Once upon a time, in those heady days of PC gaming called the 1990s, Sierra immersed us into the world of your average law officer on the hunt for ‘perps’ in one of the most popular adventure games ever, Police Quest. As time rolled on, PCs got faster, graphics improved and delved into 3D, attention spans got shorter, and the adventure game genre died a slow and quiet death.

In order to keep the franchise running, Sierra released Police Quest: SWAT for PC back in 1996. Although initially a little rough around the edges, the series has been refined over the years, and SWAT 3: Close Quarters was quite a well-rounded tactical shooter that sold millions of copies. Zoom to the present, and SWAT has finally made it to consoles, in the form of SWAT: Global Strike Team.

Set in the ‘near future’ like so many other games of this genre, it’s the year 2018 and the US sees fit to create a Global Strike Force of police personnel to travel around the world and seek justice for the good of democracy. Bypassing the fact that the thought of a US controlled worldwide police force is a hideously repulsive concept, you’ll be racking up the frequent flyer points, moving from the streets of LA to London, Moscow and beyond. There’s many a city to visit, but before you start souvenir shopping there’s some hostages to be rescued and international terrorists that need to be taken down.

Taking control of Mathias Kincaid, you lead a squad of 3 police officers through the various missions, trying to achieve your given objectives, which mainly consist of rescuing hostages, disarming bombs, and taking out terrorists. Your squad can be commanded by the use of the context sensitive d-pad, or voice commands. The range of voice commands is quite wide, with about 3 or 4 being on offer for each action and you can test the commands in the options set up. However, something that annoyed me no end was that there was no feedback in the headpiece whatsoever. I checked the options, made sure that everything related to headphones and such was on, but to no avail. This was extremely off putting, and ruined the whole immersion factor that is so wonderfully implemented in other games such as Rainbow Six.

Your two teammates have special abilities, and occasionally you’ll get to control them. Kana Lee is the sniper, and occasionally you’ll find yourself in her shoes shooting baddies from rooftops, clearing the area for the rest of the team. Lee is also good at picking locks, and by looking at a lock, the context sensitive interface allows you to command her to pick it. Anthony Jackson is the bomb and electronics expert, and he can be used to hack the many computer locks and security systems that litter the many areas you’ll find yourself in, as well as disarm the big nasty bombs around the place.

Unlike in so many other games in this genre, you are police officers first and foremost, and it is your duty to uphold the law. And the law says that using unnecessary force when trying to take down ‘perps’ is not on. This translates into gameplay with the addition of “compliance”, which is mapped to the X button. Looking at a target, and pressing the x button, or yelling, “get down” or “police” or a range of other commands if you’ve got a headset, results in a meter appearing underneath the target. This is the compliance meter, and by continued yelling, or even firing a few shots at them will increase this until they put their weapon down. Shooting the target when they’ve surrendered will result in you getting an “unnecessary use of force” penalty, as will headshots on targets that aren’t overly hostile to you. This means a 3-month investigation and pile of paper work, or in game terms, a lesser grade at the end of the mission.

The missions are really average, and I found myself being rather bored of it after the first couple. A part of this maybe the fact that each mission seems to be haphazardly thrown together around a lose storyline that lacks in every major department you can think of. The briefings have text and voice overs – no cool flashy images and cut scenes like so many other games. The characters are very two-dimensional and lack any depth, and this includes your teammates. And the plot, right from the very premise, is so contrived that it becomes predicable and hence, boring. Another factor is despite the compliance feature, most missions are just run and gun. You run into an area, wait for the enemy to shoot, and then shoot them. Whilst the AI of teammates is pretty damn good, and the only time you really need to worry about them is when they’re performing a special function such as disarming a bomb, the enemy is quite stupid. You can literally run circles around them, dodging their bullets, as they stand still and move their torso in your direction.

The game does feature over 20 missions, plus a heap of co-operative matches as well, plus a deathmatch option, so there is a lot to keep you busy, supposing you don’t get bored first. Co-op and Deathmatch are split screen – Xbox Live functionality isn’t supported apart from scoreboards and downloads. This is a real let down, as it may have been quite an interesting game online. However, if you don’t have live, and have a friend or relative to play with, then you may find yourself finding the co-op / deathmatch component getting more use than the single player missions, as whilst they feature similar locations and objectives, it’s always fun to play with others.

Graphically the game is a mixed bag. There are some real nice lighting effects, with lots of bloom (a term I picked up recently which refers to the look of the light haloing around objects) but textures and characters are just average. Most of the missions feature hallways, lots of hallways, and you can get lost, as they all do look the same. Enemies seem robotic and look sub-par, and have clipping issues with walls and doors at times. Sound wise the game is forgettable. Average voice acting, average bullet sounds, average environmental sounds, and I don’t recall hearing any music at all, it was so unremarkable.

Conclusion:
SWAT: Global Strike Team is one of those games that’s just plain average. It’s not a terrible game; just that this has been done so much better in many other games. There’s nothing overly impressive to find here, however there’s nothing really lacking either. Given that there are so many other excellent games of this genre available, the addition of demanding that the enemy surrender is a plus, but the lack of cohesive story and characters you believe in, and the oversight of not including Live! play, and the average graphics, enemy AI and sound has SWAT: GST coming off as second best.

Pros
+ ‘Compliance’ feature is an interesting idea.
+ Lots of Voice commands can be given for the same action
+ Lots of missions in the campaign, plus downloadable content.
+ Good Co-op split screen gameplay
+ Cool lighting effects

Cons
– No voice feedback through the headset, meaning you lose that sense of immersion
– The story seems very haphazardly put together around locations rather than a cohesive world
– No Xbox Live! online gaming seems like an enormous oversight, given that there’s downloadable levels, a scoreboard and voice.
– Just plain average in every other respect.

68/100