The Growlanser series is over ten years old and encompasses six games, but only recently have us Europeans been getting acquainted with it. Growlanser: Heritage of War may be the fifth game in the series, though it’s the first to make it to Europe. Thank heavens there’s no need to have played the others to know what the hell is going on narrative wise, then.

Initially you’ll take charge of Seldous, a guy who detests war and is trying to bring an end to it. By discovering the Admonisher, a super weapon (think of it as a medieval nuclear weapon) which is the ultimate deterrence for anyone who is thinking of starting a war, he founds the Peace Maintenance Brigade. Things then shift forward twenty years and you find yourself playing Randall for a while, then General Rockbein, then Fanille and after all that, Haestan a mute, dour faced and spiky haired teen takes centre stage. If you hadn’t already guessed, this guy is the lead protagonist and if you hadn’t, you likely haven’t played many Japanese RPG’s in your time.

The visuals are largely functional, though bland and occasionally blighted by framerate issues. On the other hand the artwork from Satoshi Urushihara is incredible.

The story is reminiscent of Suikoden, carrying a theme of war. It’s captivating, and even though there are clichés along the way, the setup of the story is effective in putting all the pieces into place. It turns out that the story is a major strength of the game, so that’s one important JRPG facet that Growlanser: Heritage of War gets right.

When it comes to fighting however, slight cracks begin to show within the games’ foundations. The combat system allows you to move about the battlefield freely, though when attacking you’ll have to wait for a short period until you can attack again. Knacks are special abilities which activate instantaneously, whilst magical spells require a charge up period before they are unleashed, the amount of time being determined by the level of the spell.

That all works to an adequate enough level, though when enemies cast spells you’re left unable to move, which is fair enough, but not so much when the battlefield is filled with magically proficient enemies that constantly bombard you with magic, leaving you unable to even move an inch without being fried, frozen or electrocuted or whatever, which can occasionally make for frustratingly slow battles. There’s path finding issues, too, where characters get stuck against enemies and objects, which in some of the tougher fights is frustrating, leaving you no choice but to guide them with the move command.

One of the strengths in regard to the combat is that there’s plenty in the way of variety of objectives. One mission might ask you to protect people for instance, whilst another might have you stopping enemies from escaping. There are also secondary objectives, of which are largely not essential to progression, though if you meet their criteria you’ll be rewarded with additional post battle rewards. As the game is mostly an easy one, those who’re seeking additional challenge are advised to attempt these tasks.

As far as character growth goes, on top of exp, victory in battle will also earn you knack points, of which allows your characters to learn new abilities. Skill plates can be fitted to an ability tree and the idea is to place them in a line from left to right with space enough for eight lines, though knack points only flow to one line at a time.

Similarly to many Western RPG's, you're sometimes required to pick your responses in conversations, though unlike its western counterparts, your choices rarely have a bearing on the direction that the story heads in.

However, when the tree starts filling up with skill plates, it all begins to get a bit hard for the eyes, and then there’s the problem of not being able to remove attached plates until much later on in the game, which can make for some frustrating situations when you mistakenly attach one, it’s just awful design. When you finally get the option to properly play around with the ability tree, some will enjoy tinkering with it for extended periods of time, whilst others will find it all a little too fussy.

More positive is Growlanser: Heritage of War’s impressive lifespan. The main game itself is sizable, but there’s also a wealth of rewarding diversions that, should you do it all, will add tens of hours to the game. There’s something seemingly around every corner, be it weapons to find, secret dungeons to explore, a fairy contest of which your fairy companion, Korin is able to enter, amongst other things.

The core of Growlanser: Heritage of War is heavily flawed, though elsewhere it does get some things right: there’s a lot of game here and the story is brisk and entertaining, of which will be big enough strengths to allow some RPG fans to overlook or at least tolerate its flaws, and for them it could very well be a worthwhile rental at the very least.

5/10

Being keen fans of the old Worms games, we admittedly had our concerns about a 3D version worming its way towards us. Would it still retain its simplicity? Would the purists be satisfied? And more importantly would it actually work respectively? Well the answer to all these questions is…yes!

