Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow carries on the legacy well with ever-cool deadly stealth operative Sam Fisher back to wage another one-man war against terrorism. The game boasts many noticeable little tweaks over the original title with the mechanics being ever so slightly chopped, changed and added to where necessary - plus the visual side of things is looking even tidier and more refined than before. The good news for PS2 owners is that despite the now ageing black box's technological disadvantages, Pandora Tomorrow actually stacks up pretty well against its Xbox, GameCube and PC counterparts. It also contains a new Indonesian jungle level not seen in other versions.

The story this time sees Fisher taking on an Indonesian terrorist network intent on mass destruction and the game is played out over 8 varied main levels across several international locations. Although the storyline sets up the action well, it really takes a backseat to the way in which you attain your objectives. Right from the outset you'll be sneaking around in the dark, picking locks, meeting up with informants and hacking into the odd computer. The gameplay mechanic is what actually drives the game along and keeps you playing right to the end as you sneak around shooting out lights with silenced weapons in order to stay undetected. For the most part you'll be either sneaking past guards or silently grabbing them in a headlock from behind before knocking them out and concealing their bodies in the shadows. From time to time you'll even get the O.K. to use "fifth freedom" - spy talk for using deadly force rather than non-lethal take-downs.

There's no training level included in Pandora Tomorrow - you'll learn everything as you play with instructions coming thick and fast, especially during the first map as you'd expect. It's a great way to learn the moves and become accustomed to the wonderfully tight and intuitive control system and it doesn't take too long before you're smoothly stringing everything together even if you're a first-time Splinter-Celler.

Don't expect a vast increase in gadgetry or any new weapons in this sequel, but let's face it, Splinter Cell already had the best line-up of this stuff for any game in the genre. What you do get is more awesome gameplay using your fibre optic viewer, lock pick and amazing gun-propelled gadgets, plus your ability to climb, jump, shimmy and sneak your way around. One example of a tweak in your abilities over the first game is that after completing a split-jump when lodged between two walls Fisher can now lean to one side and then jump towards the edge he's looking at in order to reach even higher locations.

We've already mentioned the PS2's technological disadvantages but one thing that its memory restrictions actually help improve(!) is the level of frustration you might feel in relation to gameplay difficulty. Let us explain. The Xbox version was criticised for containing several rediculously tricky sections which just seemed too long and necessitated too many frustrating replays in order to progress compared to the rest of the game. The PS2 version, however, handles its restrictions by breaking up the game into smaller chunks, thus providing the gamer with many more checkpoints. On one hand this means you'll be staring at a lot more load screens, which may lead to a slight frustration of its own, but on the other it does tend to even the game out a bit and alleviate the somewhat unbalanced challenge seen in the Xbox version.

Despite being an easier game there's still quite a degree of challenge throughout with an incremental alarm system built in which sees security increased each time you're spotted up to the third time when the mission is abandoned - a sort of "three strikes and you're out" system. Avoiding detection then becomes a major objective as enemies get harder to dispatch - on the first alarm level they don flak jackets and on the second helmets.

However, there is respite if you're careful as alarm levels can also be decreased back to normal by staying undetected until you reach certain predetermined areas. This and an abundance of health stations, which leave you briefly vunerable to attack when using despite their welcome frequency, make for a much more balanced single-player game than the original title and certainly a less frustrating one than on the Xbox. Also it doesn't fall into the "over too quick" category like many other modern titles and the solo mode should provide at least 12 hours of tense gameplay for the average gamer.

Which leads us onto the AI. In the first game many thought this was a bit on the tough side and in a few places it seemed enemies even relied on, dare we say, cheap "special abilities" to catch you out rather than any actual intelligence. Well, we can honestly say that they generally appear to have an improved IQ this time around, not that they were stupid in Splinter Cell. Alert to both movement and sound, guards will cautiously search every visible area near where they saw or heard you until convinced everything's O.K.. If they spot you, though, you'll need to take urgent action to avoid capture or worse and if back-up guards arrive to help out you're as good as dead.

It's annoying, then, that at times you'll be spotted easily by eagle eyes from a distance and yet guards will pass right by, literally within inches in shadowy areas and not even bat an eyelid. Another thing is that even with fewer guards and enemies per map in the PS2 version, the necessarily more condensed areas and fewer destructible light sources means there actually ends up being less hiding places making what at first seems an overall easier challenge quite deceptively harder at various points in the game.

While the AI in Pandora tomorrow does offer a decent challenge and some very enjoyable moments nothing beats playing against human opponents and this is where the sequel builds tremendously on an already great single-player game and the original title. Billed as "the first multiplayer stealth game", Pandora Tomorrow offers a USB headset-compatible online multiplayer game unlike anything you've ever experienced. Here teams of 2 players take each other on in what has to be the tensest online experience ever.

One team is the mercenaries, who play in first-person mode while the others are Shadownet spies (the Sam Fishers) who play in the traditional third person. While one team guards an objective, the other has to sneak in and take or destroy it using all their stealth techniques and specialised weapons and gadgetry. As there are always three things to guard the defenders can never cover all their area at one time which makes for a truly great cat-and-mouse style game. Also being in first-person means the mercenaries have a more limited view, while their turning speed is slightly slower allowing the spies an advantage in their sneak attacks. To counteract this the mercenaries are given greater firepower but they lack the night vision (having only a torch) and the well-developed stealth capabilities of the spies.

Now you might think a multiplayer game of this sort limited to only 4 players sounds pretty unexciting but believe us when we say nothing could be further from the truth. This is one of the most well-thought out and balanced multiplayer experiences around and definitely one of the most original. We'd recommend playing on a LAN with a few mates if you can before going online as a knowledge of the maps and tactics is essential to a more enjoyable online experience. In other words, a newbie will get absolutely slaughtered by experienced players who know every nook and cranny of the levels - heed that, learn the game and you'll end up having a lot of fun.

Visually Pandora Tomorrow is hands-down one of the finest on the PS2 so far and we'd go as far as to say the best looking to date. While the original Splinter Cell set a new standard in graphics on the console it's even better here with vastly improved textures and an even greater level of detail. Try moving Sam around to cop a close-up view of his face and outfit and you'll soon see what we're talking about.

Also, textures throughout the large well-designed indoor and outdoor levels are extremely varied and there doesn't appear to be much repetition. Lighting and shadows are tweaked to near perfection and that water just looks sooo real now! While the PS2 sports perhaps the weakest graphics by comparison (and necessity) there's still eye candy aplenty here and it still impresses to see what the old black box is capable of in the right hands. There's the odd brief frame rate stutter here and there but it's so minor in the scheme of things and almost expected in such a visually stunning piece of software running on this platform. Unfortunately there's no widescreen support, however.

Sound plays a very important role in a stealth game especially the actual sounds your character makes as you move around the levels. In Pandora Tomorrow the audio is very accomplished from the professional voice acting to the wonderful ambient sounds like creaking doors, footsteps and crackling fires that add immensely to the atmosphere. The music, whilst pretty much the same as in the first game, does a good job of assisting to build tension just at the right moments and fits the game well. There is a slight annoying glitch occasionally though with some missing sounds and speech but apparently this can be fixed by restarting the game. Dolby Pro Logic II is supported.