Reviewing games has brought us many fine moments. The best of those occur when you acquire a game that you just know is going to go beyond your wildest expectations and exceed any preview code you may have seen. The worst of those moments is, quite unfortunately, the opposite. A game is delivered to you, you anticipate, you open, you load up and you cringe in disgust. Thankfully, we didn't find ourselves cringing at all with this expansion, and nor did we even begin to snarl. Our FPS trigger fingers were unexpectedly delighted.

The exciting thing about this expansion was, without a doubt, the number of enhancements on offer. No point beating around the bush: the standard formula of 'good guys vs bad guys' is present in the expansion but now there are so many different ways to kill the bad guys! It was good to see that the element of 'kill or be killed' was not overlooked because we particularly enjoyed that aspect of gameplay in SWAT 4. The missions in the expansion are based around the Stetchkov Mobsters and their hideouts. Although the mission summaries and outlines tell you all you need to know about the bad guys, each mission is set up as a completely separate scenario.

For those of you that are interested in games for their graphical content however, don't worry. SWAT 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate Expansion is actually very pleasing on the graphics front and smooth enough to deliver a seamless gaming experience. Not a jerky, buggy scene in sight. And the emphasis in this expansion is definitely on teamwork. If you're used to being the renegade type that goes off on single-minded killing sprees, you will probably enjoy single-player more than co-op or Internet play. We were really impressed by the co-op game mode and found that co-op play was a whole lot more enjoyable than single-player.

And what about the equipment? Oh, what a delight that is to behold. SWAT 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate Expansion really does over-deliver on the equipment side of things. That's all good because we looked upon this as a vast improvement on SWAT 4. Not only can you take down more targets and kill faster than ever before, but you can do it in the dark. The night vision goggles are a blast. No longer are you restricted by the lack of light in the room, you can kill and maime in bright green fluorescent light and not even bat an eyelid.

There is now an option to carry a lightstick, an ammo pouch (for those extra-heavy- duty killing sprees) and even the ability to go into the danger zone without armour (for those days in between when you just wanna kill on the fly). There is absolutely no doubt about it: SWAT 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate Expansion really does bring so much more to the game.