The PSP has been getting some love from developers recently with an influx of games due to hit the handheld console before the Xmas period, one of the latest to hit the handheld console is Swat: Target Liberty from Vivendi, a third person tactical shooter which is based on the lives of the SWAT teams of America.
SWAT: Target Liberty is set in the city of New York with your task being to thwart an ever increasing number of terrorist threats, you do this by working your way through each level with your team, trying to take down or subdue as many enemies as possible as you attempt to reach the main threat.
The game starts out with you trying to calm the chaos that has broken out between two rival gangs, before the mission begins you are given the choice of which team members you wish to take along in order to complete the mission, you are also able to choose which weapons they will take with them. Each member of the team has certain skills in which they are specialists, these range from leadership, intimidation, interrogation to things like marksmanship and observation, you can improve the members of your team by gaining experience, which is done by completing each level by subduing rather than killing enemies.
Each level is split apart using various cutscenes which try to explain the story as you progress, I have to say that I was very impressed with the level of detail in this part of the game, it is certainly very well presented and does the job of explaining the story very well.
The controls are fairly simple to use, X is your fire button but you can also use this to hit your target with the butt of your rifle if you are close enough in order for you to subdue them, elsewhere the O button enables you to run, open doors, restrain and interrogate targets while the triangle (combined with the right shoulder button) and square buttons enable you to give orders to your team, this is particularly useful as you are able to move your team or get them to deploy gas and grenades, all of which are helpful in a tight situation.
The problem with SWAT is that everything moves along at a snails pace, sure your team are put in difficult situations so running around like a headless chicken probably isn’t the best idea, however it would have been nice if your characters could have moved a little faster without resorting to running, another problem is that once you have played the first level, the rest all feel fairly similar, throughout each mission you will shoot at enemies, check under doors and handcuff and interrogate anyone in site all while being given the same dialogue anytime you speak to someone, although occasionally you will get a different response should the subject in question be someone who can help you.
The presentation in SWAT: Target Liberty is probably the games saving grace, aside from the limited audio which reuses the same dialogue over and over, graphically the game is very good, the attention to detail in each level is pretty impressive with objects spread about each area such as benches and oil drums which members of your team can find cover behind, other than that and the doors though there isn’t really much interactivity between your team and the environments. As far as character animation goes, the movement of the non player characters and your team is fairly smooth if not a little stiff, sometimes it just feels like everyone is locked at the knees such is their onscreen appearance, given how well the cutscenes are animated it would have been nice to see the camera moved in a little to show the characters animation off a bit more.
SWAT: Target Liberty is certainly a decent tactical shooter, it really just depends what type of game you are looking for as to whether you will enjoy this or not, if you go storming through all of the levels killing everything that moves then you are not going to get the best out of it, however take your time, subdue enemies and complete your objectives and you will be rewarded, it may just take a while.
