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All changes taken into account, though, the most remarkable thing about this game is still that brilliant immediacy that has been inherent in Splinter Cell games from the very beginning. Sneaking around in the darkness, shadowing enemies, incapacitating cameras, shimmying up drainpipes and firing sticky cameras onto walls to observe what's happening around the corner... the 'cool' factor of playing a spy game as realistic and atmospheric as this has never been equalled by any other series. It's amazing that this appeal still hasn't been lost, even after three comprehensive games.

What's even more amazing is that it carries over into the multiplayer. If online gaming's your thing, you'll be in heaven with the Live and PC internet options available here. Anyone familiar with Pandora Tomorrow will be very familiar with the competitive options. Playing as a Mercenary is still a very powerful experience, rendering you close to terrified as you fire wildly at the slightest movement in the shadows in fits of paranoia. What's new, though, is the co-operative mode - essentially a whole other game in itself.

Multiplayer is back and just as goodMultiplayer is back and just as good

There may only be four co-op missions, but they're absolutely fantastic. The opportunity to team up with another spy and help each other up ledges, across gaps et cetera over Live should be seized at the first opportunity - there's been no Live experience quite like it yet. On a single split screen, though, it gets more than slightly tiresome. You really need to play over Live or system link to get the most out of it, given that most of Splinter Cell is to do with spotting things around corners (quite a task with only half a screen to play in).

Visuals have always been important to the Splinter Cell games, and Chaos Theory's typically dark environments and varied, gorgeous locations most certainly do not disappoint. Even the enemies' expressions, Fisher's hair and the curtains in the Panamanian banks are gorgeously detailed. The sound, too, is brilliant, especially when appreciated through a 5.1 speaker system or similar - enemies can be heard approaching from all directions and in some of the locales, such as the creaking boat that serves as the setting for the second mission, the background noises add much effect to the scenario. All in all, it's difficult to see how the visuals and sound could fit the game better.

I honestly cannot imagine the Splinter Cell series ever getting any better than this. Gone is the frustrating, unintentional linearity of the previous games, gone the occasionally suspect AI, gone the slight problems in the multiplayer. What we have here is a perfect version of the Splinter Cell formula. It still requires patience, skill and, occasionally, brutality, but unlike before, it rewards ingenuity, spontaneity and deviousness. The online options are comprehensive and innovative, but the single-player remains the aesthetically gorgeous, intensely satisfying, darkly atmospheric highlight. This is a very good time to be a gamer.

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