SWAT 4 might be the most famous tactical shooter around, and it can be still enjoyed even today! However, the unmodded experience shows it's age a little bit too much. Let me explain.
SWAT 4 is a squad based tactical FPS where you lead your team of four into highly dangerous environments, which usually consist of 2 floors, sometimes with multiple (2) entry points.
The objectives are mostly to take out the bad guys and save everyone. Later, there are more tricky ones but those are just slight annoyances.
What makes this game really frustrating is the AI, which is either super smart or dumb as hell (this usually effects your team, not the enemy). The different thugs, gangsters, robbers have inhuman reflexes sometimes and pinpoint accuracy, taking you out with one shot, which restarts the mission.
What I did not like even more however is the fact that no matter how tactical you are, sometimes you or one of your teammates just.. die. Flashed a room before going in? The AI does not care, they just oneshot everyone down.
Different enemy types aside (some wear masks, some wear body armor), these happened with every type of bad guy, so it is mostly just the AI being.. well, bad.
AI aside, the level variety and the actual layout of the levels are really good and creative, but the level order is a bit wrong. The Old Granite Hotel should be the last level of the game (the vanilla game's campaign) in my opinion, because it is by far the most challenging mission in the game.
Despite everything I just said, I had a great time with SWAT 4, but my score went down by half a star because of the frustrating nature of the AI.
I will review the expension pack separetly, I just wanted to log the Gold edition because I have that.
SWAT 4 is a squad based tactical FPS where you lead your team of four into highly dangerous environments, which usually consist of 2 floors, sometimes with multiple (2) entry points.
The objectives are mostly to take out the bad guys and save everyone. Later, there are more tricky ones but those are just slight annoyances.
What makes this game really frustrating is the AI, which is either super smart or dumb as hell (this usually effects your team, not the enemy). The different thugs, gangsters, robbers have inhuman reflexes sometimes and pinpoint accuracy, taking you out with one shot, which restarts the mission.
What I did not like even more however is the fact that no matter how tactical you are, sometimes you or one of your teammates just.. die. Flashed a room before going in? The AI does not care, they just oneshot everyone down.
Different enemy types aside (some wear masks, some wear body armor), these happened with every type of bad guy, so it is mostly just the AI being.. well, bad.
AI aside, the level variety and the actual layout of the levels are really good and creative, but the level order is a bit wrong. The Old Granite Hotel should be the last level of the game (the vanilla game's campaign) in my opinion, because it is by far the most challenging mission in the game.
Despite everything I just said, I had a great time with SWAT 4, but my score went down by half a star because of the frustrating nature of the AI.
I will review the expension pack separetly, I just wanted to log the Gold edition because I have that.