SWAT: Global Strike Team

Written by Tom Clare in PS2 Game Reviews, Tuesday 11 July, 2006

S'WAT A Great Game!

With the rapid advancement in gaming technology over the past ten years or so, few genres have flourished quite like that of the first-person shoot 'em up. This generation alone has played witness to a couple of Halo's; a new instalment of Doom, Unreal and Half-Life; Killzone, several Medal Of Honor's and more Rainbow Six and other such 'tactical' FPS games than you can shake a stick at.

The problem, as PC gamers never let you forget, is that tactical FPS games don't really work very well on consoles - either due to the limitations of the hardware or control-issues centred on there "not being enough buttons on the pad", and so forth. However, SWAT: Global Strike Team, released back in 2003 for the PlayStation2, appears to be the exception to this rule, and something of an undiscovered gem.

Now there's a fair chance SWAT will have passed you by (unless of course, you actually own it!); sales-wise it did moderately-well and reviews in the gaming press were of a good-not-great variety, and like so many other games of this ilk, it was soon forgotten. This is a shame, as rather unusually in the current gaming climate, SWAT has a real sense of understated excellence about it; it doesn't immediately wow the player, but grows on you steadily over time.

Set in the near future, SWAT sees you in the role of a small squad of a crime-fighters working for an organisation of the same name, which specialises in dealing with terrorist threats. In this instance, the main adversaries of the piece are two global terrorist networks that both have their eyes on a powerful new drug known as LD-50, or SPIKE. The Single-Player mission mode boasts a hefty 21 missions in which the story unravels a little at a time, and depending on the mission, you will have up.to two team-mates at your command.

The main plus point is that to a certain degree, SWAT's levels can be tackled in a number of different ways. Blasting your way through a level is often quicker and easier, but to achieve higher grades and gain the bigger prizes, you have to play by the games rules. For instance, whilst its undoubtedly fun mowing down terrorists with an assault-rifle, it's often more beneficial to incapacitate them with a tranquilizer gun. When you engage and enemy, the brilliant 'Compliance Meter' appears on the screen; the more riled they get, the more the meter fills and the closer they come to surrendering - shooting is one manner of persuasion, but a quick tap of the square button is also highly effective as prompts your character to yell 'SWAT! Hands in the air!' or 'Drop your weapon!' and other such intimidating one-liners until the bar turns red and the enemy can be arrested. It is important to remember to slap the cuffs on all enemies - if you forget, they will often pursue you and engage you in another gun fight, or worse still, if they are alive on the ground, they may let off some grenades as a last form of resistance. And just to add a little spice to the proceedings, there's usually a bunch of civilians running all over the place, and they must be protected from the trigger-happy bad guy's.

The game succeeds because it resisted the trap of overcomplicating things; its ideas are pleasantly fresh and yet not too ambitious for the hardware. Each small area of the games make-up has been well-crafted and well-judged, making for a strong overall package. The controls are excellent in terms of responsiveness and not overly-complex despite the tactical slant; aside from the R2 button bringing up a list of gadgets and the D-Pad issuing commands, it generally has the same feel to it as most first-person shoot 'em ups. Commands issued to team-mates are also easier than in other games of this ilk; they can secure areas, breach doors, pick locks, defuse bombs or download important computer files, and all at the touch of a button. The developers also deserve considerable credit for the quality of the A.I. team-mates that accompany you for much of the game. Giving orders to A.I. controlled allies has so often proven the bane of tactical first-person shoot 'em ups (at least in console form) as they regularly die, rarely do what you want them to and generally prove more of a liability than an asset. SWAT's A.I. buddies however are very sharp and responsive, and are quite handy in a gun-fight too, which makes a refreshing change. The main character is usually backed up by a security expert, and occasionally by a sniper too, who even has her own set of levels.

