SWAT 4 on a netbook

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What lurks behind that door better be checked with a flashbang first...

If you like tactical shooters with a heavy dose on realism, then SWAT 4 might be the urban combat simulator which you are looking for. Placing you in a SWAT team, you take up arms ranging from the AK47 to the non-lethal pepper spraying gun, and a range of handguns, explosives, flashbangs, and other tools that will aid you in what is one of the hardest shooting games out there.

Teamwork is essential to your survival as both you and your enemies are potential one-shot kills. Open a door without checking and you might be looking down the barrel of a shotgun. Command your team well in ordering them to open and flashbang, and you might just save a few lives in that mission.

Multiplayer on SWAT, however, takes the cake. The game engrosses you in different modes, such as the standard team deathmatch styled games and if you have a friend, you can also do co-op modes where you will jointly try to take complete missions available in the single player. And that’s probably the best part about SWAT – its multiplayer. At least, until you die in co-op and have to sit out the whole round without playing.

Technical Problems?

With guns like that, this is no ordinary beat

Being a fairly modern game for a netbook, you’d expect that the game would be on the brink of totally being unable to be played. In fact, even before you start the game up, a big warning sign would complain that your modern but extremely underpowered Intel GMA is not supported and you’ll run the game at your own risk.

Of course, I had to try. FPS in-game was pretty much below average, and hampered a lot of the gameplay. Sometimes, you need to react quickly, and aim quickly, but when the lag sets in, it can be quite hard to see where you’re actually aiming. Also, the draw distance, when the graphics are set to the lowest, leave much to be desired. In certain rooms, you would not be able to see from one end to the room to the other.

Fixes?

For starters, you won’t be able to mod much of the game to any level of supreme playability. You’ll be struggling along the likes of 15fps and less when the action is turned up. Ideally, your computer has been set up to be able to play games in the 4:3 resolution without causing unsightly stretching.

But if you have a more powerful computer and you want to play in a widescreen resolution, you can do the following,

Navigate to \SWAT 4\Content\System and open Swat4.ini in a text editor such as NotePad.

Search for the following lines:

FullscreenViewportX=
FullscreenViewportY=

Modify these lines to suit your resolution. X is horizontal and Y is vertical.

The following example would force the game to run in the resolution of 1440×900.

FullscreenViewportX=1440
FullscreenViewportY=900

After changing the values, save the file and make it read only. This will prevent the game reverting back to a 4:3 resolution.

When launching and exiting the game you will get the error File Not Saved: Failed to write \SWAT 4\Content\System\Swat4.ini. This error is fine, just click OK to continue.

Some vertical view is lost when running in a widescreen resolution.

Source: Widescreen Gaming wiki

However, I never bothered because on any bog-standard Intel GMA, the best res to play it is unfortunately the one that looks the most unsightly – 800×600.

Like

Very realistic sim

Heart-pounding action, tense atmosphere and great soundtrack to add to the fright factor

Lots of cool guns and tools

Dislike

Gets exponentially tougher to a point where you’ll be restarting often

Has performance issues on a netbook

Controls take time to master

Verdict

If you like realism, guns and SWAT operations, then SWAT 4 is a great tactical shooter to consider. But perhaps you might want to check out Tom Clancy’s Rogue Spear while you’re at it?

Gameplay:  Great (but extremely challenging)

Graphics: Barely (5 – 15 fps)

Work needed to get game to play: None

Screenshots: Softonic

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