Worms 3D might no longer be 2D (duh) the gameplay is still unmistakably the Worms we all know and love complete with exploding sheep, mad cows and all other manner of crazy exploding things. Other then the odd tweak to weapons and such to make them a bit more feasible in the new 3D environment, gameplay has been relatively untouched (which as far as we’re concerned is a good thing) meaning it still fundamentally and predictably involves you and your opponent/s (preferably humans) taking it in turns to blow one another to bits with bizarre but fun weaponry until there’s only one team left standing…err or should that be wriggling.

Being 3D and all, there have been some slight alterations to make it a bit easier to play in the new 3D field. Pressing R1, switches the game to a helpful first person perspective that allows for easier targeting of enemy worms especially those that are positioned afar from your current worm. Pressing R2 will handily switch the game to an overhead perspective, which is nice to survey the entire area and probably even more importantly to target homing weapons, air-strikes and such, to bring pain to enemy pink wriggly things.

The aforementioned weapon tweaks are on the whole a good thing, but that isn’t to say that the changes are without their pitfalls. Equipment such as the ninja rope simply just aren’t as fun to use as what they were in the 2D incarnations while some weapons don’t quite have the satisfaction factor that they had in past games. This can be forgiven though as many of the more explosive weapons have been considerably toned down to suit the larger playing area, so that every time you use an explosive banana, worms don’t go flying into the sea, when you think of it that way it’s pretty understandable.

The game retains the majority of weapons that were featured in previous games such as banana bombs, air strikes and holy hand grenades to name just a few. But a few favourites have been dropped such as the bungee rope, Ming vase and kamikaze. New weapons include the sticky bomb, which as the name implies sticks to any solid surface, and the slightly crap blowpipe, which can be used to poison opposing worms.

Worms has always been intended to be played by more than one player, but a single player mode is still vital to unlock weapons and new environments – probably more importantly to hone your skills while siblings or friends aren’t available to be destroyed. Sadly, this mode is flawed in more ways then one with the main culprits being an often ludicrously hard difficulty in the main campaign mode and the fact that the AI of the CPU worms is just too cheap with grenades and such hitting their target more often then not and if by chance they do miss, it’s usually only a fraction away.

Unsurprisingly, Worms 3D offers an almost unlimited depth of customisation allowing you to create matches to your exact liking along with your very own team of wormy warriors. Just about every option can be toggled and with the Wormpot you can create a mixture of options, which can significantly alter the style of play. For example, making certain weapons more powerful or beginning the match with no weapons whatsoever and having to pick them up from weapon crates scattered around the environment.

Having simple 2D visuals in the era of cutting edge 3D games means that worms has obviously never been about the graphics. For the 3D version we just wanted a solid engine that did its job and that’s just about what we got. As suspected, aesthetically speaking Worms 3D is not a beauty, but for the type of game, it’s more than adequate. As always there’s a certain charm to the appearance of the game and with the worms being much larger then previously, it allows for much more detailed facial expressions. Sadly there are moments of slowdown, which hamper the experience somewhat, but thankfully it doesn’t happen often enough to seriously affect the game. Also on the odd occasion we got ourselves trapped in the environment and were forced to use some of our valuable equipment just to get free and assure our safety from any nearby enemy invertebrates. This infuriated us, since we had to use equipment that could of came in use later and maybe even saved our bacon. Apart from this, there is also some sound bugs that happen far too often to ignore. There are some effects that repeat and some instances where the worms voices vanished altogether and we all know how important those amusingly high pitched voices are to the Worms experience, don’t we?

Worms 3D is a successful transformation of a 2D game into glorious 3D, but thankfully with no real drastic alterations to the already fine gameplay. Because of the mentioned technical faults and somewhat downgrade in satisfaction, Worms 3D is not quite as good as its predecessors but nevertheless we still had as much fun as those times we used to slice worms in half as kids, can’t be too bad then, eh?

