SWAT 4

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SWAT 4
Box art for SWAT 4
Developer(s) Irrational Games
Publisher(s) Vivendi Universal
Designer(s) William Gardner
Paul Hellquist
Ian Vogel
Engine Unreal Engine 2.0
Latest version 1.1
Release date(s) April 5, 2005
Genre(s) First-person shooter
Mode(s) Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s) ESRB: Mature 17+
PEGI: 18+
OFLC: MA15+
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
Media CD-ROM
System requirements Minimum: Recommended:
  • 2.4 GHz Pentium® 4, Athlon™ XP 2500+, or equivalent
  • GeForce® 4 Ti (not MX) with 128 MB, ATI® Radeon® 9500 with 128 MB with Microsoft® DirectX® 9 drivers installed
  • Windows® XP with Service Pack 2 installed
Multiplayer:
Input Keyboard, Mouse

SWAT 4 is a tactical first-person shooter computer game developed by Irrational Games and released by Vivendi Universal on April 5, 2005. It was built on Irrational Games's Vengeance engine powered by Unreal Engine 2.0 technology. SWAT 4 puts the player into the role of a SWAT team leader where he commands four other team members to resolve various situations, such as hostage standoffs or apprehensions of dangerous subjects. An expansion to SWAT 4, entitled SWAT 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate, was released on February 28, 2006.

Contents

[edit] Gameplay

[edit] Single player

SWAT 4 features a single-player campaign where the player has to take his SWAT team through a number of missions. The missions are not related and there is no overarching storyline. The game aims to have gameplay similar to the real SWAT team experience, for example, it encourages the use of non-lethal weapons to subdue and arrest the suspects rather than shooting them dead. On the higher difficulty levels, it is impossible to progress to the next mission if the current one is not done well, such as suspects getting killed instead of arrested or other team members getting shot.

The player is the leader in a five-man SWAT team, which consists of him and four other men that can be split into two teams of two (called red and blue). The player does not assume direct control over the other officers, however, he can issue them orders such as guard an opening, entering and clearing a room (while at the same time using assorted grenades), handcuff suspects, and so on.

All missions start with a pre-mission briefing which describes the situation and gives whatever details are available on the subjects and/or hostage(s) or other civilians. The briefing also identifies mission goals, which typically are to secure (arrest or kill) all suspects and rescue the hostages or other civilians. Mission objectives are not limited to these, however. After the briefing, the player can choose equipment for himself and the other four officers, for some missions choose an entry point, and then the mission starts.

Usually the player then tries to resolve the situation in such a way as to arrest all the suspects, rescue all the civilians, and secure all the weapons - if that is done and no one is injured in the process, the mission is completed with a perfect score. The missions have very different suspects. Some are poorly armed and unarmored, and these are easy to arrest with the use of no or only non-lethal weaponry. Suspects in the later missions, however, include ones with fully automatic weapons such as AK-47s. Suspects may also be better protected by things such as gasmasks and full body armor. If it is not possible to arrest a suspect, then the team is forced to kill or "neutralize" the suspect.

SWAT 4 also has the concept of authorized and unauthorized use of weapons. Most situations require the officers to give the suspect a warning and ask him to surrender. Shooting without warning is considered unauthorized use of force or deadly force (depending on whether you injure the suspect or kill him) and has a significant point penalty for the mission. Shooting without warning is allowed if the suspect is pointing his weapon at a hostage or a SWAT team member or if he opens fire first. Suspect reactions to warnings differ - some may attempt to hide and set up and ambush, some immediately surender, others will flee and some will open fire. If a hostage is killed, it results in immediate mission failure.

Mission sequence

  1. SWAT Training
  2. Food Wall Restaurant
  3. Fairfax Residence
  4. Qwik Fuel Convenience Store
  5. A-Bomb Nightclub
  6. Victory Imports Auto Center
  7. Red Library Offices
  8. Northside Vending and Amusements
  9. Duplessis Diamond Wholesale Center
  10. Children of Taronne Tenement
  11. St. Michaels Medical Center
  12. The Wolcott Projects
  13. Old Granite Hotel
  14. Mt. Threshold Research Center

The SWAT team has various equipment, selected before the mission, available for use. Each officer can carry a primary and a secondary weapon, a number of grenades, an optiwand (a technically advanced version of a mirror on a stick) that makes it possible to see behind corners and doors, a toolkit that can unlock doors or defuse bombs, door wedges that can block a door completely, pepper spray, and either C2 explosives or a breaching shotgun for breaching locked doors. One officer can't carry all of these, so the player has to choose which equipment to use and which to leave out for a specific mission. Primary weapons can be powerful lethal guns (such as the M4A1 carbine or a pump-action shotgun) or non-lethal - a shotgun loaded with beanbags or a special paintball gun loaded with OC paintballs. Secondary weapons are either handguns or a taser.

