Chalk up another one for the Clancy franchise

by Lieven Sommen

Fun factor: Fun

Worth to: Buy/Rent

Though not without flaws, it still makes a decent console real-time strategy game for anyone who likes online multiplayer combat on a global scale

Tom Clancy’s EndWar is a new IP in the Tom Clancy universe. While the other Tom Clancy titles tend to focus on an elite squad or soldier in the US military, like Ghost Squad or Sam Fisher, EndWar does just the opposite. This game is a real-time strategy, though it doesn’t really resemble the RTS games you might have probably played before on the PC.



Voice command in the palm of your hand

The single biggest difference between all those PC RTSs and EndWar, is that this one works its way around the control issues a 360 pad may pose. Ubisoft has designed a system that allows you to control just about every aspect of the game with your voice, barring the menus. In order to take advantage of this system, you must hook up your controller with a headset. You can still assume control of your forces with the controller itself, but the voice communication system works quite a bit better, and it does add to the experience. Without it, EndWar would have been pretty average. You will still need to hold your controller at all times though, as you can only activate the voice recognition by pressing down the right trigger. That will cause a fold-out menu to appear that will extend itself every time you say one of the offered commands. It’s a really good system that makes it easy to see what your options are. Also, while the menu folds out rather slowly, the game has no problems picking up rapid sentences. It’s a fantastic system, and it works most of the time.

When I say most of the time, I mean whenever the command doesn’t include “four”. Every single time I uttered the word “four”, the game read it as “force recon”, probably because I don’t enunciate well enough. The result: I had to say every command in the game with the word “four” in it twice for the program to pick it up. However, this is a minor issue that’s solved by simply speaking clearly, which shouldn’t be too difficult.



The core gameplay isn’t like say, Age of Empires either. You don’t need to build bases, nor do you need to scrounge for resources to build up your army. The gameplay revolves around taking out (and optionally killing) enemy units and taking over uplinks. Uplinks are scattered all over the map, and they all have a different name (Alpha, Bravo, etc.) assigned to them so that you can easily apply them in the voice command system.

Familiar faces make discreet appearances

Your infantry can hack these terminals, which is often a mission objective, and they give you extra reinforcements as well. Other types of units include tanks, gunships, armed transport vehicles that are extremely handy to drive around infantry with and artillery vehicles. There’s a rock-paper-scissors system at work here, as every type of unit will be effective against one type of opponent, and weak to another. Understanding this system and applying it to your strategies is key.

The gameplay is pretty fun, and while you can only have a maximum of twelve squads on the battlefield at any time, the battles can still get pretty big. Other types of attacks, like Electronic Warfare and an Orbital Laser can further help shift the battle in your favor.



The game is pretty multiplayer-based, but there’s a single player component here as well. In the solo campaign, you pick one of three factions: America, Europe or Russia. Then, you go through a small prologue before being thrown head-first into the Third World War, the war to end all wars (get it?). You actually get a tactical map of the world here with key locations marked on it. You can then choose which battle to fight in a turn-based system. The whole thing strongly reminds me of the board game, Risk.

Taking over enemy bases will cut off their supplies, and taking over their capital will knock them flat. You must take over control of a large number of territories or take control of all other capitals as well as your own to win the war. There is some story sprinkled throughout, but it’s nothing special. In fact, the only thing I truly cared about was that Ghost Recon’s Scott Mitchell will be your commander here, should you choose the American faction. There are some casual mentions of the Rainbow squad as well, which is pretty cool if you like the other games in the series like I do.

Theater of War on a global scale

The multiplayer, dubbed Theater of War is structured in the same way. Each turn lasts 24 hours, and in that time the game measures how many battles are won and lost by each faction. At this point in time, the cycle has repeated itself numerous times, meaning the third World War has been repeatedly fought from start to finish. USA is usually in the lead, though this is understandable, as America has around 45 percent of the player base. The system is quite compelling, as it’s fun to see how gamers from all over the world are fighting this virtual war.



The battlefields themselves look pretty good, with a large amount of detail and plenty of bottlenecks and bridges to set up defenses on. What probably hooked me on EndWar was the extremely detailed combat. If you have an infantry unit take cover, they’ll start acting really realistically. They’ll sway and pop out of cover to shoot with very detailed animations. Or you can place a minefield. Or you can have them ride in transports, which reminded me of Ghost Recon, which also happens at the end of every mission. There are plenty of similar details, and they really do suck you into the experience.

Summary

In short, if you want an excellent RTS on a console with that classic Tom Clancy feel that gives a really good representation of modern combat, pick this EndWar up. You won’t be disappointed.