Review: Tom Clancy's End War (360)
Most notably the voice communication. Console RTS’ have been criticised in the past for offering an inferior control scheme to the PC’s mouse and keyboard setup. Ubisoft hope to change this the inclusion of voice command. Other games have tried, but mostly you’re left bemused as the computer seems to ignore your every direction. Not with Endwar. After a short voice test at the start where you just repeat words down the mic, you’re sent head first into the Prelude to War campaign, which acts as a prologue to World War III and is used to teach you the basics of Endwar.
Communication is used by simply saying what unit you want, then followed with what you want them to do and where you want them to go. For example you could say, “Unit 1 attack hostile 3” or if you want to capture a control point then you could say, “Unit 2 secure Delta”. You can also order air strikes and tell units where to move. The best part about it is you don’t have to break up the flow of the sentence in order for the game to understand, you just speak normally and 95% of the time it’ll understand you. Of course those without a mic could simply use button presses, but for speed and efficiency nothing beats the power of speech.
During the initial campaign you’re also taught about the units you control. It’s a simple rock, paper, scissors scenario with some units being better equipped in certain situations and against specific enemies. The game even comes with a little leaflet telling you this so you can always double check before making an attacking move. This though brings with it the first fault we found with Endwar. You will have to constantly baby sit your units because if they get caught out in the open (especially with the riflemen) they will just stand there and fire back, despite a nearby wall that would provide cover. It makes you grateful that the fighting aspect is really all that Endwar offers. Something that hardened RTS players may scoff at. If you’re looking for resource management and building construction then there’s nothing to see here. It’s very streamlined with the fighting being the primary focus. A good thing really, what with the amount of voice commands which would be needed if you add all sorts of gameplay elements to the mix.
Once you enter the main World War III campaign then you’re greeted with a world map with the objective being to take so many enemy places or capture all enemy capitals. It adds elements of strategy, taking certain squares will ensure they don’t have a strong attack in other areas. The battles will consist of three modes, raid, assault and conquest. Each having different ways of obtaining victory, such as destroying all enemy units, capturing the majority of uplinks or destroying crucial buildings. All of these are played out on an impressive assortment of maps (plus others that can be downloaded for a price) each having their own unique traits and ways of getting a good foothold against the enemy. If you're after a story to go with the action then you'll be sorely disappointed. It's complete nonsence with video snippets between each mission confusing us more, by the end we really had no idea who was the enemy and how this war started.
The short length of the single player mode suggests that Ubisoft wanted to concentrate more on the online play. This is played out similar to the solo campaign. At the start you choose a faction and then what is being dubbed a persistent world changes after every day. It’ll show you what cities have been taken and what missions are now available to you for the next 24 hours. It’s where most of Endwars longevity can be found and will certainly have us returning to it, what with the amount of skilled players out there on the Internet.
With the likes of Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon all under the Tom Clancy banner maybe one day Endwar can also be classed alongside them. An original IP in a genre not associated with consoles during the Christmas rush may not be the best time for its release. Though perhaps it’s managed to carve out a niche and in doing so we’re hopeful this really isn’t the end of this war.
Rating: 8 / 10
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