Available on: PC (coming), Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PSP, DS
Price Point: $30 (used), listed at $60 new.
Reviewed on: Xbox 360
Guilty party: Ubisoft (Shanghai)
This image included to try and be more like a real reviewer.
Tom Clancy's Endwar is a real time strategy game, launched for virtually all platforms. It's a sort of culmination of all the other Tom Clancy IP's, resulting in a World War 3 story. It has multiple similar play modes, and can be played in online co-op or in a persistent multiplayer campaign (more on this later). It also offers two single-player campaigns to play through. When I am assessing a game, I assess on two parts: presentation (story, storytelling, visual, and audio), and execution (control & mechanics). There's a lot to be said about execution, so let's get presentation out of the way in a quick & dirty fashion.
I mentioned two campaigns. The first campaign is titled "Prelude to War", and the second "World War 3". Prelude to War is a combined story mode and tutorial, whereas World War 3 is largely story-less and consists of you selecting battles in which to fight for world domination. This split works quite well: all that's necessary for a strategy game is to establish why the war started and leave the rest to history. The given setting in Prelude to War is well told and very believable. I can't reprint much of it here without giving away large spoilers, so I'll leave it unsaid. All I will say is that it's a three way war between the United States, an united Europe, and a Russian superpower. For a story set in 2020, all the superpowers presented are believable. Prelude to War is short, playing only a few missions per faction to reveal the operations which lead to war's outbreak. You spend most of your time in World War 3.
It's difficult to assess the length of World War 3. The missions aren't like a game like Red Alert, where a failure in one mission makes you replay it. Defeats result in territory loss, and you carry on from there. Too many defeats, and you'll lose the war. On the other hand, I've won in ten rounds before, with a round taking about fifteen minutes. (That was NOT my first playthrough, though.) Storywise, there's not much here. Occasional mentions of the backgrounds of opposing colenals is about all. For example, your commander might mention that your opponent used to serve in team Rainbow. I was fine with this: I knew why I was supporting my faction already, and inside of two missions I had my own reason to fight. I was avenging my men.
The audio and visual is different from the typical top-down birds-eye view you normally have. Your camera is centered on one of your units, and is shiftable somewhat. It pans in 360 degrees, and zooms. You can switch from unit to unit, or with a command vehicle deployed you can obtain a more traditional view. All these elements combined allow you to experience the world to its fullest. Simply put: these graphics are good enough to be a nice-looking shooter. The audio blends in that well too. Units all have individual voices to talk to you, and troops within a unit have chatter. The chatter doesn't grate like other games, as it's not at full volume nor directed to you after every order. It's just that: idle chatter. Together, it creates an immersive package. I genuinely became attached to my little men on the ground.
Above: The SITREP view. Here: My incompetence at forum code. Below: The normal view.
Time to talk about execution. There's a lot to say here, so bear with me. There's a few huge differences from usual RTS gameplay that must be explained properly: there are no bases, there are no resources to scrounge, and there is no need for a mouse.
That's right. In an effort to keep this game more realistic, one does not build a base in the battlespace. Every unit you will fight with is airlifted in or flies in under its own power. If you want a squadron of tanks, you give the order "Deploy tanks", or the matching manual control. Your support choppers will airlift a squad of tanks into the battlespace at the designated landing zone. Same goes for any other unit you want to command with. There is no tech tree, no upgrades, no prerequisites: if you want tanks, you get tanks. Their cost is deducted from your command points, and this brings me to my point on resources.
There are no arbitrary piles of 'stuff' to pluck from the battlefield. You have no 'harvester' or 'worker' units counting against maximum deployment. The only resource is "command points", which accumulate over time, or are granted for seizing objectives. These pay for reinforcements, or supports like air strikes. You must be wise in the use of them, but the actual aquisition just happens. This is satisfying to people who hate trying to find new tiberium patches, and hate hearing "Harvester is under attack".
