For the uninitiated (or those who live in countries that don't have to put up with the daily threat of gun violence), SWAT stands for "Special Weapons and Tactics." It's the name of the elite and highly trained police unit that is critical to the protection of many of America's largest cities. Members of the SWAT team train heavily with special weapons not available to ordinary police officers, like combat shotguns and automatic submachine guns (the "special weapons" part). They are also experts in paramilitary style tactics (that's the "tactics" part) that regular police officers are not trained to do.
Why SWAT?
SWAT was first created in the city of Los Angeles soon after the Watts riots in the 1960s. Then LA Police Chief Daryl Gates saw the need for a special unit of police that could react appropriately to highly sensitive situations that regular police just cannot handle. Examples of where SWAT would be needed: helping to engage and extract barricaded criminals, rescuing hostages, and apprehending any heavily armed suspects. The success of LA's SWAT team eventually led to the proliferation of SWAT units all across the nation. They are invaluable to America's cities for dealing with criminals who do not fall into the "garden variety" category.
What do you mean I can't shoot?
SWAT 3 is a realistic style first person shooter, but this isn't just Rainbow Six with badges here. Unlike Rogue Spear, you do not have carte blanche to go around blasting everyone willy nilly. You are a police officer, and your first priority is to arrest and subdue the suspects in the game. From a more practical standpoint, you'll usually be on missions where there are innocent civilians or hostages present, so the less bullets you have to spray around, the better. Fortunately for us trigger happy Quake-types, there are times when you have no choice but to fire on the perpetrators. If you're good (or just feeling generous), you can choose to knock down criminals without killing them by double tapping them in the knees, or some other non vital area. In a lot of cases, it can be more effective to spray low anyway, because many of the enemies in SWAT 3 are decked out in body armor. But in general, you will get a better score if you can use tactics to get terrorists/bank robbers/kidnappers to surrender without having to shoot them. And yes, you perverts, this means that you get to play with handcuffs!
