SWAT: Target Liberty Review

by Ashley Coomer - 2008/08/18 2:18pm

“The Big Apple is in trouble!” We know just the guys…

In case you didn’t hear the news, the PSP has a problem! It’s not the lack of true killer titles (which, let’s face it, does hurt the system). No, this problem lies within the system’s design which makes controlling certain games more effort than it’s worth. With that said, we put SWAT: Target Liberty into our PSP (collectively, we mean – Team PlayStation Beyond owns more than one system!) expecting the controls to be awkward, rendering the game unplayable. We’re ashamed to admit it, but we were wrong!

The game begins with optional basic training modes that help you learn the ropes so you don’t find yourself hitting buttons randomly in a difficult situation. In it you learn, amongst other things, character movement, squad orders, how to restrain civilians and enemies who are compliant, and how to deal with those who aren’t, specifically by finding out how to use different weapons effectively. These things come into play sooner or later in the actual game, so it pays to take advantage of what has to be said.

In Target Liberty you take on the role of Kurt Wolfe and his two-man team of SWAT officers, in a plot that begins with a New York gang war over Central Park that builds up to involve a terrorist scare on the city. We’re best to make this clear from the beginning: the story is one of Target Liberty’s weaker points. We can’t get our heads round why a three-strong group is allowed to take control of a New York terrorism case, but it’s how slow the story progresses that makes it a bit rubbish, not that it’s unlikely… which it is!



When it comes to the missions there’s plenty of variety, but not in the way we would have hoped. Certainly the objectives are different, with such goals as neutralising or capturing certain people, collecting briefcases, and speaking with key people, but you never go into a mission with expectations of something spectacular coming. This is down to what Target Liberty offers in terms of gameplay – no matter how varied the objectives are, you only need to kill or restrain the bad guys, save the civilians and make it to the end of each map without dying and you’ve more or less succeeded. That’s not entirely true; there are certain things you need to take care of – such as rescuing an engineer in an office building level so he can restore power to the elevator – but the point we’re trying to make is it feels very samey a good three quarters of the time.

This isn’t really helped by how slow Kurt is to control – even by holding down Circle to run, you get the impression a certain SWAT officer should lay off the pies. Really, character movement is unbelievably slow, and makes playing more of a strain than it should be. The auto-cover system can also be a pain. By being stationary either side of a door or by certain objects, Kurt will go into cover without a button press, letting you lean up, left or right with the analog stick, or exit cover by moving it down. Occasionally this took several attempts before registering (not the best scenario when enemies are approaching) but it was a simple task more often than not. On a positive note, we found the cover system to be useful when utilised.



Thankfully controlling Kurt and your teammates is made as easy as possible with a limited control scheme at 3G Studios’ fingertips. When it comes to personal actions, movement is with the analog stick, the d-pad is reserved for switching weapons (left and right) and changing fire modes (up and down), and you tap the X button to fire. The L and R buttons lock on (with face buttons appearing inside the reticule to switch targets) and move the cursor, in conjunction with the analog stick (which lets you do a number of things, such as reporting deaths) respectively. As for barking orders, tapping Square sends a ‘fall in’ command, but most of the others involve moving the cursor over a door and selecting what you want your squad to do – X is ‘open and clear’ by default, but pressing Triangle opens up the options menu. ‘Mirror under the door’, ‘stack up’, ‘check lock’ and ‘pick lock’ are regular options, and depending on what you have at your disposal, there can be additional options such as ‘bang and clear’, ‘open, gas and clear’ and ‘breach door’. Which to choose is often hit-and-miss, though catching a glimpse of what lies ahead using ‘mirror under the door’ can sometimes give you an idea.

It’s a shame your teammates tend only to be useful when you’re in charge, not the AI. In several cases we wanted to avoid unnecessary deaths to net more points at the end of the level, but the buffoons fired as soon as they saw a threat. Granted, there is an option to stop this, but then we fear our men would hold back on firing altogether… we can’t win! Whilst on the subject of the AI, we have to credit the developer on it as it only appears to be loosely scripted. In laymen’s terms, their actions aren’t always the same if you restart the level. Only a few pieces of speech were recorded though, and believe us it becomes obvious. Hmmm…



Something we have to question is Target Liberty’s replay value. It’s not a game that will take days to complete, and the opportunity to beat your scores in the levels is unlikely to be a good enough incentive to go back to them. Placed in each level are hidden items which can be picked up to unlock movies, but again, they’ll seldom draw people in.

We don’t hate Target Liberty, but we find it hard to be enthusiastic about a game that fails to do anything special and moves along as slowly as it does, making it something of a bore several levels in. It has its moments, and there are some nice touches (such as being able to play a piano in a restaurant in Central Park), but in this case the bad outweighs the good.

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