8/10

World Championship Rugby certainly has a lot going for it and has been designed so that anyone can more a less get straight into the game, without any annoying controls for those who may not be in tune with games as much as the rest of us, that’s a very good thing. I can’t really claim that I’m a huge fan of Rugby, nor do I know much about the sport, but I commend Swordfish Studios for keeping things simple, allowing for zealous fans or those without a single grain of interest or knowledge of the sport to play the game totally free from complex troubles.

Buttons are kept to a minimum select few. Passes are strung together by using the usual Rugby controls, with R1 to pass right and L1 to pass to the left. The X button is associated with most of the rest of the intuitive controls, tackles, kicks and tries are nicely kept to that one button (with a few others that can be brought into play with the circle button). The game is made even simpler with instructions accompanying the in-game situations. I was  initially dumbstruck but that quickly turned to fluid passing movements through the field, which resulted in glorious tries, and I also began winning tackles by piling more of my men into the bodies of the opposition. There isn’t even a power bar for conversion attempts to worry about, with only the direction and the wind to be taken into consideration. It’s certainly the vertical limit of Rugby games as far as ease of use is concerned.

There is a good few game modes, too, including the chance to win the “expected” World Cup in the World Championship mode and others based on real events such as the Three Nations (Tri-Nations) and Euro Nations (Six Nations). The challenge mode gives you the opportunity to change history in matches that happened in real-life as well as a few fictional tasks. There is plenty here and the obligatory multi-player mode should keep many players going until it’s time for a sequel.

Graphically it’s not really a stunner, it’s all-functional enough for the most part, although it does suffer from some appalling slow-down at times, resulting in players that look like they are struggling to run through a field of syrup. The game does stampede right over Jonah Lomu Rugby without any resistance, there basically isn’t a comparison to be made here but Swordfish Studios other Rugby game has aged terribly. The aural atmosphere from the crowd in each of the glorious stadiums is fantastic, whilst the commentary from Sky Sports’ Miles Harrison and Stuart Barnes is basic at best, but it’s certainly passable and worthy enough for inclusion.

World Championship Rugby is a mostly successful attempt at a videogame semblance of the sport, nicely pitched with very few problems. Those bemused by the rules of the sport will be taken kindly to the game and it’s all accessible enough that the rules of Rugby will never seem clearer to you, whilst hardcore fans will similarly lap it up. Simply put, it’s a delight for both the fervent and casual fan and shouldn’t be missed by either.

8/10

Princess Allura is in a bit of a bind, her father is murdered and she stands accused. She flees into a mansion and after being possessed by a demon starts doing nasty things to those who oppose her. The story is interesting enough, but is sadly marred by an amateurish translation, and as the game is voiced only in Japanese you’ll find yourself reading sentences with obvious words amiss as well as some nasty and often hilarious mistakes.

The concept is excellent of Trapt, but the execution isn’t as good as I would have hoped for from such a game. Princess Allura doesn’t look much like a sword swinging heroine perhaps, but thanks to her possessed state she’s still able to lay traps and lead her foolish enemies into them. No lack of imagination has been spared, with gruesome death-traps causing your enemies plenty of pain.

Make no mistake about it this is one sadistic game, and making your enemies squeal seems to have been the development teams intention. You set traps up exactly how and where you want them, and to give the game a little credit, it isn’t completely lacking in the brains department as it allows the player to set obstacles up in a way that can lead to combos. It has to be said that knocking your game down with a swinging pendulum, then impaling them on a wall and dropping a rock on their head is a satisfying thing to do, and also rewards you with extra money, which can buy you new traps or keys that give you access to other rooms in your location.

It’s a case of setting your traps up, waiting for them to charge, and then when you see fit pressing the face button corresponding to the trap you want to spring. There’s nothing more to it, you could write what the game entails on the back of your hand and still have space to fill, such is the overly simplistic nature of it all. That’s alright for some games, but in Trapt it’s a disaster.

