Video Game / Police Quest: SWAT 2

Police Quest: SWAT 2 (1998) - Three years after the release of the first Police Quest: SWAT game, the Sierra-owned studio Yosemite Entertainment brought the SWAT series back. While its predecessor was an interactive movie, SWAT 2 is an isometric real time tactics game where you command individual combatants during typical SWAT crisis situations.

The main features of SWAT 2 are the two 15-mission campaigns for Los Angeles SWAT and a fictional American terrorist organization called the Five Eyes. Gameplay is divided between personnel management (funds, equipment, training, mission assignment) and tactical encounters where SWAT and criminals clash. Personnel must be rotated or replaced as they recover from injuries or (as in real-life SWAT) are suspended while a fatal shooting is investigated.

The two sides play quite differently. SWAT prefers a nonlethal approach and imposes heavy penalties if even a single officer, innocent, or nonthreatening suspect is killed during a mission. Conversely, the Five Eyes desires mission completion at any cost, with little care for innocent or terrorist deaths as long as the job is done.

Of particular interest, you are not obligated to succeed at every mission in order to complete the campaign. Good performance earns money while poor performance costs money, but you may continue as long as your bank account remains in the green.

For its Tactical Shooter successors, see SWAT 3 and SWAT 4.

For the series that this game is a part of, see Police Quest.

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SWAT 2 provides examples of:

• '80s Hair: Several of the terrorists come complete with redneck mullets.
• The Ace: At least in the scope of SWAT work, some of the officers begin with fantastic stats and have appropriately impressive backstories:
  • Jeff Buchanan (your first preassigned element leader) is a 29-year-old with outstanding skill in all areas, and is the only one who starts with EMT certification.
  • Randy Abernathy (also an element leader) is extremely athletic and has years of SWAT experience. It's noted in his bio that he excels in any sport or hobby he takes up.
  • Sonny Bonds (a Previous Player-Character Cameo) starts with excellent stats in everything that matters and can immediately take element leader certification.
  • Similarly, Alex Papalexis also meets the requirements for element leader certification and is described as a model SWAT officer.
  • Kim Brandenburg grew up going on hunting trips with her father and brothers. She appropriately starts with 100% sniper rifle skill, can be immediately certified as an element leader, and is nicknamed "Dead-Eye" by her teammates.
• All There in the Manual: The manual has a wealth of information from explaining how the SWAT truck was bought from the Department of Energy for a single dollar (and had a smiley face painted on the battering ram) to the background to each mission and basis on real events to a disclaimer on not having a terrorist give advice for the Five Eyes missions,it also includes a full walkthrough for the game.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The last level of the SWAT campaign has armed terrorists seize control of Metro Station by masquerading as civilians and reporters.
• Arbitrary Gun Power: The SWAT uses M1911s (chambered in .45 ACP) and MP5s (chambered in 9x19mm), while terrorists and other criminals use .50 AE Desert Eagles and 5.56 LR 300 rifles. However, the game treats them as having the same damage.
• Armor Is Useless: Averted. Officers are automatically equipped with armor, and they are quite resistant to pistol fire because of it. Body armor is optional for terrorists, but it's probably something you'll want to have for anyone you want to be alive when the mission's over.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: According to the manual, Basho weaves persuasive language, dogma, and bad poetry into a tapestry of compelling rhetoric.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • Having a SWAT member talk to a suspect will almost always make them draw their gun, allowing you to shoot them without a penalty (other than a suspension if they die).
  • In the Terrorist campaign, SWAT often gets confused when fired at from long range, causing them to stand still in place as they get shot.
• Artistic License – Law Enforcement: While SWAT would secure evidence they find, the game acts like police never search dead suspects and just leave an area right away after all suspects are cuffed/dead instead of searching it. Evidence will only be found and count for the good ending if you secure it in the middle of dealing with suspects when realistically most of that would be done after the area is clear.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Being eligible for the Element Leader qualification requires the SWAT member to have sufficiently high levels of many skills, including several combat ones.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: When playing as the terrorists, you can order them to commit suicide rather than get arrested by the police. There's no real reason to do this as arrested terrorists will be released two missions later. AI-controlled suspects are also capable of shooting themselves with the same animation. You can attempt the same as SWAT, but the officer will always refuse, sometimes with a funny line.
• Bottomless Magazines: In order to simplify the inventory management, everyone has infinite ammunition with any weapon.
