The story is a conspiracy theory lover's dream. You are a member of a police force that has global jurisdiction, black helicopters and all. Two shadowy organizations, the Omega Cartel made of business types gone bad, and the street gang the Dragon Clan, are fighting a bitter war over control of a new narcotic and it's your job, along with your teammates, to defuse the volatile situations caused by this street war. SWAT: Global Strike Team might not be the prettiest or most popular squad-based military shooter on the market, and it certainly won't be winning in awards in the enemy AI department, but it still has enough polish and well-thought out small touches to make it a fine game.

While this is a squad-based game, it's also a first-person shooter on a console, and if you can't handle FPS controls with a gamepad then stop reading this review and go pick up something else. The game does try to address this, the level of customization that the player has over the difficulty levels includes things like a wider target area and auto-aim, which can make the game easier for those willing to give it a try. It also helps that your AI-control teammates are actually useful. They will provide cover fire that does more than waste ammo, and it's even possible to get an award if your teammates takedown more criminals than you do. They also have excellent path finding; leaving your sniper, Kana, parked in an entirely different part of a level to provide you with cover, then calling her to you will result in her actually finding her way to that spot instead of magically teleporting there or getting stuck on a doorway. Unfortunately, the enemy AI is nowhere near as smart as your buddies, and bad guys tend to act with repetitive patterns when they aren't just standing around waving their guns in the air.

At the beginning of a level you select your arsenal. Instead of throwing a ton of guns at you that are just re-skins of one another with slightly tweaked stats, you get a small but nicely varied selection. For your lethal weapon you get a choice of shotgun, assault rifle, or machine gun -- any of the three lethal weapons can be upgraded as you play with reward points you earn from meeting objectives during play. For non-lethal weaponry you have the tranquilizer gun. It takes several hits with the tranq gun to take anyone down, but being able to shoot first and worry about civilians later can make it worthwhile. Finally you get to choose from several types of grenades, including EMPs to blow out lights and computers, CS Gas to make people give in easier, and a flashbang to blind them. Why do you have all this non-lethal weaponry? Simple, killing people isn't always the answer, and often you get more points for detaining high-profile criminals for later interrogation. This doesn't mean you have to use the tranquilizer gun all the time, however. A few warning shots, a canister of CS gas, and a few shouts of "SWAT! Drop your weapon!" can get even the most hardened criminal to throw in the towel and wait for you to handcuff him.

The AI teammates are controlled either with the D-Pad, which will give you 4 simple situational commands such as Follow or Pick Lock, or by using a USB headset and voice recognition. Using voice recognition in SWAT is one of the best examples of the excellent small touches and foresight by the developers -- each command has several key words, so if you have an accent that the software has a hard time with you can find a different word or phrase that it handles better. Other small touches include your teammates switching to non-lethal weapons when you do, or the way your character will lower their weapon when up against a wall. Another nice touch is the alternate missions in split-screen cooperative mode and the variety of multiplayer options.

The usefulness of the teammates, the many multiplayer modes, the variable levels of difficulty help out the game a lot. However, the small touches don't do much to gloss over the weaknesses. The levels are linear, the enemy AI is not very smart, and the game world feels weak even with the background chatter of your teammates and the constant radio contact with your superiors. Overall, SWAT: Global Strike Team is a good but imperfect game.