It’s interesting to begin with, but it becomes tired all too soon for my liking. I have got to question why the game couldn’t have been given something to help break up the repetition; a little exploration could have done wonders to the playability in-between the trap-setting sections for example. But there’s none of this, and things soon become unbearably stagnant.

4/10

Being a film licence, there’s not a lot of new here. Transformers: The Game is essentially a light sandbox game, where outside of the primary missions, you can try your hand at the enjoyable sub-missions or seek out the hidden items, both of which unlocks the obligatory bonus content, that consists of the usual artwork and film trailers – how original!

Unlike Atari’s game, Transformers: The game has an emphasis on melee combat over shooting. With this being a film licence it needn’t be said that this is kept simple (on the Wii version you move the remote from side to side to do this, but it doesn‘t really enhance the game, so, if possible you‘re probably better off with one of the nicer looking versions). Objects can also be picked up and tossed at your enemies, but doing this simple action can be tricky, requiring you to line your Transformer up correctly before you’re able to pick anything up and once you’re holding an object, the problems don’t end. Unlike other games where such objects would sensibly go transparent, here they don’t, which means your vision is obscured by the larger objects, this being another in a long line of problems.

Graphically, the robots themselves look large, mean and detailed, but your surroundings, whilst impressively destructible don’t fare as well, lacking the detail that we crave from our new (yes new not next, because that’s just silly) gen machines. The PS2 version can get away with the lack of detail, because that’s a bit wrinkly these days, bless it. No version can get away with the nasty bugs and glitches though, when you’re driving along in your vehicle form, you’ll find yourself all too often getting stuck on debris, a nightmare particularly when it’s a speed requisite mission. Needless to say, when you fail a mission here, it’s not always your pathetically poor skills at fault.

The primary missions are exciting but repetitive, not in the way that each different mission is the same as the last, but the fact that you’ll be doing the same thing over and over on each mission, for example one mission may require you to blow up robots and that’s all it consists of, whilst another will require you to destroy cooling fans multiple times and escape from the resulting blast, yes multiple times, less one note missions certainly would have been nice.

Many of these missions are lengthy, but don’t feature any checkpoints whatsoever, which means upon mission failure, you’ll often have to replay an unreasonable amount causing needless frustration, particularly when it’s the fault of the games’ glitches rather than your own.

Even though both the Autobots and the Decepticons have their own campaigns, there are still only around five or six hours of gameplay here, this can be extended by doing all the optional tasks, but it doesn’t really make up for the fact that there’s no form of multiplayer mode whatsoever, which is strange for a game, which would have been perfectly suited to epic multiplayer skirmishes.

If you’re going to play one Transformers game to get in the mood for the movie, make sure it’s Melbourne House’s hugely enjoyable Transformers rather than this average, cobbled together film licence. Transformers: The game does have its enjoyable moments, but all too often it’s hidden behind glitches and frustrations, lets call it enjoyment in disguise then!

5/10

For those who give Etheria a chance, there’s an engaging battle system to be found here that rewards skilful play. Two AI comrades accompany you; fighting independently if left to their own resources, but when an enemy is sent in their direction they know it’s an invitation to begin chaining attacks, and it’s this that makes the combat such a rare treat. Juggling enemies between your team-mates is encouraged – not only does it look stylish, but the game also pays you back for your troubles by rewarding you with extra energy and etheria, which can be used to purchase helpful items and character upgrades between stages.

Etheria is certainly no brainless hack and slash game, and attempting to tackle it this way isn’t a recommendation. To play it properly is to play it skilfully and this is achieved by chaining as many attacks together as possible. Knock an enemy towards a comrade and a vocal cue is followed by an attack, and whenever you hear a prompt from a team-mate a simple well timed slash of your sword will add life to the combo. It’s quite a delight to keep throwing enemies into the combo and witnessing the chain number rise as a result.

An onscreen meter gauges your success with chains, rising with continued chains and falling when combos are ended. This tension meter allows you to use more powerful fighting techniques known here as deadly attacks, and the higher the meter the more powerful attacks available. Level 1 attacks only have Fiel (the main character) involved, but persistency in keeping a combo alive allows for more devastating team attacks upon reaching a higher tension level.

