Situation:
 As the newest member of LAPD's Special Weapons and Tactics team
you're about to find yourself in the thick of urban turmoil. If you successfully resolve
these civic conflicts, you'll be awarded medals and career advancements. Promote to the
position of Element Leader and you'll be able to call the shots. Or if snipering interests
you, train and qualify as a sniper. The Review:
Police Quest: SWAT is not your normal Sierra style game. You are a new SWAT team member
and as such, need to learn the ropes. And there is much to learn because this game is set
up to be very realistic. It is not just a shooting gallery; you need to know your tactics
because killing someone is your last option. You are stationed at the Metro station and
between call-ups, train in the various weapons and disciplines. Every so often while you
are reviewing interviews with actual police officers or training, you will be called up.
If you have your sniper qualification, you can go on sniper missions. After each mission,
you are debriefed and awarded promotions or awards.
The graphics and realism of SWAT are great. You have
many career options. You start by training as an assaulter, that being a SWAT member who
storms a building. In addition, you can train as a sniper. These options add some various
elements into SWAT to keep you doing something different
Although I thought SWAT had good potential, I think Sierra ruined it
by making it too detailed. When I say there is much to learn, I mean there is much to
learn. Too much, I think. This game is like Navy Fighters Gold in that the programmers get
too in-depth and lose the interest of us mundane gamers who are not Navy pilots, or in
this case, police officers. When you are on a mission, there is no room for error; if you
do not do exactly what the programmers are expecting, you fail. And most of the time you
are not fully informed about what it is you are supposed to do. This I found to be very
frustrating and found myself losing interest after short periods of time.
Most of the game is spent doing training that gets
old very fast or reviewing interviews with officers about tactics. These long stretches
are interrupted all too briefly with short bits of action. And when the action does come,
it is quick, confusing and frustrating. Oh, and for all of you who remember playing the
original Sierra games like Space Quest I and King's Quest 1, and remember having to mess
with 4 one-sided floppy disks before hard drives were invented, welcome back! The 4 CD's
in this game require constant changing because each element is on a different CD (i.e. you
leave the station, which is on one CD, then go on a mission, which is on another CD, then
come back afterward, back to the first CD). This got old really fast. In addition, the
game has a tendency to crash a lot, causing more frustration.
--Brent Hegarty |
