Posted by Conor Duffy on Jul 1st, 2009
I don’t know what those gas masks are made of, but it must be titanium since it takes about three shots to take the bad guys down. In the first two games it was often one shot, one kill, but here your weaponry is largely ineffective (as opposed to the enemies’ AKs, which will tear you to shreds in short order.) In the opening animation the developers make sure to show the wide variety of weapons you can use – everything from standard pistols to shotguns and M-16s. Finding these weapons, however, is a total lottery. You aren’t able to upgrade your side arm and you’re at the mercy of whatever power-ups are sprinkled through the levels.
Sometimes the terrorists will throw a grenade at you, and by hovering over it with your mouse you can throw it back, Call of Duty 4 style. I will admit this is a nice addition, but I enjoyed having my own grenades to throw back when I had that option a whole lot more. In S.W.A.T. 3 you can pick up throwable items such as knives and machetes, but you can only hold one at a time and you have to be very accurate with your throw. If that’s the case, why not just pop off a few rounds? Same result in the same amount of time.
Death comes often and with little dignity attached. Unless you have the reflexes of a ninja you’re not going to get very far in this game. I never even got through the first mission; in the end, all that was left of me was a red splat on the wall.
The last thing that just confuses the hell out of me is this incredibly redundant Game Over screen. First it tells you in no uncertain terms that you are dead (you know, just in case watching your character spill his guts across the ground didn’t give you a clue.) Then it asks if you want to go back to the main menu. Better decide quickly, though, because in ten seconds it’s going to… take you back to the main menu. So what exactly is the point of asking?
It’s such a shame to see an excellent series like S.W.A.T. descend to such a low. A few of the tweaks are nice but they’ve been replaced by a horrible learning curve and a tiny arsenal of weaponry to use. It becomes less fun and more of a chore as you try to survive long enough to see one more stage. If you want to play any game from this series, play the original S.W.A.T., and avoid this poor sequel.
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