Ready or Not is an engaging SWAT sim with controversial undertones

Source: VOID Interactive

Over the course of the final few weeks, I've been playing Fix or Non, a Steam Early on Access SWAT sim tactical shooter from New Zealand-based VOID Interactive. The game is the closest matter we've gotten to a sequel to 2005'due south SWAT iv, and I've been having an accented blast with it. You play as a fellow member of a 5-man squad of SWAT officers in Set or Not, and your goal is to tactically infiltrate a number of existent-globe locations like gas stations, houses, hotels, and car dealerships to rescue hostages, neutralize armed suspects, stop active shooters, and diffuse bombs. The game can be played singleplayer with bots you tin can command, or with 4 other man players.

Gear up or Not's emphasis on not-lethal takedowns is refreshing.

Unlike the vast bulk of action-heavy modern shooters such equally Call of Duty: Vanguard, Fix or Non encourages you to bargain with enemies non-lethally. Equipment like PepperBall launchers, pepper spray, beanbag shotguns, tasers, tear gas, and flashbang grenades can be used in tandem with verbal barks for compliance to coerce suspects into dropping their weapons and surrendering, rewarding you lot with a higher score.

This can be achieved with tools that, when used effectively, make information technology easier to catch suspects off-baby-sit. These include mirrorguns that allow you lot to check under doors for traps and enemy locations, lockpicks for quietly unlocking doors, and battering rams, breaching shotguns, and C2 explosive charges for situations where rapid entry is ideal. Y'all can utilise more lethal options similar handguns, rifles, and shotguns to kill suspects who open up burn down on you, only you'll rarely need to if your team coordinates properly and uses the tools the game provides.

Source: VOID Interactive

Fittingly, Prepare or Non foregoes standard shooter mechanics like sprinting (yous tin can move around a trivial faster by going into a depression prepare position) and jumping, instead forcing you lot to arroyo situations methodically with crouches and leaning mechanics that allow you to peek around corners while keeping about of your body behind cover. The game also features bullet penetration, pregnant you'll need to consider the material of the objects you stand up behind (you can also shoot enemies through thin walls and flimsy pieces of cover if necessary).

Overall, it's a gameplay loop that hasn't gotten onetime during the 30 hours I've played the game thus far, especially since the positions of suspects and civilians alter with each new mission. Each room or area across the game's 8 maps offers a tense, complicated challenge for my teammates and I to overcome with our tactics and equipment, especially since suspects will often hear you coming if yous're not conscientious and will even pretend to be civilians on occasion, keeping yous on your toes.

The tension is heightened past Prepare or Non'south excellent visual and sound presentation, which tin can only be described every bit both hitting and oppressive. The game'southward visual fashion is night and gloomy, with the only illumination coming from dull light fixtures or the glow of multicolored neon. In-game locations like hush-hush meth labs or overtaken shipping docks are built with immaculate attending to particular, featuring layouts and props that are mostly contextually appropriate (more on that later). Flashbang grenades, gunfire, and explosives are frighteningly loud, making each encounter feel genuinely terrifying. The pièce de résistance is the game's moody noir-manner soundtrack that perfectly rises or falls in intensity based on the moment-to-moment gameplay.

All the same, despite everything that Ready or Non does well, I can't help but experience uncomfortable with some of the game's content. Recent events have made a variety of critical issues with modernistic police force forces abundantly clear; the prevalence of police brutality, racial discrimination, and the rapid militarization of constabulary enforcement has led to a significant change in how the general public views the police. Considering of this, information technology's crucial for VOID Interactive to construct its depiction of police force enforcement with maturity and integrity, keeping real-world context in heed.

Unfortunately, I experience that VOID has failed on this front in a few ways. Firstly, Ready or Not features a diversity of juvenile props in some of its locations, including bags of "Dick's Potato Chips" with the slogan "The best dick you've ever tasted," bottles of cleaner labelled as "Jizz," a box of pills for "Boner Health" from "Whore Foods," and shelves full of medicine called "Over Dos Ahs." This childish humor has no place in a game with sensitive subject matter like this, and while VOID has stated that these props came from a contractor they no longer work with and that they'll be removed in a hereafter update, information technology'south still baffling that they were at that place in the first place.

Despite everything Prepare or Non does well, I tin't assist merely feel uncomfortable with some of the game's content.

Then at that place are the voicelines and animations in the game that range from immature to downright inappropriate. Arrested civilians and suspects may quip that, "My mom has a Mexican maid. Perchance you know her?" or might flirt with you past proverb, "Squeamish tattoos ..." or "You guys (SWAT officers) look like the guys in the movies. Nice guns!" When placing handcuffs on a suspect, in that location'south a chance that an animation of your officeholder unnecessarily striking their head will play. Sometimes your officeholder will threaten arrested suspects, ordering them to "Shut your mouth or I'll shut it for y'all." Even each mission's general "Bring Order to Chaos" objective feels uncomfortably edgy and authoritarian, framing each of your operations as a lethal crackdown instead of a defusal. Again, VOID has committed to addressing a lot of this — the patch notes for the latest Alpha update of the game state that it removes "outdated legacy voicelines" — but what made the developers think they were appropriate to take in the game to begin with?

Source: Windows Central

The inclusion of childish and inappropriate content like this is concerning, peculiarly when you lot consider that VOID has doubled down on its plans to add together a school shooting level to the game. I don't believe that developers shouldn't be able to explore sensitive topics in their games, but if Ready or Not is going to go down that road, it needs to exist done with farthermost care and respect. VOID states that it "hopes it can play some small role in honoring those who have been impacted by these real-globe tragedies with a portrayal that does not trivialize their experiences," simply it remains to be seen whether the developers will truly commit to creating a more mature version of Ready or Not without any of the aforementioned nonsense.

Ultimately, Ready or Not is an incredibly fun game — easily i of the best PC games for tactical shooter fans — and I greatly appreciate that VOID Interactive'south tactical shooter promotes not-lethality in an era where many other games encourage you to shoot everything in sight without even thinking about it. That doesn't excuse the game's tasteless props, voicelines, and animations, though, and I sincerely hope that the developers work to make Fix or Not a more than appropriate and self-aware game moving forward.

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/ready-or-not-great-swat-sim-controversial-undertones

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