be so well designed, to be honest.

Still, the game modes all sound pretty much the same and I dislike the fact there's only 4 players supported. It would have been cool as hell to have perhaps 2 spies vs. 6 mercs in some military installation or large warehouse with bundles of crates to climb onto and get between floors easily to disorient the enemy. All the same, having to sneak around and set traps is a very nice touch. This certainly proves that multiplayer with stealth features can be done efficiently.

EDIT: I gave additional game modes some more thought, and here's a few I thought of:

Tag - 1-2 spies vs. 2-6 mercs
One spy has been surrounded inside a building or some other secluded place. He has to avoid being caught by the mercs for a set time. He can attempt to hide and can travel around the map using vents and the like but the mercs' primary objective would be to search for and kill the spy.

Protect - 1-2 spies vs. 3-5 mercs
One merc ('commander') has a datastick that contains vital information. The spies must get the merc and recover his keycard before the timer runs out. The mercs must protect the commander at all costs. Perhaps the spies would have to bring the keycard to a certain location and the mercs would have the ability to recover the datastick again in case it would be taken from the commander.

Just some ideas, of course. I'm no designer...

[bigjko]

The multiplayer is indeed loads of fun. The satisfaction of having a merc walk right past you when he's using his motion sensor is just purely orgasmic. Sure, it's got a steep learning curve, but if you just go create your own game, walk around the level and get to learn all the cool ways to go through it, you'll be having fun in no time! And being merc, althouh not as cool, is still fun, especially when you've studied the level as a spy, and pretty much know all the ways in.

Having more players would make it boring, since each merc could just guard every objective. This is much more tense and fun.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by bigjko

The satisfaction of having a merc walk right past you when he's using his motion sensor is just purely orgasmic.

Um, I'm not sure if I should or shouldn't play with you online.