Of special importance are various grenades. Having the team run into a room with suspects will usually result in failure, so the grenades have to be used to render the suspects less capable of attacking. There are three types of grenades: flashbang - blinds suspects for a while, can also blind you-, CS gas grenades - renders the suspects helpless for a while, less useful outdoors or in ventilated rooms, useless versus people with gasmasks (thus also has no effect on SWAT officers) - and stinger grenades - explode with small rubber balls, the grenade makes everyone near the explosion dizzy. Using grenades as well as pepper spray or tasers can help to make subjects compliant - that is, make them surrender.

Also, it should be noted that characters in SWAT 4 can not take a lot of damage. Even though the SWAT officers are equipped with armor, they can be easily incapacitated. As in reality, if an officer is shot in the head by a suspect, they are automatically incapacitated. If the player is incapacitated, the mission ends. Officers that are wounded but not dead suffer penalties based on where they're wounded - a shot to the legs makes them much slower, a shot to the arms reduces precision dramatically, and so on.

The SWAT team preparing to enter and clear a room
Enlarge
The SWAT team preparing to enter and clear a room

[edit] Multiplayer

SWAT 4 also features several multiplayer game modes, all of which are team-based: SWAT versus Suspects. The multiplayer modes are:

  • Barricaded Suspects. Teams gain points by arresting or killing members of the other team. The team which hits the score limit first or has the highest score when the round time ends wins.
  • VIP Escort. A random member of the SWAT team is selected to be the VIP. The suspects must arrest the VIP, hold him for two minutes and then execute him. The SWAT team must escort the VIP to an extraction point on the map. If the suspects kill the VIP without holding him for two minutes, SWAT wins. If a SWAT team member kills the VIP, suspects win.
  • Rapid Deployment. 3 to 5 bombs are placed throughout the map. The SWAT team must locate and disable them all within a time limit, if they fail to do so, suspects win.
  • Co-op. This allows the player to play through the single-player missions with up to four other people taking the place of computer-controlled SWAT officers.

[edit] Weapons list

The player can select equipment for each of the SWAT team officers
Enlarge
The player can select equipment for each of the SWAT team officers

The weapons available in SWAT 4 are:

Also, for all the guns, it is possible to choose between standard hollow point ammunition (which is better suited for those enemies in Light Armour or with no armour as it has quite good stopping power and can cause most damaged to unarmoured targets), and full metal jacket ammo, which provides better penetration and is advised for usage against heavy armored targets. It is advised not to use FMJ ammunition against those with Light Armor as there is a chance that it may go through the one wearing it and hit someone behind, who may be a civilian.

When playing online, the player has an added protections tab in the equipment selection. The player has to choose between gasmask or protective helmet, therefore even the SWAT team can be effected by CS gas if the helmet is selected. When choosing the gasmask however, the view of the player is partly blocked and therefore the view becomes smaller and player will be most vunerable in the head without a helmet. The second option is that to choose between light or heavy armor. At first it may feel like an obvious choice, but the movement speed of the player is greatly reduced when wearing the heavy armor so the light armor may be considered as an option if speed is important.

[edit] Trivia

  • SWAT 4 is the first game in the SWAT series that takes place in a location other than Los Angeles, California. It is not officially licensed by the Los Angeles Police Department SWAT Team like previous SWAT games. The game is set in the fictional city of "Fairview, New York" but clues within the game (such as the color scheme, precinct numbers, and patch on some police cars, accent of team mates, and Sonny Bonds) remind the player of New York City. However, on the Old Granite Hotel call-up, there is a clear view of the city's skyline, which appears to be that of Boston, Massachusetts. The Prudential Tower and 111 Huntington Avenue are clearly visible. This may be due to the fact that Irrational Games has a studio in Quincy, Massachusetts, which is just outside of Boston.
  • The version 1.1 update for SWAT 4 added in-game advertising to the game, delivered by Massive Incorporated.[1] This caused controversy from the gaming community, and citing this example, GameSpot gave SWAT 4 the Best & Worst of 2005 award for "Most Despicable Product Placement".
  • Sonny Bonds, the protagonist of the original Police Quest games, appears in this game as the player's superior officer. He instructs the player throughout the game's tutorial level, and also provides the player with mission briefings during the mission loadout. Jessie Bains, Bonds' arch-enemy on the first two Police Quest sequels, has his name in the entry lobby in the Red Library stage.

[edit] Critical response

SWAT 4 has been generally well received by computer game reviewers. Following is an a small list of some of the reviews.

[edit] External links

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