The bosses definitely deserve a mention, as these encounters are interesting and inventive, regularly requiring you and your supporting AI to fully cooperate as a team, resulting in sizeable chunks out of its energy meter.

Another good idea is that the depletion of your energy bar doesn’t necessarily mean you will come face-to-face with the game over screen – the dreaded and tragic end doesn’t actually come until your entire team are down on the deck. When you do take too many hits Fiel drops into a crouch, which unsurprisingly makes movement slower, requiring you to tap the X button as fast as possible to regain your composure and get back to your feet before your AI mates are defeated.

It’s rife with good ideas, it’s just a shame that the game has to falter in a few other areas. For instance the graphics are unattractive at best, whilst the level design is uninteresting and lazy in layout, although the combat is such a major strength that it manages to mostly compensate for these ugly environments. Finally I feel there’s a missed opportunity in the lack of multiplayer options, and including some would have surely done the game some favours.

If it wasn’t for its unique combo system then The Sword of Etheria would be a run-of-the-mill action game. Without this focus on team chemistry it certainly wouldn’t have turned out as interesting as the end product. In spite of its shortcomings and for seemingly magically appearing out of thin air, Etheria remains an engaging game that offers enough depth to please any hardcore gamer. Its lack of publicity is certainly undeserved.

8/10

But perhaps in trying to please their adoring fans, SNK are leaving the series inaccessible to more casual fighting game players and this is perhaps the biggest problem. We accept that like anything, games are geared towards various audiences and don’t wish for it to be dumbed down, but a better practice mode that learns you the ins and outs of the fighting system would be a nice inclusion for the less adept players all the same.

With this off our chests, let’s talk about the rather marvellous King of Fighters XI.

Beginning with the all important character roster. There are an ample 47 characters, consisting of such favourites as Iori, Terry and Mai as well as three brand new faces: Elizabeth the heir of a noble French family, Irishman Oswald who uses cards as weapons and Momoko a capoeira fighter. Within this gargantuan roster, there’s sure to be a character that suits everyone, right down to even the pickiest of players.

As far as modes go, things are largely familiar, though the challenge mode is deserving of a mention, as it‘s fairly unique for the genre. Just as the name suggests, the mode has you attempting to conquer challenges that range from super easy to devilishly difficult, some of which will have even the usually calm and focussed fans pummelling the wall.

This eleventh instalment once again has an emphasis on team based skirmishes and along with all the usual gameplay enhancing mechanics, such as runs, rolls and empty cancels, King of Fighters XI as always, brings some welcome innovations to the franchise, all of which will give the existing fans something else to master and everyone else something to cry about.

It’s now possible to tag characters in and out as you see fit. Quick shifting allows you to tag characters in mid combo. Another useful tag move is the saving shift, which switch’s one character out for another during an attack. Both of these moves are governed by the skill gauge, which gradually fills up during a battle.

The use of the Skill gauge extends to more classic KOF manoeuvres such as super cancelling, but perhaps its most important use is with the new dream cancel system. With this, you’re able to interrupt moves with a more powerful move of your own, granting you the opportunity to carry out some punishing combos on your hapless opponent.

In a nice twist, if the timer reaches zero during a round, the round isn’t simply rewarded to the fighter with the most health remaining as is usually the case. Instead the performance of each fighter during the round is evaluated and victory is then rewarded to the all round best performing player. Makes perfect sense.

The engine is well tuned and about as balanced as hardcore fighting fans could hope for, save for perhaps the traditionally cheap final boss who tosses projectiles as if they’re going out of fashion.

Graphically speaking, the sprites may be smoother than earlier games, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re old and crusty, perhaps a high resolution Guilty Gear style makeover is in order. Nonetheless these archaic graphics do – even in this age of polygons by the thousands, bump mapping and all the other technological goods with funny names – have a certain charm and style that are still pleasing to the eyes.

