Ready or Not, the preview of the SWAT heir
Ready or Not
It was 1995 when the then Sierra On-Line released Daryl F. Gates' Police Quest: SWAT. We are talking about one of the games that would kick off a very successful series of tactical shooters. Over the years, the genre saw a variety of genre exponents come into the limelight, yet SWAT continued to hold a special place in the hearts of aficionados. Seventeen years have passed since 2005, when SWAT 4 was released for PC and to this day the legacy (a term that is very fashionable these days) of this series has struggled a lot to find welcoming arms in which to place itself. But since December 17, a new pretender to the throne has entered the battlefield: Ready or Not by VOID Interactive.In our preview of Ready or Not we analyze the new shooter released in early access on Steam last December 17th.
Total realism
Ready or Not: relentless assaults The goal of the game is to put yourself in the shoes of a SWAT team intent on thwarting various threats within scenarios that represent realistic situations . From the defusing of the bombs, to the hostage rescue passing through the blitzes inside the lairs of the criminals, so as to clean the house from the criminals inside. To make the experience realistic is not only the gameplay, which we will deal with later, but also the whole creation of the settings. Although the title is still under development (the early access at the end is the publication of the game in an unfinished phase), the play experience is well supported both by the creative direction of the level design of the settings, and by the realism of the game. 'lighting and contextualization of the proposed situations. "Particular" hotels and homes, rather than construction sites and bureaucratic offices: each proposed setting has its own peculiar way of making the approach unique also thanks to high-impact design elements. A hotel characterized by the red LED light that permeates rooms with papier-mâché walls, for example, will allow a different approach than the concrete walls and the dilapidated stairs of a building site under construction.Similarly tunnels under a lair will be more difficult to navigate than the large meeting rooms in a building. The idea is to offer the player a context that is as enveloping as possible with regards to realism and verisimilitude with real operations in such situations. As seen and tried, Ready or Not succeeds great in offering positive sensations to the player.
Thoughtful choices
Ready or Not: essential tactics What is instead the beating heart of experience is clearly the gameplay side realism. The operations can be carried out in cooperation with other users or with AI-controlled bots. In the second case, the game has integrated a system of commands to make each member of the team perform the action desired by the player. VOID Interactive's goal is to stimulate cooperation from pre-mission planning.From loadout to briefing, Ready or Not offers a very interesting system. You will start by checking your SWAT inside the police station where you can start matchmaking, customize your and your weapons setup, talk to teammates through in-game chat and train in the shooting range or mission simulation ( a sort of classic training camp like in the movies with wooden walls and silhouettes of criminals).
Once you have started, the important thing will be to act in maximum coordination with the team. In Ready or Not you are stunned, you bleed, it is hard to see in the dimly lit corners, the enemies have no mercy and haste often leads to death. From the claymores behind doors, to the men in the closet, each room can be the last. To cope with all this, the game offers a series of tactical possibilities ranging from the possibility of ajar doors, the possibility of peeking inside the rooms, passing through the use of tactical shields, portable rams and a very large arsenal of weapons. . Fitting a front sight over another, a compensator rather than a flame arrestor will be equally fundamental, especially since everything will be chosen in synergy with the rest of the companions. Once on a mission, in addition to the primary objective of the game there will also be a score that will evaluate your performance.
Handcuff a suspect, not kill a civilian, extract a criminal, report a dead in action, defuse a bomb, do not hurt any ally by alerting traps, in short, every action must also be weighed in terms of performance and score, not just because the game requires it.
Ready or Not: a merciless blitz If tacticism is a fundamental part of the experience, the feeling of the weapons is so too. Ready or Not is a title that offers a different gunplay, in which reflection must take precedence over the desire to open fire. Having said that, being in the middle of the fire will not be a rare thing and the sensations proposed, able to reproduce the recoil of the weapons well, seemed to us an excellent choice.
The Early Access version of Ready or Not is not offers an overwhelming amount of content, but the missions present differ in setting, game objective and strategies to be applied. The beating heart is obviously the tactical reproduction of realistic missions and therefore the dividing line between frustration and fun will be outlined by the tastes of the players and the team with which you will go to play. As always in these cases, the advice is to play with a team of friends or to rely on the respective gaming communities so as not to suffer from language barriers or trolls of any kind. Ready or Not entertained us and also impressed us with the depth of customization. Despite all the game is far from complete and it will still take several months before the support of fans and developers can deliver us the worthy heir to SWAT.
