Game Review: Los Angeles SWAT (Commodore 64, Entertainment USA)

Los Angeles SWAT is often also known as S.W.A.T. – primarily because of the title screen saying those initials, and even the front of the cassette inlay explaining what those letters mean – Special Weapons and Tactics.  In any case, a terrorist group has taken over the west side of Los Angeles, and it is up to your squad to steer through the streets and reach the road junctions, where the gang leader is holding a civilian hostage.  You need to rescue those hostages and progress through the levels.  All sounds so simple, right?  Well, it would be apart from the fact these gangs are lethal, and that is an understatement.

Starting With A Tower

The basic title screen with its red tinged road and buildings informs you who made the game, along with a last score and a top score.  Pressing fire starts the game, and you can see your squad is of three men, with two down each pavement and one in the middle, whom you start with.  The game is from a semi top-down perspective with the buildings to the side in some sort of pseudo 3D effect, and the road itself being littered with some flipped over cars and parked cars on occasion.  The bad guys come walking down the streets and the pavements, sometimes off the side of the road where the buildings are, and are all generally heading towards you.  Most of them do not shoot, but some are armed with grenades and fire those at you.  Sometimes they hit you, but often they end up taking out another gang member, which means they do all the work for you.  That can work to your advantage on occasion.

Sniper Wearing A T-Shirt

On occasion, you will see bullets heading across the road, and this is down to a sniper, who is positioned with his weapon on top of one of the buildings.  You cannot shoot the sniper, so you need to be able to get around their fire by heading towards the opposite pavement and moving across there, or timing your run past the bullets, which is a lot trickier.  Also, ladies with their walking sticks in pink outfits come down the screen – these are civilians, and you need to let them walk down without shooting them, as doing so loses you 1,000 points.  Points are gained for how far you walk up the street as well as shooting the bad guys, and thankfully, your weapon has unlimited ammunition

Soon With A T-Junction

Once you manage to scroll far enough up the screen to the junction, you will need to let any civilians pass down the screen.  Then a wave of enemy bad guys appears, who must all be shot in quick succession.  Succeed here, and one of the gang leaders appears on screen with a hostage.  If you shoot the gang member, all good, but you can also lose points for shooting the hostage too, so you need to be accurate and careful when shooting, and not just mindlessly blast away.   Once the level is complete a little interlude of a riot van coming across the screen shows you the level you have reached, and your score.  Not spectacular, but at least shows some reward for progress.

Survival With A Twist

You can survive levels reasonably well unless you allow one of the enemy gang members to get close to you.  Rather than shoot you, they get out an iron bar and bash you across the body with it, resulting in death and the loss of one of your squad.  The other two members (your remaining lives) starts out with the one on the left pavement first, and then finally the one on the right pavement.  When they take their turns, you cannot fire or move until you get about half way up the screen and then you can start to wreak your relevant havoc.  Thankfully the controls are very responsive overall and does mean you can turn quickly and get away from enemy gang members as you need – although they do run a lot faster on later levels, it must be said.

Succinctly, What A Team!

Unfortunately, your team is limited to the three members and during play no extra lives were awarded.  This does mean that you really need to battle to survive with the team you have, and make sure that you make those lives counts.  Later levels do get quite frenetic with more of the enemy gang members firing grenades at increasing speed, more snipers on the rooftops and indeed more cars to work around, and although it can get repetitive over time, shooting the same enemies over and over, at least it is simple to pick up and play.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Los Angeles SWAT are not very good – whilst your team and the enemy gang members are reasonably drawn and animated along with the pink lady civilians, other graphics suffer.  The buildings are just badly drawn with their view and the cars on the road seem like they should be in a set from a well-known building block manufacturer – and the hostage has no animation so floats around the screen next to the gang leaders.  The sound is horrific with the in-game soundtrack being one of the worst pieces of music (if you can call it that) to grace the SID chip.  There is the sound effect of firing weapons and grenades and a thudding noise when being battered by the iron bar, but all drowned out by that dire tune which you sadly will not get of your head either.  Please, make it stop.

Final Thoughts

Los Angeles SWAT is a classic case of not judging a book completely by its cover, with the graphics not being very good and having some awful sound.  However, underneath does lurk a reasonable game with spot on controls, a ramped difficulty curve that can get hard quite quickly, and does at least have a playable game within, with a sense of wanting to get a bit further to rescue more hostages or just mindlessly shoot enemy gang members for a high score challenge.  It can get repetitive quite quickly though and interest can wane after a while due to its nature, but nonetheless it is just about worth a go today if you want some escapism and mindless fun.

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