SWAT4 - Hands On Preview

Itâ??s been a long, long wait for fans of the SWAT franchise; four and a half years since the release of SWAT 3 and a little under 18 months since the franchise made a muted move to the consoles in SWAT: Global Strike Team, SWAT 4 is nearly upon us.

Both last year and this year seem to be over-saturated in FPS titles on both the console and PC formats â?“ weâ??ve had Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Halo 2 and Brothers in Arms in the last twelve months to name but a few and theyâ??re soon to be joined by Doom 3 Xbox, Rainbow Six: Lockdown, and Pariah amongst others, so our question is thisâ?¦with a catalogue like that why buy SWAT 4? What could it possibly offer that we havenâ??t already seen before?

We all know that the FPS market is a genre of extremes, with â??real worldâ?? settings such as Rainbow Six at one end of the spectrum and â??Fantasy/Sci-Fiâ?? themes like Halo 2 at the other; SWAT 4 naturally sits at the extreme side of realism, with an emphasis on using non-hostile methods to save lives and the constant worry of one-hit kills. Set just a few years into the future in 2008, SWAT4 seems to be heavily based towards creating a very earthy urban world â?“ the seedier side of the US American Dream almost.

SWAT 4â??s 16 single-player missions certainly donâ??t seem to be holding much back and the game includes all of the scenarios that youâ??d expect a SWAT team to be involved in, such as hostage situations and apprehending the more extreme forms of criminal life such as serial killers. Each mission is preceded by a briefing session, where youâ??re given the background to the events leading up that point in time; suspectâ??s details and even the 911 phone call can be played where available so you can get really immersed in the situation, ramping up the sense of urgency for the mission to succeed. As with the Rainbow Six 3 series, SWAT 4 also allows you to change the weaponry of the SWAT team to suit your needs, which ranges from smoke grenades and pepper spray (always good to subdue perps and even innocents who disregard your orders) to pistols and your trusty semi-automatic.

As the game is based on the real world, non-hostile weaponry is available for you to use at your discretion, which again brings another level of depth to the strategic decisions players have to make. Commanding your voice at innocents and hostiles is also a tactic that may work on occasion to (followed by a healthy dose of Pepper Spray.)

Even at the pre-brief stage some attention is required to the tactical side of the game as blueprints of the buildings involved in the scenario are available for you to analyse. Polaroidâ??s of potential entrance/exits for your team are also provided so it is imperative that you choose the best entry point for that mission â?“ you have to get the job done as quickly and as efficiently as possibly after all. The various factors all add up to create a good sense of freedom to the player, and creates a level of depth rarely seen in the FPS genre.

A debrief follows the completion of a scenario where your effectiveness is rated out of 100 and whether you pass or not depends on you reaching a certain target (this depends on the difficulty setting of the game.)

There is a definite strategic and tactical edge to SWAT4 (as the acronym suggests, you are part of the Special Weapons And Tactics Unit so it shouldnâ??t come as any surprise that this isnâ??t a run around trigger-happy title), and as Team Leader you can decide a whole range of tactics and setups to fulfil your objectives. There are certainly a lot of detailed and specific controls integrated into the game so itâ??s imperative that the balance between confusing controls and a flowing and intuitive system is vital for good solid gameplay.

One of the ways that SWAT4 manages to do this is by integrating keyboard controls with the right and centre (or wheel) mouse buttons. Infiltrating rooms requires you to think about how itâ??s best to proceed; do you want to open it or send of your team forward and blast it open with some light explosives? What if itâ??s locked? Do you want to get your team to check under the door with a mirror? Organising the range of commands is a potential banana skin but it seems that the developers have so far managed to hit the nail on the head. By right-mouse clicking on the door a context sensitive drop-down menu is triggered allowing you select the requested orders. Scrolling down and then depressing the button activates that order. This menu system isnâ??t perfect however and can take a little while to get used to, but given the vast amount of actions and choices that it presents to the player itâ??s actually quite difficult to think of a better alternative.

So far it SWAT4â??s tactical base seems to be a loose variant on the accomplishments of Rainbow Six 3, but hereâ??s the thing â?“ SWAT4 also allows you to call up quarter screen size â??footageâ?? of what your teamâ??s cameras are recording; in other words, you can see exactly what they can. It doesnâ??t even stop there as SWAT4 takes things that little bit further, enabling you to control the character and direct them to various places around the room, even ordering them to open door in front of them using the same set of options that we mentioned earlier. Basically the feature of small team displays opens up a whole new angle and area of strategy and tactics, and is quite innovative â?“ itâ??s the sort of idea that will be â??utilisedâ? by others in future titles. Of course your character does become quite vulnerable to attack if you switch control over to one of the team members but then again, youâ??ll have to clear a room and secure it before you take over. Being a SWAT unit, youâ??ll also access to view a pre-positioned sniper who takes positions from a strategic platform, and whilst using him isnâ??t a pre-requisite to completing a mission you can find yourself taking a shot at a perp just to gain an advantage; itâ??s an awesome little detail that again adds to the freedom given to player.

For us this is what separated the game from being just another FPS, and whilst it may seem like a trivial novelty feature that has been thrown in just because it would look good and appeal to people, the addition of having team member control via small screens is a marvellous idea and as weâ??ve already stated, itâ??s sure to be utilised in the development of other FPS titles.

The development of the game, which is currently undergoing at Irrational Games, certainly has a strong ballast of middleware to support it with the integration of the Havoc physics engine (albeit in a lightweight manner) and the Vengeance graphics engine (powered by Unreal) and even at the preview stage it is quite obvious that SWAT4 will have a stable platform for hardcore gaming. The graphics are very strong and the general ambience certainly seems to nail the feeling of what itâ??s like to be part of a SWAT unit. A great sense of realism and style is created by the localised character damage animations, with a wide variety of points on each character and some fantastic animations which also impact the gameplay significantly.

Besides the 16 single-player missions, Irrational have also integrated multiplayer modes into the game, which will include a co-operative mode. We were unable to test out the online features of the game at the time of this preview but weâ??ll hopefully be able to take a look at them at review time before SWAT4â??s release date on April 8th 2005 â?“ no details have been released as to what the online modes are but at the very least weâ??d hazard a guess to include Deathmatches.

The thing is that with a game so heavily leant towards strategy and tactics we would have hoped for a little bit more imagination in the multiplayer modes. Letâ??s have a central command structure where one player can view all of the SWAT unitâ??s cameras to set up the sting, commanding the two teams as the mission progresses. Then you get another â??clanâ?? who would take the roles of the perps and it would be their job to take down the SWAT unit â?“ imagine the intensity or that setup. We can only hope that more FPS developers look outside the box for future multiplayer options and steer us away from Capture the Flag missions and the likeâ?¦