I recently looked up Swat 4 online and to my horror, it doesn't exist.
Unlike all those far inferior games that spam the '3 for £5' sections in shops, Swat 4
isn't being sold any more.
It's become a valuable commodity, with second hand copies selling for well above its initial
retail price.
Suddenly I realise that my bashed up copy that I've been chucking about at LAN parties
is a valuable artifact!
Google Swat 5 and you'll be greeted with forum post after forum post, desperately hoping
for scraps of information on the project.
It doesn't look hopeful for the aging series.
For me, it started with Swat 3.
It was one of the first PC demos I had.
It sported incredible AI, detailed scenery and seemed well ahead of its competitor, Rainbow
Six, in every way.
Most surfaces could be shot through, meaning that you could clear rooms without even opening
the door.
Not that you could memorise where enemies were- it would randomly shuffle the levels
around to make it different every time.
I still remember the first house level.
Sometimes the shooter would be in the attic, sniping cars.
Other times he'd be behind the front door.
Once I even found him underneath the bed.
One time I didn't even find him.
Knowing this game, he could have been ANY WHERE.
But what am I doing, mentioning Swat 3?
The thing is, the first time I tried the 4th one...
I didn't like it.
It was just different.
Plus people swore in it.
To me, they were trying to modernise it in the same way that Prince of Persia did with
Warrior Within and it had sucked the appeal out of the game.
But don't worry.
The same friend who recommended Rising Storm to me also brought a copy of this game around
to a LAN party several years later and we were instantly hooked.
Just like the 3rd game, there's a house level on this one that's ridiculously easy.
To this day, we still raid that sick pervert's basement as a warmup for the trials to come.
We smash up the house, torture the victims, blow ourselves up and taze his Mum.
To this day, almost a decade after its release, it remains a staple of LAN parties as the
ultimate coop game.
I wouldn't recommend playing it against friends unless you don't want them to be friends any
more.
It's incredibly stressful.
After the warmup coop level we move onto harder ones.
Perhaps the takeaway one, before moving onto old favourites like the hospital, diamond
bank and of course, the children of taronne, complete with child cemeteries and crazed,
brainwashed, screaming women.
All those years ago when I played it for the first time, I didn't see the appeal.
But storming the place with friends in a manner that Benny Hill would be proud of, it's simply
hilarious.
The graphics still hold up well today.
It's a nice looking game!
It runs without problems and with a bit of tweaking you can get it working with widescreen.
I'm not sure what armour is meant to do or why you'd bring a grenade launcher to ANY
occasion, but it's nice to have the option.
And please, for God's sake, if you're going to use CS gas then make sure your team's wearing
gas masks.
The design decisions are only becoming apparent all those years on for me.
It's one thing to kill the bad guys, but come the end of the level you'll be greeted with
a low score.
Why?
Because real SWAT teams use shotguns and paintballs.
Against heavily armoured, trained terrorists.
Yes.
To this day, there are still missions that we haven't perfected using this bizarre pacifist
option.
Time and time again we'll get close to the end of a mission, only for machine-gun wielding
rapist to storm the room and to bring us all down in a fraction of a second.
The game is unforgiving and when your friend opens the door you're currently opti-wanding
only for there to be 3 guys on the other side who then turn and open fire in your general
direction as you and all your friends fumble about with grenades... wow.
There is only so much that mere mortals can take.
And like many challenges, we've sort of accepted that we'll never be able to sit still for
long enough to complete it properly.
We have so much fun that we don't mind failing the mission to see what happens if you shoot
Granny Goggins point blank with a revolver on the edge of a third storey balcony.
But it's because of this mentality that I have recently completed both the original
game and its expansion on my own.
There's no fan-fare for completing it.
I'm still not sure what the most difficult missions are.
But I can at least say that I have done it, even if my friends never will.
And despite all that, I'll never turn down the chance to rush the diamond bank, unarmoured
and with beanbags against over 30 rifle-firing terrorists.
Screw the hostages.