SWAT 3: Tactical Game of the Year Edition

SWAT 3 is a real treat to everyone looking for a shooter where your prime directive isn't "shoot everything that moves and/or isn't part of your team", featuring a copious amount of nerve-wracking missions, weapons, tactics and even outfits for you to enjoy. Customization options are plentiful, down to the point where you can define the AI's CPU time to affect their reactions and decision-making, change how many officers (and their loadouts) you'd like to have with you during a rapid deployment, or maybe you could decide to open up Worldcraft to create entirely new missions from scratch. Mods are very well supported by SWAT 3, and you can find plenty of them on the internet, ranging from wacky fake death mods to all-new weapons and realism modifications. There are a few issues hardcoded into the AI, however. For example, the officer AI often makes dumb decisions like standing right in front of a door while breaching and clearing, which is very dangerous because someone might be pointing a rifle from the other side straight onto the door, resulting in an instant death. There are ways around it - just order them to stack up, and you can open the door yourself from the side; this works much better, but you're putting a GAME OVER on the line if you're playing a regular 5-man mission outside of Co-Op. A part of the UI doesn't make a lot of sense. If you want to enjoy the full extent of TGOTY's additions (10-officer missions, more weapons, outfits), you need to go to a different single-player menu called "Custom" and select a cooperative mission. This is not a huge problem though, especially since all of the game's features are unlocked from the start, but it's a bit strange how these new functions weren't just added to the regular Single-Player menu. Overall, the only thing setting this game back from a 10/10 are some issues with the AI.

One of the best FPP games (not simple shooters!) I've ever played. Try to arrest someone - it's more challenging than killing whole army of stupid aliens ;)

People that say this game does not work on their platform are either talking about old issues that have now been resolved or don't know to run the game on windows XP SP 3. Plus there is a mod to optimize for wide screen and with the voodoo emulator of the graphical issues (slowdowns) are resolved. On to the game. It's a near perfect game. The shooting feels good, but that is not really what the game is about. The best way to resolve a situation would be to not have to shoot anyone and have none of your officers' shot. This slow methodical process requires many retries but it does not feel tedious. Like with any challenging game, the failures that you experience as a player are an opportunity to learn. Perhaps you didn't take the corner wide and slow enough, perhaps it was near the end of the mission and you got complacent, boom you lost a team mate or you are looking at your own flat lined heart monitor. If there is a criticism it is that occasionally your team mates don't operate well in small spaces, but if you put them on over-watch (cover position) you can easily push them around. And often the developers created work arounds for tight situations. So exploring the levels pays off. This is a great game that I highly recommend to someone who may feel intimidated by tactical shooters. It's not as overwhelming as Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon but has just as much depth. You can see the care and attention the developers put into it. Highly recommended.

Follow the guide here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=937035975 I was able to get the game working without issue. Been looking forward to re-playing this game since somewhere around 2005, but the GOG release wasn't working. I was able to find the review on Steam, which did a great job at walking through how to get it running on modern hardware.

The game is decent, but the raving 5 star reviews would have you believe that it's a masterpiece. The companion A.I. can be pain to deal with at times and I found some of the levels to be pretty bland (the storm drain level comes to mind). The story is pretty over the top and except for the first few levels failed to make me feel like a police officer.