The atmosphere, world building, and music are all amazing. The voxel based graphics give it a surreal quality that I appreciate. Actually playing it is miserable. It felt like one fetch quest after another, after another, after another, after another...it just didn't end.
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.
I'll start with what I like. Descent 3 has the best art direction out of any 6DOF shooter. It has the coolest looking robots, it has the coolest looking level architecture, and the coolest environments. Where every level in Descent 1 and 2 was a mine, Descent 3 has levels that take place in cities, prison complexes, old temples, underground societies, lunar surfaces and even a really cool map that takes place inside of a huge battleship. I would actually recommend this game to Metroid Prime fans. The levels are massive and the ability to seamlessly move between outdoor areas and complex underground areas was impressive when the game came out, and it's still impressive now. There is a greater variety of weapons and equipment than it's predecessors. There's a flamethrower, deployable turrets, a lightning gun that steals health from enemies, swarms of homing missiles (think Macross) a sniper railgun, a superweapon that creates a miniature black hole. There are even powerups specifically for the guide bot. Descent 3 also has a really cool dynamic soundtrack. The songs start out simple but as you complete mission objectives more instruments get added to the song. I can't think of any other game that does that. Now for the bad. Descent 3 somehow manages to be too easy and too hard at the same time. In Descent 1 and 2 you had a limited amount of lives to complete a level with. In Descent 3 you have an unlimited amount of lives which means that every level can be completed through mindless attrition. So how can a game with unlimited lives also be too hard? For starters, every enemy in the game is ridiculously good at dodging your attacks and they have a lot of HP on top of that. This is also the only single player game I can think of where you can be spawn camped. Descent 3 also has a lot of issues with the graphics. There's no widescreen support, there's no way to adjust the FOV and every time you access the map the settings will reset back to 16-bit color.
1nsane is one of my favorite racing games because of the unorthodox game modes, open level design, and damage modelling on the cars. However there's going to be drama when setting up the controls. It's an old game so it only supports direct input. When I try to use my 360 controller the game won't recognize all of the functions on it.
Good things about Unreal: The setting, the weapons (a focus on projectiles over hitscan makes me a happy guy), the music (same guy who did the music for Deus Ex), and this is an unpopular take but I like that Unreal goes for having a couple of really strong enemies instead of hordes of weak ones. Bad things about Unreal: It's way, way too long. Not only does it have too many levels in it, but you will also be spending a lot of time walking across gigantic empty spaces. It will feel like a slog but it deserves your patience for at least one playthrough. The good parts are worth it.
Reasons why SWAT 3 is better than SWAT 4: -better squad AI -non-insane rules of engagement -better movement (faster walkspeeds, can move and lean at the same time) -better squad AI -larger, more complicated levels that feature a wider variety of environments -more detailed ballistics (in SWAT 4 bullets can only penetrate doors) -better squad AI -better squad AI -doors actually work like they do in the real world -the command system is much faster once you get the hang of it -better game balance. there are no OP non-lethal weapons to trivialize the game with -better squad AI -better squad AI -better squad AI I cannot overstate how good SWAT 3's friendly AI is, and how much it improves the experience. They can handle room clearings just fine, they will actually engage enemies on sight (as opposed to the SWAT 4 officers that prefer to hurl quips instead of bullets), they approach corners properly (this may be the only game with AI that knows how to slice the pie), they will focus on the entry points of a room instead of staring off into space or at walls. The major downside of SWAT 3 is that it might be a pain in the ass to get running on your computer. I've had computers where it runs just fine with no issues, and others where it requires you to use DGVoodoo. So be prepared to do some tinkering.
If you want to get into the 6 degrees of freedom genre then Forsaken is a good place to start. It's more forgiving than Descent 1 and 2, it's not trapped in win98 compatibility hell like Descent 3, and it has more varied mission objectives and lower system requirements than Overload. I would recommend giving Forsaken (and 6DOF games in general) a shot if you're tired of linear military shooters. Here you have projectile based weapons instead of the usual hitscan, lots of non-human enemies, a heavy emphasis on verticality, and large intricate levels that you can explore at your own pace (mostly. for some reason the first two levels are timed. the rest of the game is not like that) It's still a pretty appealing looking game thanks to the level architecture and heavy use of colored lighting. This game was made back before all developers became terrified of using secondary colors. The soundtrack is great too. This is a port of the PC version, not the n64 version that had completely different levels. The n64 levels are unlock-able extras. Downsides: You cannot use number keys to select your weapons. You are forced to use a weapon wheel. Xinput only, so your joystick might not work. The game relies too heavily on teleporting enemies, rather than having them on the map before hand like in other shooters of this time period.
This is a solid entry in my favorite type of videogame: the "use strategy and tactics to kill everyone on the map" genre. Do not confuse it for a twin stick shooter. It's more like a real time tactics game, sort of like Men of War if the whole game were in direct control mode. Stealth is important, armor direction is important, weapon properties like penetration and firing angle are important. The directional armor system means that it plays better with tank controls. I wish it had more varied mission objectives but aside from that I had a great time with it.
I like games where you have to use strategy and tactics to win, and I like games where you kill everyone on the map. It's hard to find something that isn't turn based that scratches both of those itches, but this game pulls it off.
