SWAT 3: Tactical Game of the Year Edition

"Your review should focus on your in-game experience only. Let the game stand entirely on its own merits.", says GOGs review guidleines. Nah. Not this time GOG. After spending 4+ hours trying to get this to work, fixing the DX whatever crash, finding the right codec, avi files, .dlls with the end result of a game that launches, but having to chose playing at 800x600 with +60fps or 1080p+ with less than 30fps.... GOG have dropped the ball on this one. This is something id expect Steam to pull, not GOG. Save yourself the hassle and move on. This should not be available on the store. It is simply broken.

I've been waiting for this to come to GoG for a long, long time. I cannot recommend this game highly enough. More accessible, and definitely more forgiving, than the first two Rainbow Six titles, SWAT 3 forces you to think about your environment and rules of engagement. There are some quirks to the AI behaviour that often lead to a different experience when replaying a level. Directing the Team AI is fast and accurate. They can occasionally leave themselves exposed to a crazed gunman bursting through a door, but that only serves to keep you, as the player, alert to threats from all angles. Taken online with the right people, it's a wonderful game to role-play. Each member of the fire-team fulfilling a role with the odd tactical mistake forcing the team to adapt and make good. The later levels can be very tough to complete, the LA Convention Centre being a personal highlight. Stick with it though and it will reward you with, literally, years worth of re-playability.

Just a preamble, if you decide to play SWAT 3 on modern systems like W7/10+ you will need to install some things first to get it up and running. Firstly, Last Resort and DgVooodoo2 are an absolute must. But another reason it may crash is due to the FMVs themselves. Read the Last Resolt FAQ or PCGamingWiki for further info. In my opinion 3 is better than 4. The AI is much snappier and can react to things like footsteps or your flashlight, there's a lot of missions, enemy AI can shoot through most objects, baddies may hide in closets and other locations, to get a higher score you have to report things properly (if the civilian/suspect is injured or dead), larger maps overall, suspects may try to pick up weapons if they don't have one, suspects may surrender and then pick up their weapon when you aren't looking, suspects can lean to one side to gain an advantage around corners (happens occasionally), suspects don't faint but they will shoot instantly if they spot you. This game was way ahead of it's time, and it's a shame most people don't know about it. In fact, the fact it's obscure nowadays and not really talked about can probably be attributed to the fact that 4 overshadows it. Yes, this is not a polished game in the slightest. It's old. You have to set the controls up to play similarly to 4. There's no drop down command system, you have to use the number keys to set commands, it's not really fluent at all. But to be honest, I really enjoyed it. And I think it's worth the effort of getting it to work if for nothing else but to give it a shot. I think if you want a SWAT 4 sequel, you may not get it with 3, but it may give you that tactical FPS fix you're looking for.

The game is really nice but the older version was better, called "SWAT 3 Elite Edition" with Multiplayer Options. Playing coop in SWAT was one of the best things ever played on a PC. But the multiplayer died long time ago when Sierra closed the lobby server :_(

I picked this up at walmart years ago, Maybe 10-12 years ago. I loved it then and i still do, However, I do wish the Multiplayer still worked.