While certainly a beautiful game, the character models leave a bit something to be desired. Often suspects and hostages have a "shiny" look to them, and some animations can be sudden/clunky. The level design in the latest updates is outstanding. Neon Tomb is one of the most memorable and best designed maps I have ever encountered in a game, and comes together to make an intense, incredible experience. The real stars of the show here are the sound design and effects around the weapons. Getting stunned by a stinger, flashbang, pepper spray, and other such tools leaves your character stumbling and very disoriented, and the visual effects that accompany it actually put you at a huge disadvantage for a time. The guns all sound like they pack a punch, and hearing gunfire be traded while the suppression effect hits you is quite an experience. Things go from 0-100 real quick. Between the animations, particle effects, suppression/damage visuals your heart will be pounding as the music kicks into high gear for firefights.

It's not often you have a game where the anticipation of the firefight is as fun as the firefight itself, but Ready or Not pulls it off with flying colors. Stacking up on a door with your friends, knowing there are multiple suspects and hostages behind it, and preparing to execute your plan to clear to the room safely will have you holding your breath before the storm hits when that door opens. Open it quietly and toss a flashbang/stinger/cs gas, or breach it with a charge, breaching shotgun, or battering ram. Within a heartbeat you'll all be yelling for compliance, ready to drop any suspects if they aim their weapons at you, and your eagerness might get a hostage killed as easily as your hesitation could. Firefights are fast, intense, and deadly in their consequences.

Ready or Not brings back nearly all of the classic SWAT franchise tactics and options, while expanding on it a little more with some new options for breaching. To list some of the available features:

• Order your elements (issue orders in singleplayer to the various members of your squad). A wide variety of commands are available. From stacking up, to breaching and clearing, to picking locks/disarming traps.
  
• Picture-in-picture view of your teammates views.
  
• Mirroring under doors to check the room
  
• Lockpicking/disarming traps
  
• Non-lethal options (Taser, Beanbag shotgun, Pepperball gun, pepperspray, melee)
  
• Customize your loadout and appearance
  
• Breaching options (Kick the door in, breaching shotgun, c4 charges)
  
• Compliance callouts, unauthorized use of force.
  
• PvP/PvE
  
• Multiple maps with multiple scenarios that you can pick (Hostage situation, Active Shooter, Raid, Bomb Threat, Barricaded Suspects)
  
• Localized damage (arm, torso, leg, etc)
  
• Restraining and calling in suspects/hostages/statuses.
  
• Penetrating shots (shoot through doors/glass/and some walls to neutralize suspects).
  
• Bag evidence.
  
  The only downside I've found so far is the slow burn at the end while you try to find that ONE suspect/hostage/evidence item you missed.
  Ready or Not doesn't hold back, gladly and openly embracing its influence from the SWAT series.

There's not any story here so far, just the various missions and scenarios.

Bringing back the hardcore tactical shooter PvE game with style (and a PvP mode if desired), Ready or Not provides smooth, intense, and most importantly fun multiplayer with an extremely easy join system. The one thing that's missing here is having element commands in multiplayer. I haven't had this much fun in a tactical shooter since SWAT 4. The coordination it requires to successfully pull off a mission is a high hurdle to cross, but when you pull it off your team will be celebrating.

With several maps and several different games modes (though not all maps have them implemented yet), random placement of suspects, traps, and hostages, Ready or Not will keep you guessing and on your toes to successfully pull off every mission. Never get complacent, or you'll get someone killed.

If you're a fan of the SWAT series, you've waited for nearly 17 years for a SWAT 5. I'm here to tell you that this is it. Ready or Not wears its influence on its sleeve, and it wears it very, very well. Ready or Not is everything SWAT 4 was, and more. More tactical, more visceral, more intense, more heart-pounding, more beautiful. The developers have clearly poured their heart and soul into this game, and I cannot thank them enough for finally bringing back the experience of the most hardcore tactical shooter series I've ever played.

Ready or Not is an experience you don't want to miss out on. Grab your buddies and gear up, this game will give you gaming memories that will last a long time.