Reviewed: March 30, 2006
Reviewed by: Jeff Gedgaud
Publisher
Sierra
Vivendi Universal Games
Developer
Irrational Games
Released: February 28, 2006
Genre: FPS
Players: 1-10
ESRB: Mature
8
8
7
8
7.8
Minimum System Requirements
Recommended System
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Sierra along with Vivendi Universal Games brings an expansion pack for the popular tactical first person shooter SWAT 4. In SWAT 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate your in charge of a highly trained Special Weapons and Tactics team and you have to make the decisions trying to arrest the bad guys and save the hostages. The Stetchkov Syndicate is an expansion adding seven new levels along with a few new weapons and gadgets to help you and your team. The one big addition to the expansion that gamers have been clamoring for is Voice Over IP but this expansion also includes some other goodies like hold for the go code and a new type of multiplayer game.
Following a crime syndicate’s theme you go in leading your team arresting the crooks and rescuing the hostages and civilians who got in the middle. Many of the scenes are difficult and have been created so there are a lot of corners and things to hide behind for both sides. Most of the levels use the theme of the syndicate’s crimes as a story line but you don’t really need any story to enjoy this tactical FPS.
Being an expansion pack you would expect the game to play about the same and it is a little better in some areas. But there were a few things that I noticed both better and worse than the original game. I was very surprised when you did not get all the new weapons right off the bat in the single player campaign. I figured you would get to use them when you wanted and could play around with all the new toys but they only offer some of the new weapons in certain levels. I can understand this for some of the guns like the 5.56MM light machine gun, but if you want to carry the new sub machine gun to arrest a few drug cookers I think you should be able to.
The game play is pretty good, but one problem that they still have with the game is with the AI or recognition of the enemies on the other side. Many times during both the original SWAT 4 and The Stetchkov Syndicate I saw bad guys looking around them in clear view of me and they did nothing. Most of the time this happens when you are alone and not leading your group of teammates. I also noticed that the bad guys do not react at all to your flashlight but ignore it when you can see yours sweeping rooms ahead of you.
In the expansion the civilians tend to resist your attempts to cuff them so you get to use your stun gun more. The bad guys do move around more freely than the first game, its nice to see them fleeing from room to room a bit more during your attempts at arresting them. In one mission you get penalized for letting people escape and get to hear the cops on the perimeter tell you to get the bad guys before they get away.
Other than some small problems this first person shooter is pretty good. The bad guys react quickly when they have the chance but the whole point of the special weapons and tactics is that you don’t give them the chance. You need to use your Optiwand and other tools as well as your teammates. By adding a delayed command to the mix of new features you can order a squad or the rest of your team to hold at one door and wait for your order to move in while you circle around and start in another door.
You have the other weapons and toys from the first game as well as these new ones, 5.7x28MM Submachine Gun (looks like a P90), Colt Accurized Rifle, light machine gun, grenade launcher with all kinds of neat rounds, the two round Cobra stun gun, 9MM machine pistol and the Mark 19 .50 Semiautomatic pistol. You get some other toys like an extra ammo pouch to carry an extra clip for your primary weapon, light sticks, night vision goggles and a no armor option to allow for faster movement.
The single player campaign is a bit short with the seven new missions. It took me about eight hours to run through all of them at some of the different difficulty settings to see what the changes in difficulties were. It adds penalties and bonuses in the form of following your rules of engagement or giving the bad guys the chance to surrender or hurting civilians as the points given or taken away from you. The different levels of difficulty mean you need so many points to successfully finish each mission. If you accidentally shoot a civilian or don’t give a bad guy the chance to give up you’ll lose points and in the harder difficulties you can’t do this at all.
During installation The Stetchkov Syndicate will add the Gamespy arcade to your computer for easy online multiplayer action. This is where the game gets really good. I had no problems, playing online in the multiplayer games other than the unusually long load times for the game that occur for all of it. There are plenty of people playing and with the new type of game it’s pretty fun. The usual games from the first SWAT 4 are here, Barricaded Suspects, VIP Escort, Rapid Deployment, and Co-op. They have also added “Smash and Grab”. The good guys protect a case while the suspects try to grab it and bring it back to their original start point. The multiplayer games are fun and very challenging playing against other people.
They have added some features to multi player voting for things like who becomes leader, to change the map or mode the group is playing or to kick and ban certain players in the time between games. They have also upped the Co-op play to 10 players and added Voice over IP to the multiplayer. You get to use any of the weapons used in the missions and the other toys but you’ll hardly get much chance to change from one to the next, as the action is quick in many online games.
The graphics in The Stetchkov Syndicate are good and with the things like getting hit by gas or sting grenades and the world going fuzzy for a few seconds they have done well. I had no problems on my computer and saw no glitches that were not in the first game. The glitch I am talking about and many know about it is at doors. You get too close to the closed door and parts of you will stick out the other side allowing people on the other side to take shots at those parts.
The biggest complaint I have for this portion of the game is with the load times. The game must have some odd thing in the engine to require long load times of two and even three minutes to load a level and the start of the game. The more annoying part is when you quite a game and it takes a minute to load the main menu or the mission menu. But aside from that the games graphics are very good. With good detail and objects that get moved when you bump into them are all over the place the game looks and plays well.
The sound during The Stetchkov Syndicate was a problem, it kept skipping and sounding like it wasn’t finished editing while playing the single player campaign. The briefings had skipping while they were telling you the situation and during game play it would skip on occasion but mostly during the briefings. Other than this annoyance the sound was good, and just fine in the multiplayer games. The VOIP worked well for me and is a very good addition to this type of game.
The Voice over IP requires a microphone and your usual sound card that hooks it up. You have to push a key to talk to others while in game but it works pretty well. Many are not using it yet but it is a better way to communicate during play and will be something that these types of games will be using more and more of in the future.
The single player campaign is pretty short in SWAT 4 The Stetchkov Syndicate. It lasted me about eight hours playing on different difficulties but you can also play instant action games that randomly pick maps for you to play the usual suspect hunt on. You can also create your own missions using the custom mission creator and have fun trying to make it harder for you or others to find and arrest suspects on your own custom missions.
With a short campaign the game makes up for this lack of replay by adding in the multiplayer and the various bonuses there. They have added a new game type and the VOIP along with a few new weapons and toys to play with. The multiplayer portion is really fun and plays well over the servers at Gamespy. I had no major complaints and even the minor things are no big deal. The multiplayer is a really well done part of the game and Sierra is trying to work hard on making this a featured part of SWAT 4 and the expansion pack.
SWAT 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate is a very good expansion pack for SWAT 4. It adds some new missions and a few extra goodies for both the single player and the multiplayer online action. The addition of a new game type and the Voice Over IP makes the expansion well worth the cost and plays very well over the internet. The game has a few minor problems but nothing that isn’t a hassle or worth complaining about.
The multiplayer portion of the game is where Swat 4 shines and it is no different with the expansion pack. The Gamespy network makes it easy to identify on their servers which game type it is and whether you need the expansion to play any particular game. Overall SWAT 4 The Stetchkov Syndicate is a pretty good game expansion to the original game and well worth it.