SWAT 4 (PC)

IF you've played SWAT 3 in the past, then I can tell you this game retains the true style of the original in every way, and has improved futher in some ways.

IF you never played SWAT 3 then you should know SWAT 4 is a simulation game of an American Police SWAT team, you play the element's team leader, you lead 4 other men in your team who are directly under your control. What makes SWAT 4 so compelling is the realism, I've never known a game that can create so much tension in it's gameplay, the music at times makes you feel like your in a movie and because it's a sim; real life rules apply, you won't find the same enemies in the same spot each time you play, and therefore you can never be sure where they are, enemies can kill you with a single shot to the head, although you wear body armour you can still be shot dead if you take too many bullets to the body, the game makes you play carefully with a real sense of self preservation, and the pace is slow and careful, some missions can take as long as 50 mins, even though the maps are never that big! you and your men are often outnumbered and you have to really look after them, the missions scenarios have been carefully designed to reflect scenarios of real world buildings with testing architectual design, often you will find corridoors full of rooms & stairwells that a terrorist can burst out of or be be hiding in at any moment, this is a test of your team leading abilities, careful positioning and use of your team, and the ability to choose your path, is all part of a sucessful mission, leaving yourself or your team exposed at any point from any angle can be curtains.

Sometimes this game gets compared to Rainbow Six, but it's actually nothing like it, Rainbow six is shoot first and ask questions later and run through the map in a linear path kind of game, with SWAT you take whatever path you see best, and you have to follow Police procedure, you cannot shoot an armed suspect unless he is about to fire upon you, your team or a hostage/civilian, that is part of what makes this game great, if an armed suspect appears, all you can do is yell at him to comply and put down his weapon, if he wants to run away there's not a thing you can do to stop him immediately, suspects therefore have been programmed to be very unpredictable, some will give in instantly and drop their weapons, others will open fire, or some will run away, even hostages can be unpredictable, some will obey orders and drop to their knees hands in the air, others will refuse, again there's nothing you can do with your firearms to make them comply, this is where further skill comes in, you can use pepper spay and squirt it into their eyes, or stun them with a taser gun, or throw a cannister of CS gas near them.

The vocal interaction in this game makes a big part of its realistic atmosphere, firstly; pre mission you can listen to the 911 call to the police, then the police issuing the report to SWAT over the police radio, then a verbal briefing from TOC. in game when you choose your commands from the menu, your characters voice will speak the commands and your team will reply verbally, also there's verbal interaction between yourself and HQ known as 'TOC', you also have a sniper usually scoped in on a set area of the building who will let you know if he sees anything, you can also see what your team are seeing no matter where they are due them having a fixed minicam on them, you have a viewport that you can tap into which appears in the top right of the screen, and even issue commands to them via this and see them follow them through, you can also split your team into two, blue and red and get them to do different things at the same time.

Multiplayer is great, there is co-op mode, Deathmatch, protect the VIP and bomb defusing, there's nothing better than getting together with real life players and working together as a team in the co-op missions.

The graphics look really nice, although you'll find that 512mb might not be enough to run this game at its best, it does take a lot of ram, probably due to their being sometimes as much as 40 characters in a map sometimes including your team mates throwing cs and shooting at terrorists, none of which dissapear when killed or arrested, so it can get a bit sluggish.

I've not noticed any bugs so far, that's pc gaming for you, some get bugs, others don't.

SWAT Gameplay is addictive, first the mission briefing gets your juices flowing, then its the careful stacking up on doors, mirroring under them for suspects, orgainising your team to breach and clear with flash bangs, cs gas or sting grenades, the firefight with terrorists being careful not to hit civilians, picking up and confiscating weapons as evidence, then handcuffing suspects and and terrorists and reporting them verbally to HQ, its a game of slow slow quick quick slow.

SWAT 4 is for mature gamers with patience, and team leadership qualities, the rating is 18+ and includes swearing, plenty of violence and scenes some may find disturbing, if your a patient gamer, perhaps someone who enjoys playing Hitman, then come into the world of SWAT, you will be addicted and love it!

