And if you kill a hostage, or fail to neutralise a suspect before they do, it’s an instant mission failure. On normal difficulty you have to score 50 out of a possible 100 to unlock the next level, which forces you to play and think tactically. So handcuffing a surrendered suspect will increase your end-of-level score, while killing someone without first determining if they’re a threat will reduce it. Everything you do earns or loses you points. SWAT 4’s point system keeps you in check. You can only fire if someone fires at you, and killing a suspect who was in the process of surrendering is a fast track to a mission failure.
You’re a cop, not a soldier, and it turns out that means you can’t just charge in and murder everyone. But being part of (and indeed the commander of) a SWAT team brings a lot of dangerous new challenges to the table. They share similar disciplines, namely formulating and executing a plan to defeat the enemy as efficiently and safely as possible. It’s playing as a law-abiding, law-enforcing boy in blue that sets SWAT 4 apart from other tactical shooters such as Rainbow Six. The perfect excuse to revisit Fairview and rain down some justice. But now the game and its expansion, The Stetchkov Syndicate, are available on GOG. This oversight is not helped by the fact that, until recently, it was difficult to (legally) acquire digitally.
