![]() ![]() In short, Ready Or Not comes across as playable police propaganda, which makes the developer’s plans to include features like a “school shooter” level all the more concerning. Nice guns!”, while the broad objective in every mission is “Bring order to chaos”, a phrase that wouldn’t be out of place in a Judge Dredd comic. Arrested hostages utter phrases like “You look like the guys in the movies. Its fictional version of LA is a dank and grimy place riddled top to bottom with crime, and you are the unambiguous light that cuts through this darkness. For all its claims of realism (the game’s Steam Early Access page states that Void Interactive “Consulted with police teams globally to create rules of engagement and a scoring system that are both challenging and realistic”) Ready Or Not‘s portrayal of SWAT units is pure Hollywood fantasy. ![]() Yet that’s exactly what Void Interactive does. But I don’t see how you can make a SWAT game today without at least acknowledging the question mark hanging over militarised police units. From the murder of George Floyd by a police offer and the resulting Black Lives Matter movement, to the phenomenon of SWAT-ing, the perception of the police by the general public has shifted enormously in the last 15 years, and there is an ongoing conversation about the role the police are intended to play in society versus how they actually operate.Īdmittedly, these are difficult topics to address in a game, especially one you engage with through the sights of a gun. Endemic corruption and racial bias has combined with a growing militarisation of the police, creating scenarios where gross abuses of power are commonplace. The last few years have laid bare the many institutional problems within modern police forces, particularly in the US, but in other countries like the UK and France too. The bigger problem, however, is that Ready Or Not fails to address the thematic challenges of making a SWAT game in 2022. Even aspects like character animations seem specifically designed to evoke SWAT 4, an odd decision considering how dated SWAT 4‘s animations look today. Many of the game’s levels are only slight variations on SWAT 4’s own locales, such as a mission in which you need to rescue hostages at a hotel under redevelopment, and a level that’s almost a direct copy of SWAT 4‘s infamous Fairfax Residence, replacing that mission’s dark twist with a less compelling hidden Meth Lab. Yet while Ready Or Not is an impressive facsimile of SWAT 4’s systems and style, the current Early Access build doesn’t do enough to modernise the experience, and this causes a bunch of problems in presentation and in theme. It even successfully mimics SWAT 4‘s oppressive atmosphere, with a dark and dingy visual style and some sufficiently grim locations. It carries over the randomised enemy spawning that makes every encounter unique, while adding new hazards to levels such as traps behind doors, alongside new SWAT equipment such as ballistic shields and battering rams. Its command system is similarly slick, adding some useful quality of life features such as a contextual hotkey that lets you order your squad to clear a room or arrest a suspect simply by pointing at the relevant object. Finally, it’s an FPS that implicitly discourages you from killing people, allowing deadly force only in direct defence of life, and encouraging you to make use of its less-lethal equipment.Ĭonsidered as a straight successor to SWAT 4, Ready Or Not does an admirable job of replicating what made Irrational‘s game so compelling. A combination of randomised enemy spawns and strict rules of engagement make turning every corner fraught with tension, while the game has a dark and eerie tone that sometimes verges upon outright horror. Firstly, its responsive, context-sensitive command system makes it incredibly easy to relay orders to your fellow officers. SWAT 4 is arguably my favourite tactical FPS, and there are three reasons why. READ MORE: ‘Project Zomboid”s Chris Simpson talks about a decade of Zomboid, and Build 41.If a suspect opens fire or refuses to comply, however, then lethal force is allowed. Ideally you do this through less-lethal coercion, deploying equipment like flashbangs, stinger grenades, and beanbag shotguns. Playing as the team leader of a five-man police response unit, you tackle various tactical scenarios in real-world locations like hotels and gas stations, rescuing hostages and neutralising suspects. Ready Or Not is a tactical FPS so heavily inspired by 2004’s SWAT 4 that it verges upon being a remake. There’s a lot to get through in this week’s column, so let’s not stand around fiddling with our flashbangs. This week, Rick Lane kicks in the door of SWAT-shooter Ready Or Not. Unfinished Business is NME’s column about the weird and wonderful world of Early Access Games. ![]()
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