(re: re: re: re: PQ and real police training)
No, Gates’ name does not appear on the box its self, only in the credits as the Consultant. Kenneth A. Thatcher is the LAPD SWAT Advisor for SWAT 3 (also as Advisor and Consultant for SWAT: Global Strike Team for the console).
SWAT 3 was and is the best tactical FPS game I would say and there is not a game like it as of yet. It was also awarded Tactical Game Of The Year ones. Raven Shield of Ubisoft comes close but not close enough. It’s the live saving part that really is good, very few if none other games have that. A true Sierra game, original, only Ubisoft got a bit close to making the same type of game (but again not close enough), realistic, great AI, life saving, real police procedure orientated etc. etc. It also had a great development team of people who really had their heart in the right place. Rod Fung (Producer) really was into SWAT and really knew what he was talking about.
SWAT: Urban Justice dropped the LAPD SWAT license as I said before. Probably upper management wanted to reach a wider audience and sell more, it’s always about the money. Things really did not work out for that game and Rod was the first to leave after 12 years at Sierra. He went to Microsoft to work within the Xbox division in their “Advanced Technologies Group”, supporting and assisting all the Xbox developers. More developers have also left and most of them have found a new job within the industry. It was a great development team who really cared about the game and it’s fans. There are only a few (if none) of them left, Sierra/ VUG has been silent about the game for years now and never made any public statement or announcement about what was going on with the game, they just seem to want to keep quite and hope everyone forgets. PR is not a word which goes together with that game. It’s a real shame. Also SWAT: Global Strike Team for the Xbox and Playstation 2 was not a true SWAT game, it did have some SWAT features but you can get medals for shooting 10 people in the head and some more other “Dark medals”. Killing sells better then live saving these days I guess.
I also mailed Rod to see if he knew more about the police departments and PQ/SWAT. He also could not remember about PQ itself but for SWAT 1 he knew the Honolulu PD SWAT had looked at it as he did a presentation to them (and the FBI) of the product. A number of individual police dept. swat teams had looked at the SWAT 3 product as well. There was a much larger following from individuals who were on SWAT teams including a number of people on LAPD D-platoon.
Rod worked on a lot of Sierra’s franchises (King’s Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest, etc.) and started as a Studio Director filming actors on Sierra’s blue screen stage. Police Quest 4 was his first experience as a full-time developer assigned to a team. So I assume you knew him Ken. Can you remember what kind of guy he was? Any funny stories let me know 🙂
Micha