In SWAT4 you play the good guys trying to "bring order to chaos" in critical situations: neutralize the gunmen, save the hostages. I like the gameplay: carefully checking each room, trying to use brute force as little as necessary and reporting your progress to HQ. Finishing a mission is usually not very difficult, but getting a good score ("by the book") certainly is. It is very similar to SWAT3, looks better, but lacks some features. Most notably for me: there is no story (in SWAT3 the missions were at least loosely about some international congress and a terrorist nuke threat) and the cool story editor is missing (you can configure own missions but it is quite limited). While in SWAT3 most levels were in rather "high profile" environments like airport or congress center, SWAT4 is darker with abondoned buidlings and dirty back alleys.
Looks nice, controls work fine, nice skill tree for your pilots. And I guess thats it. I really tried to like it but I gave up after about 5 missions. It simply fails to be enjoyable. If there were an open world mode, where I could roam the stars freely, choose whatever mission I liked and develop my pilots in my own way -- that would be fun. Instead I am forced to follow an uninspired story, search every mission for loot and finally reload 10 times, trying to defeat the next boss. But I forgot to buy the repair modul || hire the pirate || buy the shield module || find the superlaser in the mission before ... so I have to reload an older save to "get it right".
It is a decent game and works with some tweaks on Windows 11 (and a even better with the "Last Resort" mod). The principle of the game is simple. There is a crisis, but you dont just kill everyone but instead try to keep everyone alive. I am very surprised that this type of game seems to have died out after SWAT4 (RoN seems to be more of the shooter than de-escalation). What really impresses me, is how the devs and level designers managed to create a feeling of immersion: many levels are narrow and almost claustrophobic (like real buildings) and the AI barely gets stuck and is quite good in following orders, the civilians appear really frightened and the the bad guys do not always wear "bad guy uniforms" or behave like suicidal killers. Once you get the hang of it the game is not very difficult. It is also not very long. But it is a fantastic relief from the typical kill-everyone shooter.
A very balanced mix of lore, mission, sneaking and combat. I am very surprised how deep this game is. Most stories circle around some intrigue or madness. There are several (more or less) hidden agendas, but they are presented simple enough to follow the plot easily. The dramaturgy is excellent, the writing, the voice acting, the scripting - everything adds up. There was a master at work. I enjoy every minute of this game. The graphics are dated of course and the combat system is nothing special. Several mods are available for scaled up textures.
I love so much of this game. I got addicted from the start. It feels alot like Fallout-1, but plays in European Russia. It is a more realistic world. I loved the graphics. The humour is rather direct and sometimes weird. Unfortunately. There is a lot of weakness in this game. * The combat system is almost zero tactical. It is boring. * You get almost no hints, if you are "ready" for a certain part of the story line. * In many dialogs you get a one-time chance to achieve something. So you need to save before EVERY decision and every dialog. Tedious. Annoying. Horrible game design. So after having fun with half the story. I simple gave up, cause it became more work than fun. So sad.
I payed like 1 € for it and got a decent interactive crime story. I found it easy and entertaining. Some riddles I liked, others I skipped by checking a walk-through. I liked the main characters, the voices, the atmosphere of the different places. It worked (not perfectly but) well on Windows 11.
I made a lot of the many bad experiences other people have described them. However, after reading through some guides and applying some mods ... I enjoyed a wonderful 24 hours. As many other, I found the combat system not very fulfilling. If you feel the same: switch to "easy" difficulty and add "Papagamer Mod Pack" from Nexusmods. This certainly kept the fights reasonably entertaining, yet rath short, until the end of the game. I also used other mods, as the "Stuck in Waterdragon Fountain (Chapter8) Fix" or some retexturing of the main characters. I like the extensive voice acting and most of the dialogs. Some of the followers are mildly interesting, but I really love the follower Dawn Star. In her dialogs and style she reflects the darkness of the story, a world of men and spirits in imbalance, a tragedy of cosmic dimension. The main story as many of the side quests are typical "high fantasy" stuff. You are the hero and need to stop the super-villain who has enslaved some god or whatever. It is quite meaningless, but nice to look at and it keeps the story rather simple. God and Bad are obvious choices.
There is already quite a list of UFO/XCom-Games (like "Aftermath" or "XCOM"). The most famous might be the modern and good looking XCOM (1 and 2). But none have come so close to the original as this one. I played about 15 hours so far. It feels like coming home. The developers really tried hard to improve and polish (f. e. to make the interceptor missons more interesting) but to stay true to the original. Unlike XCOM, with its polished graphics and extensive goodies to make your soldiers like fancy, this one looks bland and old fashioned. All in all, I am extremly pleased. I liked some of the new stuff in XCOM, Afterlight, Interceptor or Apocalypse, but no other successor caught the original atmosphere as this one.
Not easys to rate this one. The story is good, it really feels like the original VAMPIRE THE MAQUERADE. If you can stand older 3D graphics, it looks quite nice. Both the locations and most of the characters have very distinct features and animations. The sound is also more than decent. Music, environment and voice acting are good. The downside is (as many have written), that there are endless hordes of enemies and fighting is not really fun. So, it becomes extremely tedious. Some levels include more or less simple riddles, but mostly you have to chop down lots of random enemies. IF you want to have the nice atmo and story nevertheless, then I would suggest to cheat. You can (1) easily cheat a huge amount of money (to get the best armor and buy huge amounts of blood) and experience to max the all of your characters attributes (most of all: strenght and dexterity) as wall as the most important disciplines (Celerity and Feral Claws). Fight your way with ease. Or you can (2) easily cheat god mode (you cannot die), just walk through the enemies and ignore all enemies (some boss need to be killed, others can be ignored).
Ok, just for the record: this is NOT XCom/UFO. And I see that many reviews are from disappointed fans of the first two games. Still, this game offers alot of atmosphere and tactics. The world is post-apocalypse, so different from XCom1/2 aswell. At the beginning, you are not a well-funded world-wide organization to kick the aliens, but you are struggling for the survival of the human race, fighting rather with M16 than with laser-rifles. I liked the post-apocalypse setting, the tactical combat and I really liked to train and improve my soldiers.
