SWAT 4: Gold Edition

People must have the nostalgia goggles on tight because this game is awful to play solo. Don't trust your AI companions to do anything right. Ask them to clear a room and most of the time they'll get shot in the face as soon as the open the door. If that doesn't happen, they'll get shot in the face after they try to follow the game's awful ROE. Basically, you aren't allowed to shoot a suspect unless they point their gun at someone. See an armed suspect run away from you as you enter a room? Better let him ambush you later unless you want to lose points. Stunned suspect refusing to drop his gun? Let him recover and shoot you in the face or lose points. Suspect RUNNING STRAIGHT TOWARDS YOU WITH A SHOTGUN? DON'T SHOOT, HIS GUN ISN'T POINTING AT YOU. Now none of that would even be so bad if points weren't required to unlock the next mission. This often leads to replaying the exact same mission 5-10 times, usually ending up 2-5 points below the minimum.

This game (and its predecessor SWAT3) almost made me get fired from secondary school because of the sleepless nights I spent trying to stop heavily armed and armored robbers with the pepper gun. Its graphics used to be nice, and won't irritate your eyes much today, but that's not the point with SWAT 4 : this game is a classic, it makes people think, improvise and replay its missions again and again, and yes, you can still shoot bad people in the face. Oh thank you GOG for having secured this game for us.

SWAT 4 is a decent tactical shooter but does not hold up well against its predecessor, the almighty SWAT 3: CQB. I'm a huge fan of tactical shooters and had high expectations for SWAT 4, but it's been a disappointment. I don't want to spend a lot of time summarizing the gameplay, which you can read about in a magazine review; to keep it brief, this is a squad-level tactical shooter with a heavy emphasis on police gear, tactics, and procedures. SWAT 4 is certainly a graphical upgrade compared to its 1999 predecessor, but the gameplay seems to have taken a step backward. The squad command interface has been butchered; the highly efficient number-key based command system has been replaced by default with a horrendously slow and clunky mouse-driven system that you can't realistically use in combat. There is a "classic" command option but it doesn't work like in SWAT 3. Realism fails in many small ways. SWAT 3 had excellent AI for its time. SWAT 4 is mostly a step backwards. Suspects run around like headless chickens. Officers stand in doorways getting shot repeatedly while they prepare to throw a flashbang. Officers get stuck on corners and sometimes don't carry out your orders for no reason. Although SWAT 3 had the subtitle "Close Quarters Battle", that belongs more appropriately to SWAT 4, where you will never engage a suspect at a range of more than 10 feet. Move faster than a grandmother and your accuracy drops to 0, but it hardly matters when you've practically got your gun jammed in the suspect's mouth. Combat is clunky and awkward at these close ranges. Where SWAT 3 gave you the glorious feeling of adapting skillfully to an evolving situation, SWAT 4 collapses into a mess whenever bullets start flying. SWAT 3 had good animations for the officers, but in SWAT 4 they stand like they have sticks up their rears. Also, who wears a balaclava with their nose uncovered? Also, your characters visibly do not have gas masks but are somehow immune to CS gas.

I loved this game back when it was released. I just started playing it again with the SEF mod which I just found support voice commands for your AI teammates which is a complete game changer. The game is as tense and immersive as ever and with the SEF mod doesn't look as dated as the vanilla game. If you haven't played a tactical shooter, this is a great place to start at a bargain price. An easy 5/5 recommendation.

SWAT 4 has a nice atmosphere, and it still looks good even today, but the gameplay has some serious issues. The rules of engagement are absurd. You have to prioritize the safety of armed suspects over hostages, your own teammates, or even yourself. A suspect can open fire, kill two of your teammates, and if you return fire you get penalized. And to make things worse you won't know you got penalized until the mission results screen. Non-lethal weapons are ridiculously overpowered, which defeats the point of having to follow procedure because you're still running and gunning. You're just doing it with a pepperball gun, or a green shotgun instead of a black shotgun. Levels in SWAT 4 are tiny compared to SWAT 3 or Raven Shield. But the real kicker is the squad AI. It will ruin the experience for you. The friendly officers cannot be trusted with even the most basic of tasks. They can't perform a room clearing without having the flashbang bounce off the door frame and into your face. They stand around and make quips while suspects run into the room and kill you. It's infuriating. So why 3 stars? Because of this mod: https://www.moddb.com/mods/swat-elite-force Elite Force goes a long way towards salvaging the SWAT 4 experience. The squad AI is massively improved, still not SWAT 3 good they no longer feel like a handicap like in the vanilla game. This alone is enough to bump the game up a whole ranking but Elite Force also adds features like campaign co-op, iron sights, revamped suspect AI, new equipment, new levels, bug fixes, interface improvements, in-game notifications for when you violate the rules of engagement, the ability to exchange equipment with AI officers or other players, and more that I'm probably missing. It overhauls SWAT 4 into the game that it should have been.