• Cardboard Prison: During the Terrorist campaign, any terrorists arrested by SWAT are reported to jump bail after two missions, making them available again. This is purely Rule of Fun to give surrendering a tactical use for the player. In reality, the Five Eyes as an organization commits so many violent felonies that there is no way any of its members would ever see daylight again after being captured.
• Career-Ending Injury: A terrorist who is severely wounded at the end of a mission will be labeled as "maimed" and cannot participate in any further missions. Conversely, SWAT officers will always recover from any non-fatal injury.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Both the Five Eyes and SWAT have impressive personnel rosters numbering in the dozens, all of them with unique names, faces, and backstories. None of this even matters as they are all effectively Player Mooks once in the field.
• Color Motif: SWAT is blue, the terrorists are green.
• Combat Medic: Any SWAT member with the EMT qualification is this, capable of arresting suspects and stabilizing the wounds of both friend and foe.
• Cop Killer: Each mission of the Terrorist campaign usually has SWAT elements show up, and you'll probably end up shooting or tossing grenades at them.
• Corrupt Politician: The mayor is ultimately responsible for the conspiracy that SWAT uncovers over the course of the campaign.
• Creator Cameo: The photographs for the Five Eyes' roster include a number of Sierra employees at the time. This notably includes Lori and Corey Cole, the designers of Quest for Glory.
• Criminal Found Family: The Five Eyes' roster consists of various dodgy types like disgruntled war veterans, rednecks, Right Wing Militia Fanatics, and anarchists, drawn together by their shared hatred of the government or normal society.
• Critical Existence Failure: Averted - while characters can be fine until they fall to 60 HP (with the wound not even causing them to skip a mission or give you a score penalty), they'll be completely incapacitated once at this point, causing them to slowly lose health, with the health loss possibly slowed down with a first aid kit (SWAT exclusive), or getting faster at lower HP. Not only that, but while finishing the mission at 31-60 HP will simply cause them to skip a single mission afterwards, finishing at 1-30 HP will cause the character to be considered maimed, causing SWAT to skip two missions, while terrorists will be effectively retired and permanently unusable.
• Cutting Off the Branches: Mission 13 of the SWAT campaign features Basho as the main suspect, and it's possible for him to be killed by the player. The Terrorist campaign, set a few months later, assumes that he survives the mission and gets arrested.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Some terrorists have tragic backstory, such as Dante, who is a summa cum laude graduate at an unnamed Ivy League University, but fell into alcoholism and drug abuse due to his inability to find meaningful education and the angst caused by the clash between his silver spoon upbringing and his personal beliefs.
• The Dragon: Dante, the Terrorist player character, serves as Basho's lieutenant.
• Drugs Are Bad: Par for the course for the Police Quest Franchise. Notably, the Domestic Abuser in SWAT's first callout is high on PCP during the incident. Funnily enough, on the terrorist side of things, Basho is against drugs due to his son's own addiction issues.
• Death of a Child: Children are in the game and they can be killed, sometimes through a gruesome manner (e.g. explosions).
• Early-Bird Cameo: Basho appears in Mission 13 of the SWAT campaign (which is chronologically set earlier). He's never identified by name, however, so he can only be recognized by portrait and voice.
• Emergency Weapon: The pistols serve as this for your snipers, as they allow them to fight outside of pre-determined sniper spots. SWAT's shotgunners, meanwhile, can benefit from it's higher range compared to the shotgun.
• Evil Counterpart: The Five Eyes to SWAT. As provided by the manual, the mission statements of both organizations have a striking word-for-word similarity that emphasizes teamwork, intensive self-improvement, and maintaining high standards of mental and physical health. The problem is, the Five Eyes also prioritizes its Scam Religion that encourages violence against anyone they don't like.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The terrorists' leader Basho abhors drugs. We later find out its because his son became addicted to them and it ruined his life. He also abhors the killing of children.
• Evil Is Easy: The terrorist campaign is very easygoing when it comes to regulations. Basho doesn't particularly care about anything that happens during a mission as long as the primary objective is accomplished. In comparison, the SWAT side is obligated to keep every officer, innocent, and nonthreatening suspect alive, or else be slapped with the second-worst mission rating.
• Evil Versus Evil: A couple of the Terrorist missions involve armed opponents who are also violent gang members or other terrorists.
• Food as Bribe: In the Terrorist campaign, you must ask SWAT for food and give it to a newspaper editor before she will agree to print Basho's manifesto.
