"SWAT: global strike team"OK before we start I want to tell you about the graphical history of SWAT, back before the xbox console first came out I remember the game being announced, "a new game based around the legendary PC franchise swat is coming to xbox" OK a PC game I have never heard of, who damn well cares"....it was 2001 I wanted an xbox, so I decided to see what the screenshots were like...jesus fucker, well they certainly caused a stir around my office at the time, these were graphics of a level we had never seen before in a game...bloom lighting (a term that didn't exist back then) volumetric lighting (which turns out you can do with a transparent texture on a single poly, damned cheats) these went a lot of the way to making these screens seem like something new and never before seen....anyway it looked hot, so here they are, screen shots circa 2001..
Some time passed and the xbox got released and there was halo, looking fucking great, I would still look this game up from time to time to see what was going on with it as it still looked too good to be true even when compared to halo, I held my breath then this shot came along, aliasing problems were now apparent, but it was too dark to really make anything out, the other thing I found odd was that the people looked nothing like the "swat" members that I expected...I still held hopes that the previous shots showed the standard of the game to come.
Then all went quiet, I'd just about forgotten the game even existed, but in 2003 on ign.com there was mention of swat and some new screen shots, here they are...
So I asked myself, what the fuck are argonaut trying to pull here? where are those crappy men in space suits? that's a good thing, but where's all the geometry gone? al;l the lighting? all the goodness, well this seems to be a perfect example of companies passing mock up's off as actual game footage, an it coming back to bite them on the ass, eventually when it came out at christmas 2003 I read some reviews, and they all seemed to say the the graphics were weak and the gameplay weaker. here are a couple more shots that like the one on the left above are from the final game.
these probably aren't quite as bad as the wading through water one (I actually think they look pretty good) I guess the thing is this, the game only ended up looking a bit worse than the original concept shots, but had it actually come out with in a reasonable time period after the original announcement the graphics would have probably astounded people, sadly we had splinter cell that beat them to the impressive lighting thing and did it better....so when I saw it for £12 on ebay (about 2 months after release) I thought I owed it to myself to see what this game of my dreams actually turned out like.
so the review:
everyone loves rainbow six and ghost recon don't they? well I do, so despite reading loads of reviews that told me not to buy this game I did, thinkng I'd be in for some average fps action, well at first I decided the reviews were right and eventually I decided that no it was better than the people who feel their opnions are better than ours decreed. the problems are many so lets get them out of the way...
you start playing you are told that one of the objectives of the game is to not to kill anyone but arrest them, you do this by shooting them a bit in the arm or something whilst shouting in to your xbox live headset at the top of your voice, (or pressing the x button), so here is the first problem I sit in my lounge drinking beer and playing video games, that to others is a bit sad but not crazy, I refuse to act like a 5 year old and sit there "pretending" to be a police man and shouting at the people on the TV, its just plain stupid, so that's problem 1, problem 2 is that you play each level with your non lethal pistol and a choice of either a shotgun, machine gun, or rifle. as you progress through the game you earn points to up the stats of your guns, all guns except the pistol, which after some experimenting you realise is actually the best weapon in the game. one shot to the head with it will naturalize a terrorist without killing him, therefore making the exciting machine guns with all their adjustable stats a big fucking waste of time, So let's look at this again:
A:
shoot the enemy in the leg, and shout at them in an attempt to make them submit, all the while they are shooting the crap out of you and eating up your health.... or
B:
use your crappy pistol (that has infinite ammo) and shoot the enemy once in the head (or a few times in the body) causing them to fall unconscious to the ground....OK so now we have that one cleared up let's get on with the rest of what makes this game tick, OK you can play each of the 21 levels on 3 difficulties, and there are multiple medals to pick up in each level such as "complete the level without getting hit" or "complete the level with ten head shots" or (this ones good) "complete the level making sure your team mates take out at least ten suspects" OK so whats wrong with that, nothing except that on one level you don't have any team mates making this particular medal impossible to get....mmm smart thinking there argonaut.
the UK sleeveSo what else do we have, well the graphics seemed to get a slating but I actually like them, although not up to the concept shots they still offer lots of bump maps, lots of grime, lots of detail, also I think there is some really excellent level design, and I actually enjoyed just moving round the environments, occasionally I wished I could load the maps in to rainbow six and play that game on these levels, but sadly that kind of stuff isn't possible...
The game also isn't very hard, so is that a bad thing? I don't think so, sometimes I just want to finish a game, I have so many games sat on shelves that I never got to see the end of because of one bit that frustrated the fuck out of me, now whilst I don't think all games should be easy, I think they should all have an easy mode, games like halo and the affore mentioned rainbow six I played through first time on normal, I dug them so much that I went back and played them again, and this game does that to some extent whilst the actual game isn't really any harder on the higher difficulties (there are just more enemies and you have less health) you can challenge yourself to get all the medals.
I have played this game loads and I found it entertaining whilst not great (I even uploaded some of my times on time attack to the xbox live scoreboards, where the last level has as many as 9 scores so far placed, yes that's right only 9 people in the world have bothered getting a time on the last few levels) yes it's a shame that this title so utterly failed in the marketplace, and was so overlooked by reviewers, either that or I have a shite taste in games...
so why have I bothered writing this review for an average game that had some truly awesome elements when I still haven't written an article about sega rally 1995, or daytona USA? well its because of this, when you use your x button to shout down the enemies instead of shouting like a fucking lunatic in to your headset, your guy occasionally says this.... any game where there is a button that makes your character say "get down" is a fucking winner in my book.
here is the orchestral, soundtrack, if you like that kind of thing then this one has some pretty good moments.the transfer is OK not perfect...
intro movie (with sound effects)
main theme
level 1
level 2
level 3
level 4
level 5
level 6
level 7
level 8
level 9
level 10
level 11
final level
tactical situation
the boss get's it
level complete
level failed
argonaut introsound effects
swat get down
and with more rock star swagger:
get down
