by Rod "Rodder" Lundgren

  Back in the mid 90's Sierra's first SWAT game hit the streets. It was a good first effort, but the second was much better, and was a real time strategy game along the first person shooter lines. Now with SWAT 3, Special Weapons and Tactics has come home to roost in a first-person tactical simulation.

In SWAT 3 you control the element Lead of a five-man squad which is broken into Red and Blue elements. As Lead, you decide who goes where and who does what, much as in Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear.

Also as in Rogue Spear, squad members can move in one of two ways: dynamic, and stealthy. This is tactical gameplay at its best, and SWAT 3 may be the closest competition this year for the Spec Ops II and Rogue Spear crowd.

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As leader your first mission is to choose your squad. You have 16 members to choose from, each with differing skills and experience. Unlike earlier first person shooters, your squad members gain in experience in career mode, increasing your incentive to keep them healty!

As a response to increased urban violence in the early 1960s, police and sheriff departments began implementing military strategies against armed and barricaded suspects. Among the first to organize such a full-time tactical unit was the Los Angeles Police Department. Christened Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) by future LAPD Chief Daryl F. Gates, this elite group would revolutionize crisis management techniques worldwide.

Several tragic incidents spurred SWAT's creation. The Watts riots in August 1965 lasted seven days and involved 10,000 people over an area of 46.5 square miles. Thirty-four people died and more than 1,000 people were wounded. Even as the fires smoldered, the LAPD realized that innovative tactics were needed to contain and control this new form of decentralized mayhem.

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In a crack house.

Next you must equipped the squad members with weapons and gear. On the SWAT team each weapon has both a primary and secondary load. The shotgun, for example, has a breaching slug which can make a locked door an easy entry. In the style typical of recent physics engines, even the path of individual bullets is traced by the AI, including all nine pellets in a primary shotgun load! Similarly, different weapons affect different materials appropriately.

Environment and Graphics

Environments are particularly impressive. All the action takes place indoors, so loving attention has been paid to detail. The 18 close-quarter missions can be played in any order or in sequence in the career mode.

The characters in SWAT 3 look particulary good. They ought to... all the motion capture was done using an LAPD SWAT officer. The graphics engine itself is based on the Gabriel Knight engine, rendering the upper and lower body separately. The difference is immediately apparent, since this technique allows SWAT members to lean sideways, peek around corners, and generally protect as much of their bodies as possible.

Detail? Just like in an actual SWAT team, the member's name appears on his vest. Bullet holes appear where they should. Faces can even be recognized. The enemy AI allows them to respond to sounds, including footfalls and gunfire, and you can track down a wounded assasin via the trail of blood!

At least two training missions are to be included in the release, complete with a talking trainer who walks you through the tactics. The last information on multiplayer was that it would follow the initial release in the spring of 2000, and the initial release would be single player only. Watch for a hands on report soon!

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