• Gas Mask Mooks: Both SWAT and Terrorists can wear Gas Masks to render them immune to tear gas, annoyingly, Sprites do not change to reflect this and every Five-Eyes Terrorist past a certain point in the SWAT Campaign is wearing a Gas mask, not that the game ever tells you this.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: With the SWAT medals. Despite the Medal of Valor and the Police Medal being stated in the manual to be given out by the chief, it's possible for De Souza to receive these medals in the final mission by incapacitating a suspect threatening the life of an officer or hostage, even though it would mean awarding himself a medal.
• Gameplay Grading: The debrief for each mission includes a rating as an overall reflection of performance. The terrorist campaign emphasizes mission completion and scoring points, particularly by abducting civilians and killing enemy combatants. The SWAT campaign starts with the topmost rating by default, and then reduces based on the singular worst event that occurred, meaning that a single innocent or officer death will destroy your rating in an otherwise successful mission. Good ratings will give bonus money, while bad ratings will take your money; if a bad rating leaves you bankrupt, the campaign is over.
• Good Guns, Bad Guns: Both SWAT and the terrorists use different weapons, albeit all with Bottomless Magazines and the same stats for each class of weapon. For example, SWAT is issued the 1911 as their sidearm, whereas the terrorists use the Desert Eagle. Shotguns are exclusive to SWAT, as they are bested suited to a Rear Guard, while terrorists don't have assigned tasks per cell.
• Guide Dang It!: The terrorist campaign never tells you as to which people will join your roster if kidnapped, although the manual does at least tell you of this being a possibility, so you can at least grab as many hostages as possible. What you're not told of, however, is that some armed enemies can also be kidnapped and recruited by carefully giving them a manifesto (making it possible for them to surrender to you) and taking them hostage.
• Hero Must Survive: The last missions of the SWAT and Terrorist campaign (and the second-last mission of the latter campaign) demand that the protagonists survive the mission, or you'll immediately get a game over.
• Hide Your Children: Averted; children are in the game (and they can be killed).
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Basho created the Five Eyes so they could break him out of prison; he intended to abandon them once they did. However, by double-crossing them, the members of the Five Eyes are angered by the betrayal and end up either killing him, or wounding and leaving him to the mercy of SWAT.
• Hostage Situation: Many of them feature in the SWAT campaign. The Terrorist campaign, meanwhile, allows taking a hostage at any time, and a few missions require you to use or kidnap hostages in order to accomplish a task.
• Hyperspace Arsenal:
  • Your terrorists can hide a rather surprising amount of weapons and miscallenous gear, despite the sprite only depicting them wearing pants and a shirt.
  • Particularly notable in the final terrorist mission, as the cutscene depicts Dante wearing the same clothing as terrorists, with no gear visible, yet he starts the mission with an assault rifle, a Desert Eagle, a knife, some grenades, and a pack of explosives
• Instant Emergency Response: In the Terrorist campaign, the SWAT arrives in full force within a minute or two of the first shots being fired. This turns out to be justified, however, as Basho was deliberately alerting the cops to your actions.
• Instant-Win Condition: Having every enemy dead or arrested will instantly end the mission, this is actually a bad thing as the game will automatically count any non-completed objectives as "Failed" even though there's usually nothing stopping SWAT securing evidence/The Terrorists destroying evidence once the shooting stops, such as the weed farm mission, where killing all SWAT before destroying the Weed will cause the game to act like you fled instead of destroying it.
• It's a Wonderful Failure: Campaign failure is normally caused by bankruptcy or failing a critical mission objective, which causes either SWAT to shut down or Basho to disband the group. But there are some interesting deviations from this, particularly during the final couple of missions:
  • If the chief is killed during SWAT's final mission, CNT negotiator Alvarez takes over the debrief:
    Alvarez: Alvarez speaking for Sgt. Markossian, who sadly was but one of today's casualties. This is a tragic day for the LAPD. Among the fallen, we include our chief, John De Souza. The chief was a 36-year veteran of the force. I'm sure at this point in his career, the last thing he expected was to die in the line of duty. But I'm also certain that, as a warrior, he'd prefer to go this way. Though I know he would not cast blame, it is our shame that we could not protect our leader. SWAT's strength and reputation has been severely damaged. It will take years for the force to recover from this devastating blow, and who knows what the terrorists will do next?
