YMMV / Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow

• Complete Monster: Pandora Tomorrow has a Big Bad Duumvirate:
  • Suhadi Sadono is the leader of the Indonesian terror cell Darah Dan Doa (Blood and Prayer). A member since his youth, back when it was just a street gang, Sadono once helped fight the Communist influences in Indonesia, until the CIA stopped backing them. In retaliation, Sadono used a modified strain of smallpox and places the strains in containers all over the United States, which he demonstrates by releasing the virus in Texas. While fighting in front line battles, Sadono protects himself from capture or death by ordering smallpox to be released should he be unable to make a call to his mercenaries. Described as having a child's idea of war, seeing both civilians and soldiers as acceptable targets, Sadono is one of the most vicious and dangerous terrorists Sam Fisher faced in his career.
  • Norman Soth was a CIA agent who, after being left behind by the CIA in Indonesia and losing his leg to a land mine, swore revenge against the U.S. Allying himself with Suhadi Sadono, Soth assists Sadono in the latter's takeover of the U.S. embassy in East Timor, which ends with multiple deaths. In the process of stealing the units needed to transport smallpox for Sadono's plan, Soth orders his men—to whom he made it clear that any screw-ups on the job would result in consequences for their families—to Leave No Witnesses at Saulnier Cryogenics over his men's reservations. Purchasing a smallpox sample from a bio-terrorist group, Soth gives it to Sadono to unleash in Springfield, Texas, resulting in the deaths of several people. Caring only for revenge, Soth intends to unleash the last virus at LAX International Airport with the intent of killing thousands of travelers.
• Contested Sequel: While some like the new additions and improvements to the gameplay such as the SWAT turn, being able to use the Optic Cable and Lockpick whenever you approach a door without having to select it from your inventory, being able to open doors while carrying a body and each level having individual soundtracks as well as it being the debut of Spies vs Mercs, others think it is weaker than the first game due to the lower-quality voice acting (including the different voice actors for Lambert and Grim and enemies not having accents matching the country they are from like the first game, instead all having American accents), the increased difficulty, glitches, the story and dialogue not being as good, worse animations and the game being shorter.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The game's HUD at the bottom of the screen has pop-ups telling you what your current mission objective(s) are, and whether legal force is authorized or not. It will pop-up if you stand idle for more than 5 seconds. Since this is a stealth-based game, it can be very annoying to get these prompts continually while waiting to sneak past patrolling enemies.
• That One Level: Pandora Tomorrow is easily the hardest game in the whole series. The game's alarm limit was so strict (in many levels, if the alarm was sounded just once, it was an instant game over. Also, unlike in the first game where enemies actually had to run to the alarm to activate it, enemies in this game automatically set off an alarm the second they see you) that Ubisoft did away with it in the next game and next to no-one (except those who "ghost" the games) were really complaining. The game was really bipolar on its rules-of-engagement objectives, flipping back and forth between "no casualties" and "go guns blazing" multiple times in a single mission. Below are the levels that really stand out in an already difficult time:
  • Jerusalem. For most of the level, you aren't allowed to be seen or kill anybody AT ALL. If a civilian or police officer so much as catches a glimpse of you, it's a instant game over, and the level is also full of light sources which make getting through it a nightmare. Even once you get to the part where you are allowed to be seen and kill enemies, three of them are waiting right outside the elevator for you as soon it opens and will quickly ventilate you if you don't knock out or kill them immediately, and once you get past that, depending on if you kill Dahlia or not, you have to deal with either snipers who can kill you in 2 or 3 hits and alert very quickly, or more police officers you aren't allowed to kill or be seen by.
  • Jakarta TV station. You are allowed to kill anyone and the alarm limit is at its max (which is 3). But the level is extremely dark, has a very confusing layout, and enemies are clustered in groups in each room. Being a Marathon Level doesn't help matters.
  • Dear lord, but none of them take the cake like the final level, Los Angeles International Airport. Since you are stopping rogue CIA agent Norman Soth from releasing the final ND133 smallpox bomb, if you sound just one alarm, you spook Soth and he releases the virus, meaning an instant mission failure. So you have gotten used to the whole "one alarm, mission failed" idea. You are only allowed to kill the terrorists disguised as airport employees and spotting them is pretty easy. But you have to also sneak past the airport workers, and there are quite a lot of them. One spots you, bam, instant mission fail. But the hardest part is at the end, where you confront Soth and the last 2 terroists in the catwalks. When you kill one terrorist, a timer starts and you have one minute (in the Xbox and PC versions) to kill the last two men, and still reach the virus at the top of the catwalks. They have night vision goggles and the catwalks are really dark. Plus, these guys run all over the place, meaning you have to have a really steady shot or you will miss, and that is unacceptable given the circumstances. You pretty much have to play this level perfectly to beat it.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The Sony Ericsson brand in Pandora Tomorrow (which came out in 2004). That joint venture mobile telephone business ceased to exist in 2012 when Sony bought out Ericsson's share. And the smartphone Sam uses to read the Memory Stick stolen by Shetland looks so early 2000s it hurts.

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