Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow Diaries Part Five

This is my ongoing exploration of the Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell games, played in release order. I will chronicle my playthrough of each title in turn and discuss any recurring themes and noteworthy events.

I had retrieved proof that Suhadi Sadono and Norman Soth planned to attack an American city with weaponised smallpox, so travelled to Kudang, Indonesia to intercept Sadono’s phone calls…

Colonel Lambert told me to meet up with Douglas Shetland, who I had saved from interrogation at the start of the game in East Timor. Since I was on my way through the facility anyway, he asked me to plant some explosives in Sadono’s single-engine plane. I wouldn’t have to worry about enemies, as the area was crawling with friendly snipers -- allegedly, since I would never be able to spot them if I looked for them... I could have rappelled down into the nearby camp, but I took the handy nearby zipwire.

There were two men in the camp, who I knocked out pretty easily. Sure, the bottle I threw to distract the first one kinda hit the wrong tent, but I still didn’t get spotted. The next section was a bit of a minefield -- because it was a field covered in tripwires attached to mines. My first hint was when a drunk guard set one off, and his mate came running over. I shot him with an airfoil round, since I still wasn’t too certain that I was allowed to kill people, and continued along the way.

I used my thermal goggles to spot the mines, and deactivated them as I went. There was another guy towards the end of the field who I had to shoot, but after that it was clear sailing to the hanger. There were two men in there, who I shot dead before planting the bomb. Another man came in, and I slipped out the back door.

Of course, there were a couple of men having a chat behind a fence. A nearby barrel fire provided some unneeded illumination, but thankfully not too much of it. I shot the first guy in the head, while his mate was in the gate control booth, then lined up the shot and took him out, too. I turned off the light in the booth to hide the body, then opened the gate. There was another camp, but now that I had planted the bomb, I had to infiltrate the compound which the tents surrounded.

In my way were two guards who were chatting, before talking to the one who was in a sniper tower, as if to point him out to me. He wanted nothing to do with them, so while one of them went to have a sleep, I grabbed the other guy and knocked him out. I snuck over to the tent where the sleeper was, and shot him before climbing the tower and punching the sniper a couple of times. There was a zipwire that handily went into the compound, so I hopped up and slid down.

As Lambert warned me not to be spotted by Sadono, I instead spotted him. He was making his way to the villa at the other end of the compound to place his phone call to delay the biological weapon attack. My mission was to tap the phone, but I needed to follow him to get there.

According to Lambert, Sadono didn’t write down the door code for the villa, only told it to his closest lieutenants. Of course, I had to be close enough to hear it, which wasn’t possible. My other option was to use a sticky camera to overhear it. We moved through the compound, me waiting for him to clear off before shooting or knocking out the enemies in each section, and him occasionally chatting. I took a chance and fired the sticky camera near to him, and overheard him tell the guard the code.

I watched Sadono and the guy who had been following him, presumably a personal assistant, as they went down a ladder guarded by two men. I shot the TV in the room I was hiding in, and it alerted the closest one, who came in to investigate. I clobbered him, and then shot the other one in the head across the yard. I went over to the ladder and climbed down.

Now in a refinery, I bashed in the head of the first guard, then dropped down next to another one, who I also smacked. Lambert explained that there was a CIA pilot here that I should make contact with. Through to the next room, there were a bunch of people doing something with piles of powder on tables under bright lights. I shot out a light, trying to make the guard I spotted investigate, or at least give me a way around. Instead, a second guard that I hadn’t seen went to check it out. I shot him, but unfortunately the other guard noticed, and I had to quickly shoot him.

In the next room, I turned on a couple of generators to hide noise that I might make. Unfortunately, upon shooting one of the guards, I alerted two others who I had to lethally silence. I spoke to the pilot, and Sam warned him not to fly his plane, after he gave over the name of someone I wasn’t to repeat over an open comm signal for fear that Japanese special forces were listening.

I went through the nearby door once I had the code, and up a ladder. Two guards were nattering away about something, so I fired a smoke grenade at them to take them out. Unfortunately, there was an automatic turret near to the door of the building Sadono had gone inside. I managed to run over to the controls and deactivate it before it had done too much damage to me.

Inside the building was a firing range, which Sadono and his assistant were inspecting. I shot out all of the lights, then shot the commander and the one doing the target practice. The man in the next room hitting a punching bag didn’t hear the commotion, so I went and shot him, too.

Outside were two guards and another turret, so Anna Grímstóttir advised me to wait until dark. Luckily that was mere seconds away, as the shadows grew quickly in the doorway in front of me. I went out and grabbed the guy who was stood next to the door, and dragged him into the shadows to knock him out, then when the other one walked back towards us I did the same to him. I ran past the turret and turned it off without it spotting me.

The next area had a spotlight following a guard, so I snuck around him, running at one point which alerted him. He went to investigate, but I managed to hide out of his way in time. There was another in front of the villa doors, so I waited for him to get into the shadows before shooting him. Unfortunately the way he fell made sure that his made spotted him, and I had to shoot that guy too before hiding them both.

Avoiding the turrets to either side of the porch, I entered the code for the door and slipped inside. Sadono had just placed his call, I overheard the end of it, and I waited by an open window while he fiddled with his laptop. The door lock was jammed, so I had no other way inside. He left, and I watched him go with my optic cable, but he came back into the room before leaving again.

Now certain he was gone, I shot the security camera watching the room and hacked the laptop. Once finished, I went for the door that Sodano had left through. Unfortunately, he was still stood there. I decided against being spotted or incapacitating him, so went back out through the office window.

Around the side of the villa was a breaker, so I turned it off figuring it would deactivate the lights. It didn’t, so I shrugged and carried on. I snuck out the back and was suddenly told to freeze and not move, by Lambert on the comm. There was a group of men aiming guns and torches at me in a none too friendly manner. Suddenly, snipers began shooting at the men, and they turned their attention from me.

I waited for several long seconds, and the enemies continued firing blindly at the trees. When I’d had enough waiting, I threw a flashbang and ran for it while they were blinded. The Osprey picked me up just out of range of their rifles. Grímstóttir was tracing the phone call, but lost it in a submarine in Komodo, Indonesia...