Design and diversity within the levels is impressive, as the story takes your SWAT Team across America and Europe, and from Russia to Venezuela. One minute you'll be securing bombs in a bank, and then taking out snipers in a damaged hospital… After that there's the highly-atmospheric train subway sections and Russian military bases, among a dozen other settings. There is a shortage of interaction with the scenery in the levels; it would have been nice to acquire items, ammunition and health, or even to blow up a few barrels and so forth, though the team element makes up for this gripe.

Another example of SWAT's understated quality is in its visuals. The environments themselves are quite lovely - solid, varied, vibrant and detailed with some nice (but not overused) sections of darkness designed to encourage the use of the nifty 'nightvision' goggles. Character models are fairly average to look at up close but more importantly they move smoothly and act realistically - shoot at an enemy and they'll seek cover, while equally they may abandon cover if you throw a grenade in their direction.

It proves to be a very enjoyable experience in terms of gameplay - the missions rarely fail to create tension due to the often-cramped environments and the threat of ambushes from genuinely intelligent enemies. Though it does rely on its team and order elements to add weight to the experience, the action and shooting sections themselves stand up well, and don't suffer from any slow-down or jerky animations.

Better still; the icing on the SWAT cake is the great longevity it produces. As mentioned earlier, the Single-Player mode consists of 21 missions; each with three difficulty settings; a variety of medals depending on performance parameters; a grade based on efficiency and up to 3 special 'golden-handcuff' enemies that requiring arresting for the player to gain points that can be used to buy improved weapons. And then there's the same 21 missions in a Time Attack mode, whereby you begin a level with a two minute countdown, and must finish it before the time expires. These are great fun and rather frantic, as you are rewarded a small portion of time for saving hostages and arresting enemies - just enough to top you up, meaning for some real scrambles near the end of the levels. However, it could be argued that some of the more stealth-based levels aren't particularly well-suited to this format…

Finished SWAT in One-Player? Thought not, but in the meantime you can also hone your skills on the marvellously entertaining two-player co-operative mission mode with ten more levels, as well as its own Time Attack variant, meaning that if you want to complete the game in its entirety, you'll have to play through 62 missions! SWAT naturally works very well in split-screen two-player as it encourages the 'work-together' ethic that's already so well developed in the one-player set-up, with the majority of the multiplayer levels proving just as impressive as the main ones.

There's always a 'but' though, right? Well, the good news is the negatives aspects have been kept to a minimum and are only of the small variety; there certainly isn't anything glaringly wrong with SWAT. It would have been nice if there were a few more weapons to choose from (though the three you have can be customised), and some of the headshots with non-sniper rifle weapons don't always kill the recipient of the bullet. It perhaps doesn't have a truly memorable single-mission, such as for example Medal Of Honor: Frontline's beach landing, and neither does it create too many brilliant set-piece situations, such as Killzone's park ambushes. It is however, pleasingly consistent in what it delivers and because of the variety of locations used throughout, you always look forward to the next mission.

The recommended age-rating from pegi.info is 16+. It is of course a relatively violent game, and does contain blood effects (but only when an enemy is actually dead). The idea of rewarding a non-lethal means of completing levels is encouraging but at the end of the day you still get to fire guns and throw grenades with wild abandon, if you so choose. Thanks to the surprisingly accessible controls, relative newcomers should find this easier to get into than the likes of Rainbow Six 3, and as the 'Easy' difficulty setting is just comfortable enough to allow you to get a foothold on proceedings; I would consider it a worthy purchase for anyone willing to risk a fiver on it at amazon.co.uk.

SWAT: Global Strike Team may lack the ambitious streak of Killzone and the frenetic flair of TimeSplitters 3, but in many respects it quietly matches these FPS heavyweights. Through its own accessible style, nicely-crafted design, smooth graphics and superb longevity, it doesn't need to shout its own praises - it just gets on with the job. The PlayStation2 does have a great tactical first-person shoot 'em up to call its own after all! Recommended.

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