Credit where credit’s due: Splinter Cell: Blacklist is looking significantly more like classic SC than Conviction or Double Agent – except, you know, when it’s really, really not. There’s pitch-black darkness and rainy atmosphere and the option to play without killing anybody (though non-lethal roughhousing  is, sadly, quite encouraged), so that’s a good-ish sign. But what of multiplayer? Conviction mystifyingly abandoned the series grimly satisfying, intriguingly asymmetrical Spies vs Mercs showdowns, so it’s good news indeed to hear that clandestine game of cat-and-mouse-and-AK-47 is making a return. Catch it after the break (courtesy of IGN) before it throws down a smoke bomb and places a not-so-gentle hand around your tenderest of neck regions.

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