  • If Dante is arrested or dies in the penultimate terrorist mission, or both Dante and Basho are arrested or killed in the final mission, getaway driver John Aiken gets the last word:
    Aiken: Both Dante and Basho are dead. I don't know about you all, but at this point I'm just glad to be alive. I don't care if I ever hear a thing about the Five Eyes again. Me and my brothers are going home now. I suggest you all do the same. See ya around... maybe.
  • If only Dante is arrested or killed in the final mission, Basho gets the last word:
    Basho: This is Basho calling from... a higher plane. I want to offer my condolences for the death of our brother, Dante. He was a good man, though often blind to the truth. I've composed this haiku in honor of his passing. Dante's dead, a sigh / His spirit soars like my jet / to a new country. I'll be sure to send you all a postcard from... Well, from whatever tropical island I decide to call home.
• Joke Character: Due to low standards of Five Eyes, the terrorist campaign features a multitude of people on the roster that have extremely low skill levels, sometimes going below 50%. They can still be used as cheap flunkies for abducting a civilian or handing out pamphlets.
• Karma Houdini: The end of the terrorist campaign sees player character Dante and those loyal to him hijacking a private plane, renouncing the criminal life with a Narmy poem, and setting course for the nearest tropical paradise. At least Basho gets his comeuppance by being killed or arrested — depending on just how many bullets the player sends his way.
• Limited Loadout: Each character must have a handgun (you won't be allowed to deploy them without one), and can only carry one primary longarm (Rifle/SMG, sniper rifle, shotgun).
• Luck-Based Mission:
  • It's possible for a suspect to shoot and kill an innocent or officer within seconds of entering a mission, immediately ruining your rating regardless of any action you might have taken. The same may happen if a suspect botches an attempt to set an explosive — the resulting explosion may kill a hostage, or a suspect you're supposed to apprehend.
  • In the SWAT campaign, the locations of the pieces of evidence required to get the Golden Ending are randomised with no indication of what needs to be collected. Sometimes evidence is carried by a suspect, and you can only retrieve the evidence by arresting them. You can arrest an incapacitated suspect to take their evidence, but a dead suspect's inventory might as well have just been sucked into a black hole, while the manual has a full walkthrough that mentions all the evidence, those wanting to play unspoiled (Which it advises to try first.) will have a tough time getting the good SWAT ending.
  • When playing the terrorist campaign, it's random as to whether SWAT will agree to give you food, money, or an escape vehicle. This is not usually a big deal, but one mission requires food and they may decide to break into the building before agreeing to the demand.
• The Mentor: Real Life ex-LAPD Chief Darryl F. Gates appears as an advisor for the player, giving tips on SWAT procedures. For obvious reasons, the terrorists have no such equivalent.
• Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: While every character has access to the hand-to-hand combat, with terrorists being able to initiate it, it does far less damage than guns (even with a knife or a dog), and usually ends with one of the fighters drawing their gun and shooting the other dead.
• Never My Fault: According to the bios of some of the Five Eyes terrorists, they are full of people who just want an excuse to take their anger out on society and blame society and the government for their problems rather than take responsibility. Or people who think that the government owes them something because they suffered in life
• Next Sunday A.D.: The game was released in 1998 and takes place in a 1999 that looks pretty much like 1998.
• No Honor Among Thieves: The end of the terrorist campaign pretty much reveals that the entire organization was a sham by one man to break him out of prison. And just to add insult to the injury, you discover that he was deliberately calling the cops on you during earlier missions.
• Non-Entity General: Averted, as the protagonists of both terrorist (Dante, The Dragon to Basho) and SWAT (De Souza, chief of LAPD) are named, and talk during the missions. They even participate personally in the final missions, and you'll get a game over if they die
• One-Hit Kill: Sniper rifles will always kill in one hit, even through armor. This is kind of an exploit for the Terrorists, as you can set up a sniper team on some missions and just snipe all the cops when they show up.
• Our Lawyers Advised This Trope: The manual for describes how Daryl Gates can advise with hints when playing as the police. There is no option for this for the Five Eyes as Sierra explained they did not want to take down advice a professional terrorist would provide.
• Permadeath: SWAT officers or Five Eyes terrorists killed in the field stay dead for the rest of the campaign. Additionally, terrorists can be maimed and officers can be terminated (fired for misconduct), which has effectively the same result. SWAT takes deaths more harshly, giving you the 2nd worst mission rating for a single officer death. Conversely, Basho praises those killed for their sacrifice, but excessive terrorist deaths nonetheless carry a ratings penalty and can result in campaign failure if you "sacrifice" your people for no reason.
