| SWAT 4 (PC) |  | |
| Publisher: Vivendi Games | Developer: Irrational Games | |
| Genre: Shooter | Release Date: 04/05/2005 | |
| ESRB: Mature |  More Info on this Game | |
 | By Sal 'Sluggo' Accardo | March 28, 2005 Irrational resurrects the long-dormant SWAT franchise with this excellent tactical shooter. |
 | Reader Rating: N/A (Not rated) |
| Pros | Cons |
| Compelling squad-based gameplay; elegant interface; random spawns add replay value; lots of multiplayer modes, including co-op. | Graphically, it looks pretty dated; you can't fill out co-op or multiplayer games with bots. |
MANY YEARS AGO, in a youth filled with escapades probably best forgotten, I had a regular gig in a wedding band. Despite what you might be thinking, these guys were really good, overqualified musicians with talents probably wasted on Celine Dion covers. Unchallenged by the material, we'd find ways to amuse ourselves, which is how we came to work the classic TV theme from SWAT into our repertoire. (You know, the one they butchered for the 2003 Colin Farrell flick?) Turned out to be a huge hit when introducing the bride and groom. Who knew?
The reason I bring this up is because that classic theme tune is one of the only things missing from SWAT 4, the new tactical shooter from Irrational Games. Focusing on close-quarters urban combat, the core gameplay provides the backdrop for for a variety of modes from single-player to co-op to multiplayer, all equally enjoyable. It's not the shiniest new game you'll find on the shelf, but it's definitely restored glory to the long-dormant SWAT franchise.
Too Close-Quarters For Comfort
SWAT 4 falls squarely in the "realism" camp of first-person shooters. The 14 single-player missions, mostly set in tight, indoor spaces, place you as a member of an elite five-man police squad, taking on high-risk warrant services, armed robberies gone bad and hostage rescues. Every mission has a series of objectives which usually involve your team sweeping from room to room, neutralizing threats and protecting innocents as you go.
To achieve these objectives, you're able to give orders to your team via an extremely elegant and effective command system. Place your crosshair on a door, right-click the mouse, and you'll get a menu of options like "move and clear" or "open, bang and breach." Move your crosshair over a neutralized suspect, and you'll get a "restrain" option that commands one of your teammates to cuff the perp. It's all extremely simple, and a tutorial mission is included to help make sense of some of the more complex commands.
The reason I bring this up is because that classic theme tune is one of the only things missing from SWAT 4, the new tactical shooter from Irrational Games. Focusing on close-quarters urban combat, the core gameplay provides the backdrop for for a variety of modes from single-player to co-op to multiplayer, all equally enjoyable. It's not the shiniest new game you'll find on the shelf, but it's definitely restored glory to the long-dormant SWAT franchise.
Too Close-Quarters For Comfort
SWAT 4 falls squarely in the "realism" camp of first-person shooters. The 14 single-player missions, mostly set in tight, indoor spaces, place you as a member of an elite five-man police squad, taking on high-risk warrant services, armed robberies gone bad and hostage rescues. Every mission has a series of objectives which usually involve your team sweeping from room to room, neutralizing threats and protecting innocents as you go.
To achieve these objectives, you're able to give orders to your team via an extremely elegant and effective command system. Place your crosshair on a door, right-click the mouse, and you'll get a menu of options like "move and clear" or "open, bang and breach." Move your crosshair over a neutralized suspect, and you'll get a "restrain" option that commands one of your teammates to cuff the perp. It's all extremely simple, and a tutorial mission is included to help make sense of some of the more complex commands.
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SWAT 4 also includes a number of special weapons and gadgets to aid your team as you go from room to room. The "optiwand" is one of the most important: a small video camera that you can snake under doors to see who's lurking on the other side. Depending on what you find, you might want to throw in a flashbang or gas grenade to momentarily incapacitate suspects. You'll find some doors are locked, giving you the option to either pick the lock or blow it open with a breaching shotgun or C4 charge. You can split your squad into two fireteams, and cameras mounted in each officer's helmet allow you to see what's happening in another part of the map, or even issue orders from afar.
Ultimately, the mechanic that sets SWAT 4 apart from other modern tactical shooters is its emphasis on tactics and procedure. Sure, you could shoot everything that moves, but a dead hostage -- by your hand or a suspect's -- results in an instant failure. You're given a grade at the end of each mission, and part of the job is yelling out for compliance, subduing suspects peacefully, collecting their weapons and reporting back as you go. There's a non-lethal shotgun, a taser gun (which is a riot to see in action), pepper spray and even a paintball gun available to stun enemies into submission. In many ways, it's a shooter that rewards you for not shooting, which adds tension as you go from room to room: is that suspect going to put that weapon down, or is he going to raise it and shoot? Deciding that moment when it's OK to fire is one of the things that gives SWAT 4 its unique charm.
