The SWAT seriesThe
SWAT series are the follow up of
Sierra's classic
adventure game series
Police Quest. The
adventure game decreased in popularity by the mid-
nineties and
Jim Walls, the former series designer, left Sierra and was replaced by real-life
SWAT founder (and recently dismissed
LAPD chief after the
Rodney King scandal)
Daryl F. Gates. Gates only released
Open Season, panned for overly tedious rulebook gameplay and cliched plot, so Sierra had the need to search new genres for the popular
police simulation series
Daryl F. Gates' Police Quest: SWAT The first title,
Daryl F. Gates Police Quest: SWAT was an "interactive movie" type game released in
1995 that suffered the same fate as most titles of the same genre released during the so-called
Multimedia Explosion in the mid-nineties. With extensive use of
FMV videos for its basic gameplay, the game took up four
CDs. As the game flopped for a second time, it would take three years until a new game in the series would be released.
Police Quest: SWAT box cover. In keeping the rule strictness of the previous series, the majority of the game is spent in reptitive training exercises. In fact, there are only 3 actual missions in the game (a deranged grandmother, a barricaded fugitive, and a terrorist attack). Each of the missions can only be accessed after the successful completion of many training exercises. To increase replay value, the missions are randomized so that they unfold in a different way each time (a character may be an innocent in one play-through, and a gun-wielding maniac in another). The role the player takes during the mission also differs based on the career path they have selected during training; for example during the last mission the player may act as either the element leader or a high-ground sniper.
The strictness and discipline the game attempts to convey is emphasized by the game's opening movie, an introductory briefing delivered by the Sergeant to the player character. If the player attempts to skip this opening movie, the Sergeant will berate the player character for this disrespectful and insubordinate behavior.
Police Quest: SWAT2 
[a href=\"http://"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SWAT2-cover.jpg"\" target=\"_blank\"]
SWAT 2 box cover.
Police Quest: SWAT 2 (
1998) was an isometric view, team-based
RTS game in the line of the classic
X-Com or
Jagged Alliance games, but with a more tactical component. The game takes place in real-time, with the player issuing orders to individual SWAT team members from a three-quarter overhead view of the level. Many of the game's missions were based on real life events, such as the
North Hollywood shootout.
The game's story revolves around a conflict between SWAT and an emerging left-wing
domestic terrorist group called "the Five Eyes". The game features two separate campaigns, one in which you control SWAT and another in which you take the role of a lieutenant in the Five Eyes terrorist organization.
As a homage, Sonny Bonds, the protagonist of the original
Police Quest series, is one of the SWAT officers available for you to send into missions during the SWAT campaign. Sonny is an element leader and has some of the best stats in the game.
With much more positive reviews than the previous two games, it still had several flaws, such as the overly complicated interface and imperfect AI.
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SWAT 3 Main article: SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle [a href=\"http://"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Swat3box.jpg"\" target=\"_blank\"]
[/url]
SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle box cover. Until now, the most popular game in the series was the third installment,
SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle, released in
1999. It had two major updates,
Elite Edition (
2000) and
Tactical Game Of The Year (
2001), which added more game modes (including
paintball), mod support, maps, weapons and skins. Although those were sold as new games, the new features are freely available from Sierra's SWAT 3 website.
In the game (which was fully endorsed by SWAT, who worked closely with the development team), played in a fictional near-future of
2005,
Los Angeles is hosting the signing of the
United Nations Nuclear Abolishment Treaty, which will celebrate
Global Peace Day 2005. SWAT is responsible for defending the city from the various ultra-nationalist domestic and foreign terrorist groups intent upon sabotaging the treaty. The player is the leader of a five man strike team, and has to issue orders to the remaining pairs (Blue and Red) to properly finish a mission. The leadership rating (which defines how well the mission was played) depends on several factors, such as the improper use of deadly force, killing cooperative enemies and proper communications (calling evacuation for a dead enemy or declaring a downed but breathing character dead would take points) would reduce the rating. Medals are awarded according to the situations faced in the mission, but are rarely affected by a poor leadership score.
The levels (for a total of 13 in the campaign) are varied, from high-risk arrests and dignitary protection to bomb defusals. The hostage and terrorist positions are randomly assigned at each game start, assuring a different experience every time. Some of the maps are based on real buildings such as the LA City Hall or the Convention Center. Common criticisms are the lack of
sniper support and predefined tactics, which are at disposal in contenders
Rainbow Six series. As a homage, Marie Wilkins, one of the main characters from the
Police Quest series, appears as a bank clerk in the bank mission.
[/a]
SWAT: Global Strike Team Two action-oriented
console titles were planned. The first, SWAT: Urban Justice was announced in [a href=\"http://"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002"\" target=\"_blank\"]2002 but canceled one year later and
SWAT: Global Strike Team, released for the
Xbox and the
PlayStation 2. The "trigger happy" gameplay of both caused some friction between SWAT and Sierra.
SWAT 4 box cover. [/a]
SWAT 4 Main article: SWAT 4 SWAT 4 was released in April [a href=\"http://"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005"\" target=\"_blank\"]2005[/url], developed by
Irrational Games. It is closer in style to
SWAT 3 and features improvements to graphics, inclusion of
Havok physics, a simplified and more player-friendly control scheme, random suspect/hostage locations in missions and more multiplayer options.
An expansion pack by the name of
The Stetchkov Syndicate was released in February of
2006. Both
SWAT 4 and
The Stetchkov Syndicate can be purchased together in the SWAT Gold Edition package.
[/a]
SWAT Force Main article: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWAT_Force" title="SWAT Force">SWAT Force SWAT Force is the first game of the series to be released for
mobile phones. The player controls a two man team (
sharp shooter and demolition expert) and tries to rescue hostages, arrest suspects and secure weapons. It was released
February 28,
2006.
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police life 
