The third mission in SWAT 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate is a perfectly clear example what the game is all about: decision making under pressure. The mission puts you in charge of defusing a hostage situation involving a group of armed maniacs that stormed an auditorium intent on ridding the world of devil-worshipping rock stars. I had approached the stage from the rear with Blue Team backing me up, only to see that one of the perpetrators had taken a band member by gunpoint. I had Red Team come through another entrance to gas the backstage area, but this had no effect. On a catwalk above the stage, another gunman who spotted the standoff opened fire on me and my team. Blue Team returned the fire, killing him – this startled the man with the hostage. My team and I urged the man to surrender. Clearly aggravated, he turned to what he felt was his only option: he shot his hostage and ran offstage. An innocent dies, and a mission fails. SWAT 4 puts a lot of power in your hands as the player. The control of two fire teams to assist in neutralizing hostiles and the arsenal of high-powered automatic weapons to do it with; the ability to preserve life and the power to take it.

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Once again I’m exploring SWAT 4, a game that is in need of more attention than it ever got in the year since its release. This time it’s in the context of one of the most powerful choices the game offers players: do you take the life of a criminal or do you subdue them? Do you run the risk of killing your entire team because you assumed the last gunman would give himself up? It’s an essential part of the strategy presented in SWAT 4 and its recent expansion, and this feature is unfortunately drowned out by the game’s more marketable contemporaries. This month’s article at The Cultural Gutter reveals why some games don’t teach killing, but how it can be avoided.

SWAT 4 is a masterpiece of the tactical first-person shooter genre. It is also the best game that was released in 2005.

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SWAT 4 successfully integrates a fluid interface, real time tactics and a completely believable simulation. And like its predecessor, it’s a welcome change from the tactical shooters that typically let you shoot first and ask questions later.

The SWAT series has changed form three times since its first release as Daryl F. Gates Police Quest: SWAT, a spin-off of Sierra’s recognized adventure brand. Tacking on Gates’ name to the title would add credibility, as the former Los Angeles police chief basically invented the whole SWAT (special weapons and tactics) concept and had a hand in the game’s design – though it ended up as some kind of one-man FMV adventure. SWAT 2 would take an isometric real-time strategy approach, introducing more of an action element to the game but also allowing you to control an entire squad. Finally, SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle would arrive after Rainbow Six established a new genre: the tactical first person shooter. Sharing similar design elements, SWAT 3 would still hold its own as a fairly realistic interpretation of these elite police units.

I played SWAT 3 shortly after I completed Eagle Watch, the first expansion for Rainbow Six. The inability to completely plan a mission beforehand made me extra cautious in my approach to the gameplay, because in SWAT you were dropped into a mission and had to deal with tactical situations as they happened – you were never informed of how many adversaries you were facing or their last known locations. The situations were often chaotic, and the civilians weren’t always being held at gunpoint – they would sometimes be running around just trying to get to safety, creating a highly distracting battlefield.

I liked that you were able communicate directly with the aggressors: yelling such things as “drop your weapon!”, “Stay down!” or “hands in the air”, sometimes causing them to open fire. Though they would occasionally comply, allowing you or one of your squad mates to approach and restrain them. It was an obvious movie-like interpretation of this kind of police work, but it allowed every mission to unfold in a believable manner, where not every guy with a gun in his hand was necessarily a threatening target.

Along with a new engine adapted from Irrational’s Tribes Vengeance, all of these elements are back in SWAT 4. Though where the game really impresses me is the interface. It fosters a completely seamless experience where the novice can issue “default” commands as the situation applies, or the experienced can delve deeper into the on-screen context sensitive drop down menu and issue a particular command to be executed. Moreover, the interface seems to be designed to let you sit back and let your team do all the work, allowing the player to effectively become the leader. The team AI is very adept in this regard – the only time a team member was incapacitated was because of my carelessness, after I asked them to run into a room without using proper breach and clear tactics. The enemy AI is also unpredictable – rarely will they immediately open fire, and this causes you to approach each possible hostile with caution instead of running nonchalantly through the mission, finger poised on the “Fire” button.

Though this is all seen through the eyes of a fan of SWAT 3; I would hardly call the mission selected for the demo exciting. This may be detrimental for prospective newcomers, and that’s a damn shame. In SWAT 3 and the first two Rainbow Six games, reconaissance and non-deadly force missions were always part of the package, conveying the message that to “win” doesn’t mean putting a bullet in the enemy. Though sound in their presentation of tactics, games like Full Spectrum Warrior and Close Combat: First to Fight are putting less of an emphasis on enemy apprehension or de-armament and instead opt for simple neutralization – adapting the aforementioned mentality of shooting first and asking questions later. It’s nice to know SWAT 4 is taking a more civilized approach, even though the game essentially revolves around the same “player versus the bad guy” model. I’m fully aware of what’s happening to the Rainbow Six series, so I’m glad that Irrational has taken care in trying to reproduce what made SWAT 3 so enjoyable. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on the full version this April.

In my haste to name the squad tactical shooters to be released this year, I seem to have overlooked Konami Europe’s The Regiment for the PS2 and PC. The Regiment will introduce gamers to the world of Britain’s SAS counter-terrorist force, which became world renowned in the televised takedown of the Iranian embassy in London in 1980. Powered by the Unreal engine (and making obvious allowances for the PS2), The Regiment will intermix fictional missions with a re-enactment of the famous operation at the embassy. I’m glad to see a developer examining this subject, as the inspiration for this genre has traditionally been very U.S.-centric.