Tom
Clancy's EndWar is a real-time strategy game created for consoles that
has now found its way to the PC. How's that for a twist? With its
innovative voice controls and strong production values, EndWar was an
enjoyable experience on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, granting
armchair commanders a sense of high-tech supremacy. Yet on a platform
overflowing with quality RTS options, its core simplicity is far more
obvious. Its three near-future factions all play the same way, the
rock-paper-scissors relationships between units are incredibly
straightforward, and the single-player campaign doesn't tell any story
to speak of, which is a blatant missed opportunity. Nevertheless, a
novel multiplayer mode and persistent units that carry from one mission
to the next keep things interesting, and on the whole, EndWar is a
mildly enjoyable game, even if it never feels like a comfortable fit on
the PC.
Scissors beats paper. Or in this case, transports beat gunships.
To
get the most out of the experience, you'll need to plug in a headset.
To order your units about, you issue a series of preset commands by
holding down the space bar and speaking your directive into the
microphone. This runs the gamut from attacking enemy squads ("Unit two,
attack hostile four") and bringing in reinforcements when they are
available ("Deploy gunships") to centering your view on a particular
group ("Unit three, camera") and ordering special attacks ("Air strike,
hostile six"). There are limited possibilities, so don't expect to plan
out multiple waypoints or set up tank patrols. Nor can you rely
completely on the microphone--at least, not if you intend to be
competitive. Actions like garrisoning infantry in a building or ordering
your units to unleash special attacks require some key presses, so
there is a bit of light micromanagement in this regard.
If
you'd rather take a traditional approach, you can use a mouse and
keyboard, but doing so makes EndWar more frustrating than fun. Because
the camera must be focused on a particular unit, you can't scroll across
the map and issue orders with ease. You can enter a "sitrep" view,
assuming your command vehicle hasn't been destroyed, which makes issuing
orders with a mouse more feasible but is visually unappealing. Should
you decide to use a headset (which you should, if you want to
experience EndWar at its best), you may need to mess around with
settings in Windows and within the game menus to get your hardware to
work properly. A standard Logitech headset recognized most voice
commands, while others were less successful (or completely
unsuccessful) in consistently recognizing instructions.
The
units themselves are products of EndWar's World War III setting. In
the game's version of near-future events, The United States, Russia, and
a unified Europe have become superpowers, and the US plans to launch a
military space station to tip the worldwide balance of power in its
favor. Unfortunately, terrorists destroy the station upon liftoff,
thereby igniting global conflict. Yet as interesting and far-fetched as
the setting is, it's mostly backdrop. The campaign is just a series of
battles against the AI that emulates EndWar's main multiplayer mode, so
don't expect much exposition, larger-than-life personalities, or
political intricacies. You can play as any of the three factions, but
while your own commander (and his or her blatant accent) will change,
there's no story to involve you, aside from mission updates and news
blurbs. Thus, there's no reason to play the campaign with another
faction if you've finished it once already. This lack of narrative is a
big disappointment, given Tom Clancy's pedigree of political
page-turners.
Capturing every uplink leads to the sweetest kind of victory.
Nevertheless,
EndWar has a way of drawing you in, not just because of the unique
control mechanism, but because it lets you closely follow your squads
into battle. Regardless of your faction, the basic units are the same:
Infantry comprises riflemen and engineers; tanks and artillery have the
armored advantage; gunships take to the skies; and transports not only
whisk your infantry about the battlefield, but offer necessary antiair
support. Most of the time, you'll be switching your view from squad to
squad, and the camera's close-up vantage point has quite an impact
when you're engaged in combat. Bullets fly, gunships fall from the sky,
and artillery fire rains from above, and some visual glitches aside,
it's all exciting and cinematic in a way that most other strategy games
just can't accomplish. Using sitrep view lets you get a quick overview
of the battlefield, which is useful but not particularly dramatic. The
rapid zoom of the camera when you move in and out of this mode and
from one unit to the next, however, is slick.
While
it may be authentic to have so few unit types and no striking
difference between factions given the setting, it doesn't make any side
worth playing more than another. The relationship between units is
always the same--tanks beat transports, gunships beat tanks, and so
on--so there's little subtlety to the gameplay. Instead, strategy is
delivered on a broader level, starting with the mission objectives.
There are four main mission types: assault, conquest, siege, and raid.