Their sole aim is to use their expert training and 'special weapons and tactics' to resolve dangerous situations involving hostile threats. Such threats could be violent armed gangs in a building, a large building with barricaded suspects and hostages, criminal interference in VIP buildings and so forth. Given the sensitive nature and risk factor of operations undertaken by SWAT, it becomes ever clear why they even exist and why the police cannot enforce and keep all the law. That is why SWAT , was created by the LAPD after the LA Watts riots but enough about history, What of this game you ask ?

As mentioned before, you play one guy in the swat team the other 4 are split in two groups, red team and blue team - hence theyre paired up. The game more or less simulates potential real life criminal scenarios where a SWAT team has to infilitrate a building of some sort dynamicaly or in a stealthy manner, and 'flush out' the bad guys - either negotiating the suspects surrender or killing them on the spot upon encounter.
As well as dealing with the bad guys you must taken into account that you are looking for the hostages and innocent civilians intentionaly or unintentionaly caught up in this.

The game uses an effective and impressive enough 3D engine which more than accomplishes its task in contributing to the games overall 'atmospheric' feel. Youre not going to get blinding frame rates here, oh no. This game actualy wants you to THINK - as well as having fun when you take out the scum bags , known as the bad guys. heh.

The graphics are nice. Prior to SWAT 4, SWAT 3:close quarters battle came out back in spring 2000 or so, getting a great reception from experienced gamers and newbies alike. The graphics in this game have been clearly improved, if not revamped and redrawn from scratch - the models look more realistic, smoother and much more realistic - perhaps due to the texture and colour blending used on the character models. Im not sure If Rag Doll physics is the term to use here but the models animations are good enough to impress nearly all gamers out there. The character models, in the last installment of swat games were a bit less well defined, more edged and blocky in appearance although for its time - still looked okay.

This game is a whole new ball game though, its an improvement on the last but it retains the playablity which is the most important and to the eyes of ex swat 3 owners - a relief.

the control system i think has been greatly improved, you fire with the left mouse button as normal - the right, upon being clicked brings up a small menu from where u can pick a course of action for either 'red' or 'blue 'team to follow. This of course adds to the game's feel, as you get into the mix of things and become more and more decisive about your approach you begin to find yourself trying to out smart the bad guys and catch them off guard with tactics such as using a flash bang and enter technique.

The enviroments in the game, the buildings the furniture in them, the walls, the ceilings - the utensils , tools and all the extra drawn items around the place are real eye candy at times - and can distract you if youre not concentrating on the task in hand. I wouldn't label this a gaming feat in graphics, it would be silly to merit a game soley on graphics.

This game packs a punch - in the playability and graphics critera and the sound isnt far behind either. You get the ACTUAL weapons that SWAT use in real life, such as the Colt M4A1 carbine, a weapon based on the M16 Assault rifle which the US armed forces use, the .45 SMG, the 9mm SMG and a host of other handy guns in your arsenal. Yummy. (not glorifying Gun ownership, just thankful you get them when you play the baddies in the game :D ) - so you can really unwind and let yourself go and kick some mean bad guy criminal backside in this game.

If you've always admired movies based on swat teams (such as swat) or envisaged being in a real life swat team in a real life environment with a risk factor of 100, get this game. not only will you thank me but you'll thank yourself in the end.

Im feeling jaded now from all this typing, i know its not much but if ive missed out some important things sorry ! If you get shot in this game , usualy from one shot - its because the suspects tend to 'hide' or locate themselves in strategicaly advantageous corners and spots, and since they can see you approaching and you can't see them ( told you this game is like the real thing ;) ) - you really are in big trouble. The good thing is this doesnt happen all the time, but when it does it makes you stop - think and re assess your methods of deploying yourself and your SWAT team members around the place, or more cautious for that matter.

Smashing title, games like this are meant to be enjoyed - and enjoy this title you shall. Give it a go you wont be dissapointed folk ;)

6 stars out of 5 :)

Buy this game, it deserves your money.