Interface

Any mission, anytime

There's one thing I specifically liked about SWAT 3's front end. The game comes with about 15 missions - using mission mode, you can play any of them that you like in any order without having to deal with "beating" the game in career mode. It always bugs me how a lot of games force you to go through the progression first before "unlocking" and allowing you to play any of the levels. SWAT 3 makes it convenient to skip around, which is nice because there's not a real coherent or specific storyline anyway.

Surrender!

You're dead, but you friends apprehended him

Front end could be better

Aside from convenient skipping of missions, there were some real holes in SWAT 3's front end. One is that you cannot access the useful building blueprints using mission mode. These seem to be accessible only if you play the game through the step by step career mode. You can eventually learn the building layouts by trial and error anyway, but it would have been a lot more convenient to make all the options accessible for when you want to play just a quick and dirty mission. Another thing that's odd is that you cannot adjust the mouse sensitivity in the game! This is a horrible oversight for a first person shooter. To make matters worse, you cannot rebind your keys while in the middle of a mission.

Approaching the target

Don't shoot civilians!

In Game

Thankfully, the in-game interface is a lot more usable than the front end. You can set basic movement keys, use the mouse to aim, etc, but there is no jumping in SWAT 3. This isn't Quake 2 so don't expect to strafe jump like a madman down a hallway! The function keys are for changing weapons and to different items like your flashbang and tear gas grenades, lightsticks, and lockpick tool. Our only complaint here is that there's no meter to tell you how many bullets are left in your clip. The cross hair will turn gray when you go dry but other than that, you have to keep track of your bullets yourself. Supposedly this was a conscious decision to add more realism to the game - real SWAT members swap out clips after a few bursts. They do this even if they're only half empty, just so that they're always safe with a full clip. Whether or not you accept this explanation is up to you, but we would have preferred a bullet meter.

Oops	We know better this time around...

The number keys are reserved for the branching communication system in SWAT 3. You use this communication system to give orders to your men and radio back situations to the unit commander (e.g. Officer down, send medical evacuation). It's basically the same system used in the original Battlezone, and works quite well for a tactical shooter - press a number button to select a team to talk to, which will open up a second menu with the list of orders you can have them execute. The system is context sensitive depending on where your crosshair is pointed. If you point at a door and access orders for your men, the options for breaching, clearing, picking the lock, etc. will come up. If you're pointed at a disarmed terrorist or hostage, you can order your men to cuff them, etc.