• Pet the Dog: Basho is a through-and-through villain, but he does have periodic moments of benevolence during the Terrorist campaign:
  • For practical reasons, he criticizes you for killing innocents, believing that recruitment is better.
  • In the second mission only, he is specifically dissatisfied if any child is reclaimed by SWAT or killed.
  • He criticizes rogue members for selling marijuana, and administers vigilante justice against a violent street gang.
  • One mission is dedicated to ensuring that a child receives treatment at a hospital — by busting in and taking hostages, yes, but at least the motive is pure.
• Previous Player-Character Cameo: Sonny Bonds from Police Quest appears as one of the SWAT team members. His bio states that he's on loan to the LAPD from Lytton so he can learn from the LAPD and start a SWAT team in Lytton.
• Randomly Generated Levels: Each mission has a mix of scripted events and randomness. Different characters might start in different rooms, move around in different ways, set traps next to different doors, or choose to surrender or fight when confronted by SWAT.
• Purple Prose: The terrorists' leader Basho is fond of this. He even gets called out by Dante for doing it a bit too much.
• Secret Character: Several NPCs in the terrorist campaign can be recruited into your organization if taken hostage and kidnapped. Unless you've already played the game before, however, you'll be reduced to grabbing people at random and praying that they join you after the mission is over.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: A number of Five Eyes terrorists are veterans of the Vietnam War with a grudge against the government or society in general.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: SWAT can use them. Though they lack in range, they do a lot of damage up close, and can easily incapacitate suspects in one shot
• Shown Their Work:
  • Unlike most video games, flashbangs are correctly portrayed as being able to injure people if detonated right next to them. Many video games portray them as being completely harmless.
  • Sgt. Markossian will penalize you in the post-mission debrief if you overuse tear gas or use it in overly small spaces — specifically, a bank vault. He reminds you of the effective radius of one grenade and that too much tear gas can cause lasting medical complications.
• Simultaneous Warning and Action: Averted in the Terrorist campaign, as SWAT will give your terrorists a chance to surrender, and will only start shooting if they're noncompliant or actively hostile. A few missions will even have them attempt negotiation.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • A SWAT officer will be suspended for killing a suspect in the line of duty, even if it was justified. This is true to real life police procedures as they don't know it was justified until an investigation has been done, but this has a tendency to surprise players who don't want to bench their best officers for a mission.
  • When playing the terrorist campaign, any terrorists who are severely wounded during a mission will be labeled "maimed", and cannot participate in any further missions. It's not like they can just go to a hospital, after all.
• Take That!:
  • The game takes some shots at the news media, such as portraying them as being anti-police and pro-rioter in one mission, recklessly encouraging people to go to a riot. The Big Bad of the game's SWAT campaign is a corrupt L.A. mayor.
  • Some unused voice lines of the chief giving a debriefing have venomous (though humorous) Stealth Insults for journalists.
    Chief De Souza: Today, an innocent died. We could have prevented that death. Remember, even a newsperson is worthy of our protection.
  • The Domestic Abuser from the first callout is a lawyer who just so happens to be hopped up on PCP.
• Turn in Your Badge: Chief De Souza is forced into early retirement if a Game Over occurs during the SWAT campaign. Finishing the game with anything less than the Golden Ending, which is a Guide Dang It! Luck-Based Mission, will also have the same result.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: SWAT Officers cannot use captured Suspect Firearms and Terrorists cannot pick-up and use SWAT guns, especially notable for Terrorists since they cannot purchase shotguns or equivalents for a decent amount of SWAT's equipment, and particularly annoying if a Terrorist surrenders, since if you free the Terrorist by killing the arresting Officer, the game will have moved the Terrorist's inventory into the Officer's inventory, which you have no means of accessing to get their stuff back.
• Western Terrorists: The Five Eyes is based on a mishmash of American domestic terrorism such that it loosely resembles but doesn't exactly match any existing group. According to their profiles, most of the individual members are card-carrying Right Wing Militia Fanatics, Shell Shocked Veterans of the Vietnam War, have a personal grudge against society or the government, or just want to be part of a like-minded group without caring that their new "family" is kind of into murder and kidnapping. Basho, running a classical Scam Religion Cult, has then stepped in to direct all their anger into doing what he wants, hence why he reprimands anyone who acts without his orders, takes any money you manage to scam out of SWAT, and rants to Dante that all of his followers were directionless losers before he (Basho) came along.