Sierra has pulled off another winner. Many love them for their award winning Half-life line of games, which to this day is still unbelievable and selling well. SWAT3: Close Quarters Battle is the only action shooter that can come close in comparison with Half-Life not because of the storyline or the wonderful 3d graphics but because of the creativity that is put into it.
Sierra Studios has the ability to put their minds into reality and benefit from it making them a strong gaming company.
Storyline:
It's 2005 and you are the Element Leader of the best SWAT team in Los Angles. Your job is to defend the city from all terrorist attacks while important world leaders sign the nuclear test ban. Representatives from around the world converge on Los Angeles to witness the signing of the United Nations Nuclear Abolishment Treaty. Radical terrorist groups have descended on the city. Responsibility for the delegates safety lies completely with LAPD's elite SWAT unit. The city's fate is in your hands.
Commands:
Like most of Sierra Studio's games SWAT3 evolves around the bases of teamwork.
Two teams will be assigned to accompany you through the game, the red team and the blue team. You can command these teams to help you during attacks by using strategic commands such as, cover and search or you can command them to form up into elements (blue team and red team lined up one behind the other commanded by you, the element leader). It may sound difficult but it is not. You can simply press the correct key for blue team and then hit search, a command will come up that says search left or search right. You can do the same to the red team or you can give them a different command such as cover, at that point they will walk up to you and simply cover you. Other commands can be given such as the compromise command. Using this command you will yell out phrases to the terrorists such as "come out with your hands up", etc. There are many other commands that allow you to interact with your team as well as commands that you will use to complete the game.
Tasks:
You lead a team of four SWAT member, two blue and two red. You and your team must complete missions by rescuing hostages, or neutralizing threats.
Features:
Swat3 includes realistic features that allow you to shoot through doors and windows.
In this game you are equipped with everything that a real Swat team has. Including gas bombs, hand cuffs, flash bangs, lock picks, etc. Guns include your basic rifles and pistols.
Real SWAT members practice many different modes of invasion. They may choose to invade silently or to bust open the doors and take out anything that they may find. SWAT3 includes two modes stealth mode and dynamic mode. These modes may affect the way you walk to the way you enter rooms. You can use stealth mode for slow silent attacks or you may need to complete the level with no time to waist or if you don't have the patience to wait.
SWAT3 has very impressive artificial intelligence. The terrorists act to any situation or manner. You may need to hunt them down as they will run or you may need to be more cautious to their level of attack as they may hind behind objects while attacking. The terrorist will investigate blood spots on the ground, some may run to get help. Your teammates will carry out every order you give them with no delays.
Before each mission you will be given information on what you and your team must do.
You will be able to view any information that you may find interesting such as a picture of the suspect and hi/her name or a picture of the hostages in the mission. Other information will be available to you in this feature such as the weapons in the level and so on. SWAT3 includes 21 missions that you and your team must complete to move up in rank. You may play single missions or you may start a career where you must complete all mission. SWAT3 does include saving features. In the career you have the ability to create yourself. You can select your first and last name, your nick name, years you've been in the service and your race (Asian , Hispanic, Black, White, etc.)
Sierra always knows how to catch the attention of gamers everywhere as always.
SWAT3 does require some skill to be involved. This is a type of game that you can constantly improve on every time you play. Another plus for Sierra.
Graphics:
Graphics are excellent. You can change the resolution of the game and the texture quality giving it superb realism. You can change the brightness for computers with dark monitors. The Characters in this game are very realistic. The buildings, floors, ceilings, backgrounds, and objects all depict that of a very realistic world.
Sound:
Sound is incredible. The voices are real time. The briefings sound like actual police reports. Very clear and realistic.
Control:
The control is ok. Most of the keys are reserved for default uses. The 1 & 0 buttons are not available for you to choose freely they are reserved for the command buttons. The F1 &F12 buttons are reserved for your weapon switch. One of my favorite advances in most games controls is the ability to use the scrolling wheel on the mouse to scroll through your weapons but you do not have that opportunity in this game. Other than those disadvantages the games control is well compared to all other games and does not interfere with your game play much.
SWAT3 is a well developed game that uses lots of strategic and tactical thinking to be involved. To me this game has good replay value as you will continue to improve on your SWAT skills every time you play.
