It’s a great expansion, and there’s a noticeable increase in graphical fidelity. The Stetchkov Syndicate was released a year later, and adds seven new missions. His mother’s in the house too, but won’t comply, so you have to pepper spray and cuff her as she screams “He didn’t do anything!” It’s an incredible piece of level design, and not the kind of thing you usually expect to find in a tactical FPS. And when you finally confront the shotgun-toting killer, there’s a chance he’ll be randomly placed near the kidnapped girl, resulting in a dangerous stand-off. This, along with a sinister, brooding soundtrack, makes for an incredibly atmospheric, nerve-racking mission. There are bizarre messages scrawled on the walls, creepy masks hanging from the ceiling, newspaper clippings about his killings, and other disturbing imagery. After moving carefully through his drab, unremarkable suburban house, you descend into a basement straight out of David Fincher’s Seven. The owner, a serial killer, has kidnapped a local girl. The Fairfax Residence, widely regarded as one of the game’s best missions, is a great example of this. This is where the team really started to master using mise-en-scène to tell stories. What’s interesting about returning now is seeing Irrational’s progression towards BioShock in the environment design. And as the suspects get tougher and better-equipped, you have to constantly adapt and experiment with new tactics and gear to outperform them.Īfter moving carefully through his drab, unremarkable suburban house, you descend into a basement straight out of David Fincher’s Seven. The stakes rise with every mission, from bungled robberies to jewel store heists. Here the suspects are lightly armed and inexperienced, but later you’ll be facing veteran criminals with kevlar vests, gas masks, and automatic weapons. A few gangsters holed up in a Chinese restaurant. The early missions are, by your average SWAT team’s standards, fairly simple jobs. One of my favourite things about SWAT 4 is how each mission is a standalone event, so that there’s no tedious story linking the campaign together. Just one of many examples of the strategic thinking that the game encourages and rewards. This is when the door wedge gadget comes in handy, letting you control their movement by blocking access to certain doors. Some of the levels, particularly the rock club filled with trigger-happy warring gangsters, are maze-like warrens of suspects waiting to ambush you. And as for the suspects who open fire, well, they’ve just signed their own death warrants. Failing to follow these steps will reduce your overall score, so it pays to play it by the book. cable tie, then report their position to HQ. Some perps will comply, especially if you’ve hit them with a taser or a gas grenade. As you enter you hit the middle mouse button to ‘shout compliance’, which means screaming “Police! On your knees! Drop your weapon! Down on the ground!” and other assorted demands. Or you can use your optiwand (basically a high-tech mirror on a stick) to peer inside the room before breaching to determine the threat.īreaching a room is always a nervous moment. You can toss in a variety of non-lethal grenades to incapacitate the suspects, including tear gas and flashbangs. You can quietly pick the lock or use an explosive charge to blow it off its hinges. Even something as simple as opening a door and entering a room has multiple layers to it. The variety of gadgets and weapons, the richness of the level design, and the fine control you have over your squad makes SWAT 4 a powerful story generator.
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