King of Fighters XI is strictly for those with the bleeding and often oddly shaped fingers, AKA the hardcore fighter. Here is a fighting system that has been honed over many years, with new additions that are successful in their execution, all of which culminates in a 2D fighting game of the highest class, one that should only be played by its strong fan base and the truly dedicated.

9/10

In return for £14.99 you receive two titles on one disk. There’s the aging original vertical game, which for the record does still have beautiful psychedelic graphics, as the screen becomes busy with a mass of lights, lasers and explosions. The sequel is unsurprisingly the more modern of the two games and shifts to more of a 3D perspective, but we actually prefer the bright and colourful graphics of the original game as they boast a little more personality.

Both games play basically the same, simply choose a ship and shoot your way through the scrolling screens. Like other games of the ilk, you can increase the weaponry of your ship with finding power-ups and with the amount that is constantly going on, it’s almost a necessity. Extra firepower from another player is also a huge asset to have, and as two-player titles, both games are fun for a bit.

Not a single one of the two games is difficult in the essence that you are able to keep pumping credits into each title. Obviously it’s intended to make things as difficult or as leisurely as you feel, although it takes away the frustration too easily for our liking. For both games, seeing the credits shouldn’t be too much of a task for the majority of players.

Steel Dragon Ex isn’t such a bad investment at £14.99, although we do feel that there’s better scrolling shooters on the market. Don’t get us wrong, there’s plenty of bang in both games, it just seems to fizzle out a little too prematurely for our liking.

6/10

Not because the Star Wars empire is so easy to begrudge, what with the movies, books, cartoons, comics, plastic light sabers, action figures and thousands of tiny Millennium Falcons generating billions of pounds for LucasArts. Nor because, despite all that money, the more recent movies fall well short of the first low budget trilogy (which, despite regular re-releases on all formats known to the galaxy, haven’t been available in their original cuts since a laserdisc release in 1995).

No, it’s because movie tie-in games are usually just shit.

But Star Wars Battlefront II is an exception.

The training section is nicely judged. Thrown into the Attack of the Clones on Geonesis as a cack-handed foot soldier, you are taught all the basic skills and tactics you will need to work your way through the ranks until you become a Jedi, and emerge battle-hardened and ready for whatever war will throw at you.

The game controls are intuitive: once you’ve taken the necessary seconds to pick up the basics (which button is ‘fire’?), you can happily blunder your way through different weapons, bodies and vehicles as if you actually knew what you were doing.

This leaves you with plenty of time to admire the sheer scale of the battles: Hailfire tanks, Spider Walkers and AT-TEs stalk the planet’s desert plains as hundreds of clones and battle droids fight it out as a giant troopship rumbles overhead surrounded by a swarm of Starfighters. The graphics don’t let it down and the sound is detailed, with nice voice-acting and an emotive score typical of Star Wars.

The main game begins with the famous star field and opening crawl: ‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…’ Once the tingle has gone down your spine, you find yourself a trooper in the 501st division and must begin fighting against the encroaching might of the dark side (hoping that eventually you get to play as Darth Vader). The very next mission sees you in space for the first time, at the controls of a Starfighter, struggling with target tracking while you try to bomb the hell out of a massive CIS Cruiser.

There’s a free mode, a multiplayer mode, and a sub-game, Galactic Conquest, in which you can play at taking over the galaxy. There’s a large and active online community for some standard us-v-them shoot-em-up fun (running around with no idea what’s happening until you are mercifully dispatched by an unseen assailant and then get killed over and over again by a headshot at the spawn point, for example).

With the number of unremarkable Star Wars games reaching into triple figures, you’d be forgiven for flicking straight past Battlefront II, even at a knock-down price in the second-hand bin. But, while you’re creeping round the red-lit corridors of the Death Star, light saber in hand, thinking, ‘Whoah! It’s just like it is in the movie!’, you’ll be glad you took it home instead to spend at least a weekend making your own disturbance in the Force.

7/10

But the first game was a meteoric success, so it’s not a surprise that a sequel has been conceived. Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow is the resulting game. The new game offers more of the same, so obviously is lacking the innovation that the first title boasted, but does offer an equally fantastic – and in some ways better – experience than the already incredible first game.

