$20 Game of the Week: SWAT 4 Gold Edition (PC)

The SWAT series started off as the fifth entry in Daryl Gates’s Police Quest series, but spun off into it’s own franchise. The games center around SWAT training and tactics. The first two games were branded as Police Quest games, but spun off into their own series with SWAT 3, which ditched the Police Quest branding and became an FPS. SWAT 4 is the most recent PC entry in the series. Like its predecessors, SWAT 4 stresses tactics and strategy over running and gunning, and encourages the use of non-lethal force. It’s a thinking man’s shooter, and it rewards patience, planning, and strategy over senseless shooting. Oh and it just so happens to be from the same people who made System Shock 2, the Freedom Force games, and some little known game called Bioshock.

As the leader of a SWAT element, it is up to you to lead your team and bring order to chaos. You’ll select their weapon load outs, listen to briefings (including the 911 call in many missions) and give orders as to how they approach the mission. In the field, you’ll have to use every tactic possible to determine how to approach a situation and how best to resolve it. You’ll have access to tools such as mirror wands, smoke and pellet grenades, and tazers. You can’t simply shoot down an enemy, you have to force them to surrender first. If they refuse, then you have to take him down. You’re graded at the end of each mission, and points are deducted for unauthorized use of force, injured or incapacitated team members and civilians. The missions are not connected, and there is no overarching storyline. You’ll be handling all sorts of cases, from gang shootouts, to bank robberies, to even bringing down an serial killer. The neat thing is that the missions are randomly generated, so you seldom face the same situations twice. You can replay the missions to earn a bigger score. Unfortunately, there isn’t a mid-level save feature, so If I fail the mission, I have to restart it, making the game even more unforgiving, as me and my troops can’t take a lot of damage as it is.

The graphics are excellent, as they are built on a modified form of Unreal Engine 2. You can even create your own missions and share them. There are several team-based multiplayer games, including co-op for you and up to 4 of your friends. The Gold Edition includes the Stetchkov Syndicate expansion pack, which includes new missions, weapons, and other goodies. If you’re a fan of tactical-style FPS games like Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon, you’ll love SWAT. Now maybe if Joesph Weekley and Joe Chivalia had played this game a few times…