Sadly, SWAT 4 doesn't contain an overarching narrative that ties all the missions together; it's more like a series of self-standing vignettes that move up in difficulty as you go from one to the next. The missions aren't without their charm, however -- each feels like a scene ripped from an action flick, whether it's a hostage situation at a dot-com, a robbery at a diamond vault, or you need to nab a wanted bad guy at an underground casino. To add replayability (and tension) to the missions, most of the bad guys respawn in random locations every time you play a map, which means you never know who might be lurking on the other side of a door: could be nobody, or could be three guys armed to the hilt
If there's a major complaint to be leveled at SWAT 4, it's that it looks pretty dated by today's standards. In fact, it doesn't even look as good as Unreal Tournament 2004 and Battlefield Vietnam, which were released this time a year ago. It's not that the game looks ugly, but there's clearly some room for improvement with textures and model animations, and it's basically devoid of physics effects which could have added an extra bit of excitement to the close-quarters combat. The bright side is that the game ran extremely smooth on a variety of test machines, running from a 2.5 Ghz P3 with a GeForce Ti 4600 to higher-end 3 Ghz machines. Still, we wonder if that'll be enough for some players, especially when you consider that Counter-Strike: Source (SWAT 4's biggest competition) is every bit as PC-friendly while looking far more impressive.
Urban Warfare
If, for some reason, you don't want computer-controlled teammates on your side, SWAT 4 offers the welcome (and all-too-rare) option of co-op play for all the single-player missions via both LAN and Internet. In this mode, all the missions are unlocked from the get-go, and you can bring a team of up to 5 buddies in to try and tackle the missions on your own. You'll quickly find that it's a lot harder to coordinate human teammates than the computer -- everyone needs to know their role and stick together, or else you'll be slaughtered when three guys try to squeeze through a doorway at the same time -- but it's great fun nonetheless. The only missing ingredient is the ability to fill out a squad with computer teammates: if you've only got two or three players available, that's all you get to do the mission with.
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In addition co-op play, SWAT 4 offers a number of other team-based multiplayer modes. "Barricade" is somewhat like team deathmatch, except you get extra points for arresting enemies instead of simply killing them. "Rapid Deployment" is a bomb defusal mode, where the SWAT team has a set amount of time to locate a series of suitcase bombs on the map and defuse them. Finally, in "VIP," the SWAT team needs to escort a teammate to the other side of the map, while the suspects need to capture and hold him for two straight minutes.
While none of these multiplayer modes are particularly groundbreaking, they add enough to keep things interesting. The ability to arrest players for bonus points in Barricade should have players loading up on tasers and gas grenades instead of leaning on the usual assault rifles and shotguns. The capture-and-hold aspect of VIP adds a great twist to the familiar assassination format, where neither team wants the VIP to get killed, and capturing the VIP can lead to two of the most tense minutes you'll find in multiplayer games today. The maps generally borrow the single-player levels and add a few modifications, offering enough routes from point A to point B to keep games from getting bogged down at one or two choke points.
The Final Word
SWAT 4 is one of those great games you hope doesn't get overlooked. There's something compelling about the room-to-room nature of the single-player missions that rarely gets old, even after you've failed a particular mission a dozen times. Maybe it's the fact that you never know who might be on the other side of the door every time you play, or maybe it's just that Irrational has put it all together with an elegant control scheme and teammates who actually follow your orders effectively.
Whatever the reason, SWAT 4 is a game that fans of Counter-Strike and the Rainbow Six games won't want to miss. SWAT fans in particular have waited a really long time since the last game in the series was released in late 1999; turns out it was worth the wait.
Essential Links
- Movie: SWAT 4 -- Direct-Feed Footage (03/14/05)
- Preview: SWAT 4 (03/10/05)
- Preview: SWAT 4 (02/11/05)
- Preview: SWAT 4 (12/08/04)
- Preview: SWAT 4 (10/07/04)
- Article: SWAT 4 Video Walkthroughs (04/04/05)
Game Information - SWAT 4 (PC)
- Expansion Pack: SWAT 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate (PC)
Around the Network
| SWAT 4 at IGN SWAT 4 Cheats at IGN SWAT 4 at GameSpy SWAT 4 - 11 99 Enhance... at FilePlanet SWAT 4 Downloads at FilePlanet SWAT 4 Download at Direct2Drive SWAT 4 Guide at Direct2Drive SWAT 4 at GameStats SWAT 4 Cheats at CCG |
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