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SWAT 3 is
another winner from the boys and girls at Sierra. But
what else would you expect from a company with a long-standing history of putting out some
great games. SWAT 3 ranks up there with Half-Life
and Half-Life: Opposing Forces. It is a very well developed first person
action/shooter that will keep you on the edge of your seat for hours, hunting for
terrorists while searching for the hostages and disarming explosives before everyone eats
it and the bad guys win. Your job is to see to it that nothing interrupts the Nuclear
Abolishment meetings, so get to it!
This game is
set up with gamers in mind. True gamers like to get the box open,
the game installed and then get busy blowing bad guys away.
Gamers dont like to spend a bunch of time searching for patches to make the
game run the way its supposed to, or talking to someone at tech-support trying to figure
out why the game wont even run on their system.
Thats what beta tests are for. Finished
products should be hot and ready for action as fast as you can get it installed. And SWAT 3 delivers in a big way!
Once you get
your feet wet you can jump into a new career. You
get to select your character from a small list and can even adjust his race and features. With that under control you can put your team
together and move on to your first real mission. All
of your missions are prefaced by a cool audio break down of your mission over what sounds
like a police radio (of course). The chief,
your boss, sounds like a Baldwin (my money is on Alec).
He breaks down the mission, explains the situation and gives you a heads-up on any
late-breaking information. With that out of
the way, all you have to do is select your equipment and your point of entry before you
and your team arrive on scene.
There is
nothing like the sound of a highly trained SWAT unit breaking down a door, bursting into
the unknown to take out the terrorists and save the hostages. All of this and more is brought to life in the
game. The gunfire is very realistic, as is
the fact that all of your orders to your team are voiced over the radio, as are their
responses. This helps to draw you deep into
the game world. Your control is not limited
to your team, however; you can also communicate with the outside. You can radio for a team to come in and evacuate a
hostage, take away a perp, or call for an evac team to pull out
the members of your team that were gunned down by the bad guys. In fact, just about everyone in the game talks to
you, including terrorists, hostages, and other police.
Speaking of
lag, I was a little disappointed that there was no multi-player aspect to this game. Talk about a perfect game for multi-player! This game could compete with Rogue Spear, Half-Life, and Spec Ops II without a second thought. For whatever reason, Sierra didnt decide to
set it up yet. Maybe a future download,
patch, or add-on CD will be available soon that will include a multi-player, because this
game screams kill your friends on multi-player!
SWAT 3 is a must have
for any action/shooter fan. Your game library
wont be complete without this title, even though it lacks any kind of multi-player
engine. The good NPC AI and strong play
control, combined with the graphics and sound more than make up for its minor glitches. And I do mean minor. When you look at this game as a whole, its only
flaws worth mentioning (slight stutter when too much going on and no multi-player) are
pretty nit-picky. Be sure to check this one
out! You wont be disappointed at all. |