Police Quest: SWAT 2

Police Quest: SWAT 2 (stylized as SWAT2) is a 1998 real-time tactics and police simulation video game released for Microsoft Windows. It is the sixth game in the Police Quest series. It uses an isometric projection camera view, somewhat similar to the squad-level real-time tactics video game in the mold of X-COM or Jagged Alliance games. Police Quest: SWAT 2's gameplay takes place in real-time, with the player issuing orders to individual avatars from a static isometric view of the level.

"SWAT 2" redirects here. For the 2011 film, see S.W.A.T.: Firefight.
"SWAT II" redirects here. For the electoral district, see Constituency PK-81 (Swat-II) and NA-3 (Swat-II).
"The Council of the 5 Eyes" redirects here. For the espionage intelligence alliance, see Five Eyes. For the military organization, see Five Eyes Air Force Interoperability Council.
Police Quest: SWAT 2
Developer(s)Yosemite Entertainment
Publisher(s)Sierra FX
Producer(s)Oliver Brelsford Craig Alexander
Designer(s)Susan Frischer[1]
Programmer(s)Victor Sadauskas
Writer(s)Susan Frischer
Composer(s)Jason Hayes
Chance Thomas[2]
SeriesPolice Quest
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows
Release
Genre(s)Real-time tactics
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Development

Many of Police Quest: SWAT 2's in-game missions were based on real life events, such as the North Hollywood shootout of February 1997, and a small-scale riot at a strip mall that can be seen as a parallel to the 1992 Los Angeles riots that followed the Rodney King beating incident. The game's soundtrack was composed by Jason Hayes and Chance Thomas, with the game's theme song being titled "Just Another Day in L.A.", performed by Utahn singer Randall "Randy" Porter, composed by Chance Thomas, and written by Susan Frischer.[4] The lead designer was Susan Frischer.[5]

Plot

Police Quest: SWAT 2's story takes place in Los Angeles, California and the surrounding metropolitan area in the game's then-future of 1999, and revolves around a fictional conflict between the Los Angeles Police Department and a fictional emerging left-wing domestic terrorist organization calling themselves the "Five Eyes", led by a mysterious figure named Basho, and his second-in-command, Dante.

As a homage, Sonny Bonds, the protagonist of the original Police Quest series, is one of the LAPD SWAT officers available for the player to send into missions during the LAPD SWAT campaign. Sonny's high initial stats, some of the best in the game, allow him to become certified as an element leader.

Gameplay

The game features two separate campaigns, one in which the player controls SWAT and another in which the player takes the role of a lieutenant in the Five Eyes terrorist organization.

Police campaign

The player assumes the role of police chief John De Souza, and direct control of the SWAT Elements on the mission map. The player receives information about the mission from crisis negotiator Sgt. Michael Alvarez. At the end of a mission, the player is debriefed by Sgt. Griffin Markossian. While playing as SWAT, the player must adhere to certain rules and regulations, such as refraining from opening fire on non-threatening subjects and avoiding friendly fire. Failure to obey regulations may lead to officers getting suspended or terminated, or the game may even end as the police chief himself is fired. Officers who kill a suspect legally are always suspended for at least one mission as the shooting is investigated while the player earns fewer points than if the suspect was arrested, which affects the amount of money budgeted to SWAT. Therefore, it is in the player's best interests to capture rather than kill suspects.

The Five Eyes is controlled by Basho, a high-ranking officer in the Council of the Five Eyes. Basho provides all briefings via a TV screen. Basho's right-hand man is Dante, a self-proclaimed Bellwether of the Second Order. As a terrorist there's no specific persona the player assumes. Instead, they merely control all terrorist units during a mission.

A sniper element by the SWAT Bus.

Terrorist campaign

The gameplay in the Five Eyes scenario is slightly different. Most prominently, additional members can be recruited from hostages, and gunning down police and other armed individuals who may not necessarily present an immediate threat is encouraged and rewarded. Killing hostages is still penalized (Basho wishes to recruit rather than kill them) but to a much lesser extent than in the SWAT campaign. Only the killing of certain special civilians will lead to an early end of the game. Terrorists can be arrested by the police, but they will eventually manage to make bail and then skip town to rejoin the Five Eyes. Therefore, it is sometimes to the player's advantage to allow one of his terrorists to be arrested in order to save their life and slow down the SWAT team.

The weapons are also different, but still have the same purpose, such as the terrorists' primary automatic weapon being the LR 300 instead of SWAT's MP5A2.

There are 30 missions in total, fifteen each for SWAT players and for the Five Eyes scenario. They are independent storylines and neither affects the game of the other, though some settings and events are common to both campaigns. Both scenarios can be played from the start of the game, simply by selecting the option at the New Solo Game interface window.

The bio page for a terrorist.

The terrorist missions have a similar interface, with a few added options related to hostages but much fewer tactical actions, and the basic premise is comparable. Notably, a terrorist mission ends when all police are killed. This may or may not be desirable, depending on how many mission objectives have been completed.