I'm certain at least one person took off like a rocket from their seat when I said "no need for a mouse", rising like an ICBM, the word "OBJECTION!" on their lips as I spoke of a strategy game. Why is the mouse not needed? This game is voice controlled, and it works. In the interests of satisfying the audience, I put the voice control system to rigorous testing by having my friends test it. Further tests are still ongoing. The system works by having you key a push to talk button, give your orders according to a certain logic, and release button. How to do this is covered in the Prelude to War, and it's very intuitive anyways. All else failing, the key words appear on screen as you read, so you can flick through them by hand, or read one word at a time if you're stuck. I'm working on complete tests, but the system had no trouble reading me, two other male friends, or my girlfriend or my friend's girlfriend. (The ladies were actually better at giving orders than one friend). It also understood me when I commanded in a cheesy russian accent. I'm also going to try and put it to test in French by playing with my localization settings. So far, all is well. I LOVE this system: commanding is easy. If I had to find fault with it, it would be that you should have some familiarity with the phonetic alphabet to use it. Some locations are indicated by letters, and while the phonetic alphabet is designed for this kind of thing, it doesn't help people who don't know it. I do, but most of my co-testers did not. Also, some orders like garrisoning infantry cannot be given by voice as it would be confusing to designate a particular building by voice.
Let's move on to actual gameplay, shall we? In the campaign, there's four main game types that are playable: Conquest, Battle, Raid, and Seige. Conquests center on seizing control of missile shield uplinks in a given area, and are won by either holding a majority for five consecutive minutes, or seizing all uplinks. Battles are a simple game of annihilating the enemy. Raids are solely on army or air force bases. The attacker must destroy three of five critical buildings on the map before a fifteen minute timer expires. Raids also focus more on small-group combat, with reinforcements being strictly limited for both sides, and neither side may deploy artillery. Seiges only take place in faction capitals as the final battle, and the defender must hold out with no reinforcements whatsoever, nor any supports until a timer expires. The attacker must seize an uplink in the center of the defender's position, whereas the defender must destroy all attacking forces. All of the game types are fairly well balanced, although raids favor defenders while seiges favor attackers, I think this is likely intentional. A seige is a desperate mission, and a raid is a very difficult one by definition. Either way, the variety of game types keeps things mixed up and varied, while not carrying out a 'shark jump' genre change (See TVtropes).
The units are well-varied, but all realistic. This is not the game to play if you're looking to parachute bears behind enemy lines: every unit exists in real life. In-game, each serves a variety of purposes, and they are kept in balance by a core rock-paper-scissors mechanic. Tanks destroy transports, helicopter gunships mow down tanks, and transports turn gunships into metallic confetti. There are even more intricacies added by their varied mobility, and other units. This sticks to an 'easy to learn, hard to master philosophy'. You quickly learn what's effective against what, but the details of engaging favorably and avoiding bad matchups are where great commanders are born. Further complicating things are the various mission supports: air strikes inflict heavy losses on whatever you call them in on, but are at least as expensive as a reinforcement unit (if not more so), Electronic Warfare stops vehicles in their tracks, but inflicts no permanent damages. Force Recon calls in a company of weaker regular troops who are like weaker versions of your troops. They can inflict damage and hold down an area for a long time, but are oblitherated by more capable forces and cannot be ordered beyond their initial targets. The use of these is another fine art a commander must learn over time. Rounding the whole experience out is the DEFCON 1 status which is launched when one side begins losing badly. The losing side gains the ability to instantly and utterly destroy an uplink once, and only once, and recieves authorization to fire a weapon of mass destruction. These weapons are awe-inspiring, but must be used carefully: once fired, the opposite side recieves authorization to retaliate in kind. Eye for an eye...
If all of this seems complicated, have no fear: The AI is on your side, and it's damned good at its job. Players familiar with strategy are doubtless familiar with the words "Our base is under attack", typically delivered by some subordinate officer. Endwar assigns you a subordinate officer, but this one's smart. Your AI subordinate watches the entire battlespace constantly, observing every unit you have deployed. This AI gives updates on important events: an uplink seized? You will be informed. A unit taking heavy damage? You're told about it. Incoming superweapon? Informed, with a general (although usually futile) warning of what area it will impact. If there's a bad matchup on its way (say, your gunships are headed towards a unit of transports), you'll be informed of the problem and given the unit number. This sub-commander takes some of your load off, and co-ordinates things like extracting your fallen. In effect, this subordinate is a godsent who takes care of crap that commanders on the ground don't have to. I found myself reflexively thanking the AI: it's that good. Individual units will also report to you when they've arrived somewhere, transports inform you when a new unit has been delivered, and units will inform you when they're taking artillery fire.
