Xbox Live Optimatch bug sneaks up on Pandora Tomorrow

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, which is quite literally due out tomorrow, reportedly suffers from a rather unhelpful Xbox Live bug that crashes the game irretrievably.

Although the bug doesn't affect actual gameplay, it will prove rather irritating for anybody who likes to make use of the Optimatch feature, which allows you to hunt down games-in-progress that fit your own requirements. Apparently Optimatch searching works fine, but hovering around for more than ten seconds on the results page causes a hard lock-up that cannot be resolved without rebooting the console.

We tried to contact Ubisoft today to find out whether the bug affects the PAL Xbox version of the game, but we hadn't heard back by the time we covertly whacked the 'publish' button just now. Ubisoft US, however, has issued the following statement:

"Ubisoft is aware of the problem, and we are looking into it now. We hope to address it quickly. However, we are pleased to report that the bug does not prevent players from playing online, and it does not occur during gameplay. Therefore we expect that players will still enjoy playing Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow while we look into resolving this issue."

Judging by Ubisoft's exploits in patching fellow Live title Rainbow Six III, it won't take all that long to quash the bug, after which normal service will resume. In the meantime, the Quickmatch option works fine, so you should be okay to rely on that.

Perhaps adding a bit of insult to injury though, PC owners will be able to sample the multiplayer aspect of the game later on today with - touch wood - no such problems. The promised multiplayer demo set to sleuth its way onto the net at around 5pm GMT. We will of course be ready and waiting...

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow is due out on Xbox and GBA tomorrow, PC next Friday, and PS2 and GameCube sometime in the not-too-distant future.