Common elements

The first two missions in both scenarios are training missions. Subsequent missions greatly impact the budget (see above), and outright failure in certain missions may end the campaign altogether.

While not a true adventure game, it does contain an inventory and menu options similar to other Sierra adventure games and previous Police Quest titles (a 'look/search' icon, a pick-up hand icon, a talk/challenge/communication icon, etc.). On occasion there are items such as a 'pizza', 'throw phones' or 'evidence', that must be picked up and used to solve ingame puzzles. Unlike most strategy games, there are many cases where the player must 'communicate' and speak with the enemy side (either with a "throw phone" or an existing telephone), and convince them to stand down, release hostages, draw them into the open or simply buy time. SWAT also has access to an armored car and a helicopter which the player can call in through the interface, while a terrorist player can call in a getaway car. The availability of these vehicles depends on the mission.

Release

Marketing

Police Quest: SWAT 2 was later re-released in the "SWAT Career Pack" (with all six Police Quest games), the Police Quest: SWAT Force pack (which included the first two SWAT games), the Police Quest: SWAT Generation collection (with SWAT and SWAT 3), and in the Police Quest: SWAT 1 & 2 at GOG.com. Early releases of the game were listed as Police Quest 6 (PQ6) in the file names and folders. However, that name does not appear on the title screen or cover art.

Like its predecessor Police Quest: SWAT, Police Quest: SWAT 2 was a commercial success. Its sales surpassed 400,000 copies by late 1999.[6]

Reception
Reception
Aggregate score
AggregatorScore
GameRankings70%[7]
Review scores
PublicationScore
AllGame[8]
CGSP[9]
CGW[10]
Game Informer6/10[11]
GameRevolutionA−[12]
GameSpot5.7/10[13]
IGN7/10[14]
PC Gamer (UK)68%[15]
PC Gamer (US)52%[16]

SWAT 2 received "average" reviews, much more positive than the previous two games, according to the review aggregation website GameRankings.[7] The game still had several flaws, such as the overly complicated interface, micromanaging, an imperfect artificial intelligence, and a simple work-around of selling the sidearms of unused avatars that allowed players to ignore the budgeting and financial aspect of the game.

gollark: (coming soon)
gollark: Just use osmarkscalculatorâ„¢.
gollark: Matlab has a genetic-algorithm-thing builtin? And it isn't concurrent? Weird.
gollark: What I meant was that you could change your code to use parfor or something when iterating over the possible configurations at each stage.
gollark: Since there's synchronization overhead and the non-parallel bits.

References
  1. "Police Quest: SWAT 2 (1998) Windows credits". MobyGames. Blue Flame Labs. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
  2. "Music Scoring Credits". Chance Thomas. Retrieved October 2, 2013.
  3. "Swat 2 Goes Gold". GameSpot. July 6, 1998. Archived from the original on June 14, 2000. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
    "The game will be on store shelves by July 11[, 1998]."
  4. "SWAT 2 Single, "Just Another Day in L.A." Released". Yosemite Entertainment. 1998. Archived from the original on December 7, 1998.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
  5. "Police Quest: SWAT 2". Yosemite Entertainment. March 1, 2000. Archived from the original on May 12, 2000. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
  6. Coghlan, John (November 2, 1999). "SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle Interview". IGN. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on June 2, 2002. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  7. "Police Quest: SWAT 2 for PC Reviews". GameRankings. CBS Interactive. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  8. Suciu, Peter. "Police Quest: SWAT 2 - Review". AllGame. All Media Network. Archived from the original on November 16, 2014. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  9. Brush, Ryan (September 4, 1998). "Police Quest: SWAT 2". Computer Games Strategy Plus. Strategy Plus. Archived from the original on May 18, 2003. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  10. McCauley, Dennis (November 1998). "Is Your Number Still 911? (Police Quest: SWAT 2 Review)" (PDF). Computer Gaming World. No. 172. Ziff Davis. pp. 314, 320. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  11. Bergren, Paul (July 1998). "[Police Quest] SWAT 2". Game Informer. No. 63. FuncoLand.
  12. Brian B. (August 1998). "Police Quest SWAT 2 Review". Game Revolution. CraveOnline. Archived from the original on October 12, 2015. Retrieved December 25, 2018.
  13. Krol, Scott (August 13, 1998). "Police Quest: SWAT 2 Review [date mislabeled as "May 2, 2000"]". GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  14. Bates, Jason (August 11, 1998). "[Police Quest] SWAT 2". IGN. Ziff Davis. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  15. "Police Quest: SWAT 2". PC Gamer UK. Future plc. 1999.
  16. Poole, Stephen (November 1998). "Police Quest: SWAT 2". PC Gamer. Vol. 5 no. 11. Future US. Archived from the original on March 11, 2000. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
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