While checking my list of remaining games, I encountered SWAT 4. It took me some time and a little more money than usual to get this game but it was worth it. From the demo half-a-dozen years ago I already knew the game a tiny little bit. I’d like to compare SWAT 4 and Raven Shield: Rainbow Six as this turns out to be interesting.
I do not have any screenshots for R6 right now but these two games really look the similar fashion.
Rainbow Six is composed of international members acting as a globally deployable special operation unit, a SWAT team is avaiable in any bigger US town as part of the police, as were are in SWAT4. R6 has a weak story connecting some of the missions, in SWAT4 all maps tell their own (good) story.
SWAT 4 - dance bar
This already makes the biggest difference in the games’ philosophies: R6 is ruthless about the terrorists’ life, in some missions you just have to neutralize them all with the aid of heavy machine guns and explosives. SWAT4 punishes you for every inappropriate use of violence! There’s also no such heavy machinery as in R6, i.e. only non-lethal grenades (stun, gas and stinger grenades) which forces you to always try the most diplomatical way first before using guns:
In SWAT4, by pressing the Use-button you scream “Police! Hands in the air!” and such stuff which is most effective if you silently appear behind an armed enemy who is then likely to surrender. If they don’t do at once, you can repeat it or make use of pepper spray. And if nothing helps at all and the terrorist appears to make use of his gun against you – or escapes – you and your crew are allowed to fire. Ok, in cases of too many people around to handle it the soft way, you better shoot before they do. In Rainbow Six, an enemy surrenders only at a chance of 1:50 resulting in killing 98%.
There’re also civilians or hostages running around, some causing trouble by refusing to get safeguarded or running into the shooting line. Time for pepper spray. R6 has no unrelated civilians running around and hostages behave very stupid.
The mission management in SWAT 4 is much straighter than in R6. R6 allows you to choose of three dozens of specialists, four dozens of guns with upgrades, having up to three independent teams that can be navigated by putting nodes onto the level map, setting Go-codes and actions. In SWAT 4, your team always consists of you and four other men. Then can be equipped out of a few types of guns (assault rifles such as M4, G36, machine pistols like the MP5, pump-guns and tasers) and you all have a secondary gun, a pistol. You have two types of ammunition to choose of, and additionally, you can take grenades, pepperspray, door detontation kits and some more stuff with you. SWAT 4 gives you a rough overview by the briefing and abstract blueprints. In R6 you spend maybe hours of planning and refining before getting the final idea, here it’s just a few minutes. A relaxing fact: if your SWAT-crewman is down, he will immedeatly re-appear the next time, no worry about deaths and long rehab periods.
In SWAT4, you cannot change the perspective, you’re always the leader. But you can divide your teams into 2 two-men-groups and give them orders seperatly – if they are around the corner, you can access their view (opens a picture-in-picture) and give them their commands directly or via a menu – allowing you to enter the room from two doors at the same time, in R6 you may have set joining routes here with Go-codes. Some maps offer support by snipers that you use by controlling their rifles and zooming, but their position is static. So both games have useful features to manage planning and teams but very different approaches. In SWAT4, the orders get lost if something happens in the execution (an enemy appears) or the radio control is reporting something. By the way in SWAT4, you have to report any neutralized enemy, rescued hostage or injured civilian to the TOC and you have to collect the guns!
SWAT 4 - sect's basement
Some word to the maps. SWAT4 takes place in comparably small and average areas, such as shops, restaurants, living quarters but also a hospital, a bank house and more. R6 has airfields, refineries, ranches and other big places. By the need of not killing everybody, well-hiding enemies and the more labyrinthine design in SWAT4, there is no big difference in the time you spend on the maps. But SWAT4 looks more authentic :)
What I really liked in SWAT4 over R6: the AI. Enemies running away, taking cover, setting ambushs are a way more challenging. Fortunately, the same holds for your mates: everyone looks into a certain direction, they look upwards beforce ascending stairs, they cover the exits when inside a room. This greatly improves the atmosphere and lowers the frustration that often came up in R6 – it’s not perfect here, but much better. In SWAT4, terrorists hesitate longer before shooting hostages, resucing in R6 was the most difficult part.
At the end, two more positive things in SWAT4: lighting, something that is completly missing in R6. Missions are at night, some corners are very dark, some basements very spooky. R6 also had no music, SWAT4 raises the atmosphere greatly by playing action- or thrilling-music.
What they both have in common: the need for repeating the maps because of failing (at least in “normal”-difficulty in SWAT). In R6 because hostages or too many of your team members died, in SWAT mainly because you haven’t reached the necessary score of 50+ points, e.g. by punishments of illegal use of weapons or forgetting to report something. In the average I had to repeat a SWAT4 map 10-20 times, in R6… ehm, 20-50 times? I don’t know, many, many times … SWAT4 is shorter with around 10-15 hours, R6 something up to 40.
So if you are a hard-core tactician, R6 is your game. If you’re more a shooter preferring an overall well-entertaining game, take SWAT4. No, try out both those games ;)
