Door Kickers

I'm confused by this game. It's like a single developer painstakingly put great care into creating a fun gameplay mechanic... and then published it without doing anything else. This could have been so much more. Why don't missions have briefings? Even Swat 3 had mission briefings, describing the hostage demands and the events leading up to the situation, all while a voice-over briefs you on the task at hand. Plus each Swat member has a detailed backstory. And this was a game from the 90s. None of the missions feel like part of a campaign. There's no story progression. It's just a series of random locations. That being said, this game became much more fun when I stopped trying to plan out entire missions beforehand and just moved them individually. It became way more fun when I discovered the peek-a-boo tactic. Just strafe your guy until the enemy pops into view, then immediately pause it and move your guy back. They won't see you and you'll be able to throw a flashbang their way without taking any damage. There are some things that are wonky. Sometimes your entire team can unload on one guy, who just calmly takes out everyone with a single shot. Sometimes you'll have the enemy in sight and your guy just won't fire. Sometimes there's no rhyme or reason to when they will decide to execute hostages (you can throw a flashbang into the room, but as long as you don't cross an invisible threshold, you can pick everyone off from afar). And the worst is the grenade throwing. You can't cancel a throw by right clicking or hitting escape. You have to confirm the throw, then click on the guy and delete all paths. And sometimes the game will just decide to unpause the game and drop the grenade right at your feet. This is especially fun when you finally get throw a level that has taken you days to beat without casualties, only to kill one of your guys before the last room. So, should you play this if you've never played it before? Absolutely. And get to know it before you give up on it. It doesn't really explain the controls, so learn what Shift and Control do. Learn about which gun does what. It does a horrible job explaining shields and guns. Sometimes max power on a gun doesn't mean it's the most powerful gun. It may be useless against body armor. I hear there's a Door Kickers 2 but apparently it has been in early access for a year and doesn't appear to be making progress. This could be an amazing concept. Someone should put work into this.