Assault is the simplest (kill your enemy), while in Raid, you must
either destroy or defend certain buildings on the map to achieve
victory. Conquest is the most interesting mode, taking its cues from the
Battlefield games in addition to EndWar's closest RTS cousin, World in
Conflict. Here, you must use infantry to capture control points,
called uplinks, scattered across the map while fending off the enemy
and sabotaging their attempts to do the same. Siege battles are much
less common than other types and involve an assaulting player
attempting to capture a critical uplink while the defending player
struggles to maintain control of it.
Tactics
are generally obvious in all of these situations, but they can still
generate a tense tug-of-war between players as each jockeys for
position. Uplinks are present in all modes, and they are a critical part
of the gameplay. Most importantly, they help you earn command points,
which you need in order to call in reinforcements and perform other
actions. However, uplinks can be taken only by infantry, so even if you
aren't playing a conquest map, you'll still want some riflemen or
engineers in the field. Uplinks also hold a second key to victory:
upgrades that allow you to engage support powers like air strikes and
electronic attacks. These powers are invaluable in a sticky situation
but also cost command points, so you'll need to weigh the advantage of
bringing in another transport to defeat your gunship-heavy opponent
against a quick strike that could do immediate damage. There are even
short-range nukes to deploy in certain circumstances that can
immediately turn the tide of battle and produce a spectacular explosion.
Why is Russia always the bad guy?
All
of these battles are given context within a larger turn-based map
called the Theater of War. The offline theater is good for practice, but
it's the online theater that provides the meat of the experience. This
semiglobal map is persistent, so as opposing players engage one
another, the results of an entire day's matches represent a single turn
within the theater. Once the day's turn is complete, new battles open
up as each faction spreads its dominion. This is a great idea that may
remind you of a similar mode in the mech action game Chromehounds. But
while the sameness of each faction makes it hard to feel particularly
loyal, it's involving to watch your faction's color spread across the
map, whether that means establishing your presence in Florida or
burning Paris to the ground. A few days after the game's release,
however, relatively few players seem to be participating in the
theater, making EndWar's long-term viability unclear.
Your
battle prowess has global consequences, but success brings more than a
victory for your faction. You'll also earn a supply of credits after
each battle that you can then spend on upgrades for your units.
Surviving units gain levels, which gives them access to purchased
enhancements, which could mean faster movement speed, new support powers
(being able to designate a new drop point for reinforcements is ever
so helpful), or additional attacks that can be triggered when you are
following the unit that can perform them. Like the Theater of War, this
feature seems like it's supposed to make you feel emotionally attached
to your faction's success, and it works to an extent, giving you an
incentive that functions on a more personal level. While new attacks
open up some minor micromanagement options, they don't bring drastic
changes, because most battles are still won or lost with quick uplink
securing and a basic understanding of rock-beats-scissors dynamics.
While
EndWar's tactics were designed on a broader scale, its presentation
attempts to throw you into the midst of battle. When firefights get
heavy, the screen fills with units and explosions, and it's fun to
watch the destruction on the ground from the vantage point of a gunship
squad firing at tanks or engineers from above. Some smaller touches
make an impact, such as the authentic-looking behavior of engineer
squads as they enter a building or a transport. However, the PC version
looks much less impressive than its console counterparts. Textures are
bland, while lighting, shadows, and other aspects are simply average,
so even with all settings turned up, the quality of the visuals doesn't
seem to justify the relatively high system requirements. EndWar also
suffers from occasional performance problems, which affect not only the
frame rate, but the speed of the entire game, which can suddenly start
chugging for no obvious reason.
EndWar looks like your prom backup date: pleasing, if not quite beautiful.
The
sound design does a better job of immersing you in battle. This is
partially due to the din of combat--perfectly appropriate for World War
III. However, it's the constant radio chatter and responses of your
units that have the greatest impact, making you feel as though you
really are in the role of a military commander. The sound effects aren't
just cosmetic, however: EndWar's constant feedback is an important
tactical tool, letting you make split-second decisions that could mean
life or death for your squad. Unfortunately, there are too many times
when crucial feedback ("Check unit nine") comes far too late for it to
do any good.
EndWar's
voice command mechanic makes it unique among strategy games, and it's
this innovation that stands out above all of its other features. Strip
it away, and you'll find an RTS game that can be fun but is ultimately
too simple to stand out in a crowded genre. But even if strategy
veterans won't find all the complexities they'd expect, there's
something to be said for EndWar's smart match types and persistent
campaign. Hopefully as its community grows, so too will the game's
long-term possibilities.
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