Game Reviews - SWAT: Global Strike Team (PS2)

I mentioned this game in one of my Recent Game Collection Finds videos. I said that it looked like a Rainbow Six ripoff, and that I'd make an update at some point if the game is anything worth mentioning.

Well, it is. It's actually a very good game. Surprisingly good, actually. I'm loving this game. It isn't really a Rainbow Six ripoff. I should have noticed at the time that it was a SWAT game made by Sierra. SWAT was a popular series of PC games that I've never played.

All I knew about the series was that it was a tedious, unforgiving mess of a game that Spoony made great comedic fodder out of. His Let's Play SWAT 4 videos are still some of my favorite things he's done, and I'm a huge fan of his so that's saying something. I was always sort of aware that he probably wasn't playing the game right, but that was what made it funny. The game took points off for "unlawful use of deadly force" whenever he shot a guy who was pointing a shotgun in his face, just because the guy hadn't fired yet, when I'm sure any SWAT officer would have sprayed that guy's brains across the wall the moment he pointed the gun at him.

I didn't expect this game to be fun. I expected it to be a lot like SWAT 4. But it isn't. The ally AI isn't stupid, or at least they don't get in the way, and instead of working in a precinct in a random city, you're playing as a
team of commandos that operates like SWAT dealing with a multinational criminal organization. That's not important, though. The plot just serves to put you in the specific scenarios the missions take place in, such as a bank robbery, a skyscraper in Paris or the London underground.

The goal here isn't like that of most traditional FPS games. You don't go in guns blazing. That gets you killed. You don't have a lot of energy unless you're playing on easy mode, and even then, you probably shouldn't play cowboy. You also can't go in stealthily dispatching each enemy. You're a SWAT officer, so you have to ambush the enemy, overwhelm them, incapacitate them and handcuff them. Or failing that, spray their brains across the wall. The game doesn't take points off when you do that, provided the enemy has opened fire on you, or has a hostage at gunpoint. If you kill a suspect when they're doing that, you're good.

You also get a tranquilizer pistol, which is very useful as well if you want to take a guy down, but still want to arrest him. Also useful is melee. A lot of the missions have you in close range, and occasionally, you will be face to face with a criminal. So, you can just hit him in the face with your gun and knock him out with one hit.

The most fun parts for me however are the sniper sequences. You use your team's sniper to get into position and take a group of goons out. For some reason, it's just very satisfying to do that.

The best part though, is that your teammates never inform you that you're in their spot.

Check it out if you get any enjoyment out of FPS games. The game goes for a very low price, and you can probably snag one on eBay for $5. It's also on the XBOX, and I doubt that version's any different. I highly recommend this game.