So not a lot has changed, it’s still you as Sam Fisher sneaking around beautifully detailed and dark environments, but with a couple of new tricks (along with all the old ones) waiting to be utilized. The Swat turn move, allows you to quickly spin across gaps (like a doorway for instance) and amazingly not be detected by any enemies on the other side. Fisher can also dangle upside down on pipes and shoot his enemies from this position as well as whistling to distract any nearby enemies and perhaps to lure them into a particularly dark area to whack them across the head, rendering them unconscious. Sadly, just like the awesome split jump move from the first game (and back again here) at least two of these moves are mostly redundant, as there just simply isn’t many areas where they can be employed.

But along with the minor disappointments are some rather nice improvements, which includes more open-ended level design and a multiplayer mode that completely resolves the lastability issue of the first game. The targeting in the first game was inconsistent to say the least, but is entirely remedied this time, thanks to the inclusion of an infrared target. This allows for far more precise targeting for those devastating headshots and darkness cloaking light shattering that are both so crucial to gameplay.

One of the main complaints of the first game was the overly linear level design, which offered no choice of how you progressed through each level. Pandora Tomorrow, somewhat fixes this with more open-ended level design, providing players with at least a couple of routes to choose from on each level, it may be nowhere near the extent of something like Deus Ex, but it’s still nice to have just that little bit extra freedom.

Another apparent problem with the original game was its trial and error gameplay, which caused it to become a bit more difficult than the Metal Gear’s and Tenchu’s of the world. Having played it right through to the end, we agree that it did have some rather tough sections, but we never found it unfairly hard, like many others have frustratingly claimed. Pandora Tomorrow throws you right into the deep end and forces you to use non-lethal means to take down your enemy, which means that you best scratch that itchy trigger finger this instant as firearms are not allowed just yet or for a large portion of the game for that matter. Needless to say, Pandora Tomorrow is not one for those who enjoy nothing more then a good frag fest.

One of the main reasons for the first games unusually hard difficulty was its alarm system, which made stealth more imperative than ever – if you were to set off two or three alarms in a level the mission was over. It’s the same here, though even harder, with guards slipping on flack jackets when alerted once and strapping on helmets when an alarm is sounded for a second time, making those vital headshots virtually impossible to achieve. It’s a nice idea, but one which people who found the first games difficulty intimidating won’t be pleased with. On the good side at least certain areas reset the alarms, so as not to make progression too painful.

After the amazingly attractive original, it’s hardly a surprise that Pandora Tomorrow looks absolutely stupendous. The beautiful shadows, gorgeous sunsets and nicely detailed environments result in the game being almost graphically perfect. Levels look better than ever, thanks in part to many being larger in size and also the fact that much of the game takes place in external locations compared to the games nicely detailed -but at times – boring indoor areas. The jungle level about midway through the game looks particularly exceptional and is certain to rival the environment of MGS3 as far as rendered grass goes.

As good as it may be, once the game is finished, there is little reason to go back, another difficultly level is available, although even with this included it isn’t exactly worthwhile to dive back in to the game immediately. This is where the marvellous online and System Link multiplayer mode comes in. The mode features two opposing teams: spies and mercs. The spies are identical to Sam Fisher and must either neutralize or steal items whilst the mercs offer an outlandishly different style of play, with proceedings being played from a FPS style first person perspective, your mission – regardless of the game mode – is to gun down any spies who stray in to your path. Both teams are wonderfully balanced, with mercs being strong in a head on fight but not being able to see to the rear of them, while spies are unsurprisingly most efficient when sneaking about and choking the life out of their adversaries. Amazingly this mode loses little of the graphical splendour of the single player mode and lag is rarely an issue.

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow is dangerously close to perfection, it’s visually beautiful with a fantastic, immersive single player mode and an even better multiplayer mode, which will keep you playing well after the main game is complete. This is quite simply the finest stealth game yet released and is unlikely to be beaten for quite some time.

9/10