SWAT 4: Gold Edition

I don't like long reviews, so here's my one-sentence summary of Swat 4: Swat 4 is the absolute best tactical shooter ever created, it takes everything Swat 3 did and improves it, and I consider it a must-play game. If you've ever wanted to be a member of a SWAT team, this is your game. There are no others. In fact, it's so good that there was a mod developed featuring the Canadian Forces and was in fact used by the Canadian Army for training. Yeah, it's that legit. So get it, you won't regret it.

It simply doesn't get any better than that. Swat 4 and its extension is the absolute pinnacle of the tactical fps genre.

The best competitive online game ever

It's fun and more of the same gameplay that I loved about Swat 3. The problem is that it can be really frustrating at times. Your squad's AI has a lot to desire. I've watched an AI squad mate walk by an armed suspect (they actually bumped into each other) and not even acknowledge the bad dude. This kind of stuff happens ALL the time and your squad almost always gets wasted each level. But whatever. It's over a decade old and well worth whatever price it is on here. It's a fun, unique police based shooter with a nice emphasis on not going into a room, guns blazing.

There is nothing I love more in a game than when I'm made to do something I dont want to, despite other options being readily available. SWAT 4 has done just that. As a realistic SWAT simulator, you are expected not to gun down all hostiles and ignore civilians, but rather try to prevent all loss of life, hostiles included. The fact that the game makes an effort to prevent needless killing is a fantastic asset, and sets it apart from most other games on the market. Having quickly gotten to grips with the squad command system, I was beginning the fourth mission, set in a nightclub without having killed anyone myself. As the leader, I had the squad move slowly, carefully and methodically. I used what little floor plans we had be given to plan the assault beforehand, customizing each squad member with exactly what I thought we might need. Each room was being cleared one by one, and my squad was currently in a corridor. A door either side, the rooms behind us clear and rooms ahead seeming quiet, I let my guard down. I had teams of two men check both doors, and then crept forwards myself. Time seemed to crawl to a halt as I scanned for hostiles - slowly, checking from corner to corner, then up and down. That's when it happened. One of the gangsters must have heard us, as I reported a wounded civilian to TOC. He ran around the corner, and before I had time to truly process what had happened I had shot him three times, once in the leg, once in the chest, and once in the head. He fell to the ground, killed instantly. At the end of the mission, the squad recieved a highly positive report. We had successfully extracted every civilian, and we were all unharmed. But the fact that I had killed an AI in game bugged me - I could have done better. I should have paid more attention in pre-planning, I should have took my squad with me and wedged the door to prevent him coming through. But i hadn't, and had been forced to kill him to save myself and the squad. Truly a masterpiece. 5/5