Outside of the battlespace, the player has decisions to make. After each battle, the battle lines of the world map will shift, and new battlefields will be presented. Typically you are offered anywhere from two to five possible operations, and it's up to you to pick which one you think brings the biggest advantage. You also have an aspect of customization within your battalion. Remember how I said the AI co-ordinates extraction of fallen? That's right. You will come to care about every unit you deploy. When you join your faction, you take command of one of many available battalions, each with their own specialties. If you think tanks and artillery will be your thing, you can pick an armored battalion. If you think attack helicopters and riflemen will be your thing, an Airborne unit is right for you. If you like digging in engineers to hardened positions and moving them with transports, you should command a mechanized unit. As your units fight, they gain experience and improve... if they survive the battle. Fallen units can be rescued, but completely KIA units lose all experience. As your troops improve, you can customize and upgrade them in areas: your battlegroup is customizable. This leads to strategems in the metagame, and speculating on your enemies and what you will need to make your next tactic work. You come to care about your experienced troops: you could be losing seven or eight battles worth of experience and equipment if those men are slaughtered.
Multiplayer plays like the single player. You can play in a skirmish, assigned a battlegroup with average capabilites and equipment, and where you pick a map and game mode with your opponent, or you can play in the Theatre of War. I know my review's running long, so I'll keep this short. The multiplayer plays the same way as in single-player, although the persistant campaign has some slight changes. A "turn" is 24 hours long, so you can play the same missions in a territory more than once. Each win contributes to your faction's glorious victory, and every defeat hurts the war effort. Your battlegroup, and the actual gameplay remains the same, save that for your opponent is now human and much more likely to take things personally. While the AI enemies range anywhere from "slight challenge" to "nasty", humans are a mixed bag, are we not?
Let's wrap up. If you are interested in the actual combat and strategy of RTS games, but aren't a fan of the resource scavenging, base maintenance, and Tanya, I recommend Tom Clancy's Endwar for you. If you like strategy at all, I advise you pick up a demo, and go from there.
I'll see you in the Theatre of War.
*disclaimer: don't blame me if the DS version is radically different for no reason whatsoever.
Price Point: $30 (used), listed at $60 new.
Reviewed on: Xbox 360
Guilty party: Ubisoft (Shanghai)
This image included to try and be more like a real reviewer.
Tom Clancy's Endwar is a real time strategy game, launched for virtually all platforms. It's a sort of culmination of all the other Tom Clancy IP's, resulting in a World War 3 story. It has multiple similar play modes, and can be played in online co-op or in a persistent multiplayer campaign (more on this later). It also offers two single-player campaigns to play through. When I am assessing a game, I assess on two parts: presentation (story, storytelling, visual, and audio), and execution (control & mechanics). There's a lot to be said about execution, so let's get presentation out of the way in a quick & dirty fashion.
I mentioned two campaigns. The first campaign is titled "Prelude to War", and the second "World War 3". Prelude to War is a combined story mode and tutorial, whereas World War 3 is largely story-less and consists of you selecting battles in which to fight for world domination. This split works quite well: all that's necessary for a strategy game is to establish why the war started and leave the rest to history. The given setting in Prelude to War is well told and very believable. I can't reprint much of it here without giving away large spoilers, so I'll leave it unsaid. All I will say is that it's a three way war between the United States, an united Europe, and a Russian superpower. For a story set in 2020, all the superpowers presented are believable. Prelude to War is short, playing only a few missions per faction to reveal the operations which lead to war's outbreak. You spend most of your time in World War 3.
It's difficult to assess the length of World War 3. The missions aren't like a game like Red Alert, where a failure in one mission makes you replay it. Defeats result in territory loss, and you carry on from there. Too many defeats, and you'll lose the war. On the other hand, I've won in ten rounds before, with a round taking about fifteen minutes. (That was NOT my first playthrough, though.) Storywise, there's not much here. Occasional mentions of the backgrounds of opposing colenals is about all. For example, your commander might mention that your opponent used to serve in team Rainbow. I was fine with this: I knew why I was supporting my faction already, and inside of two missions I had my own reason to fight. I was avenging my men.
The audio and visual is different from the typical top-down birds-eye view you normally have. Your camera is centered on one of your units, and is shiftable somewhat. It pans in 360 degrees, and zooms. You can switch from unit to unit, or with a command vehicle deployed you can obtain a more traditional view. All these elements combined allow you to experience the world to its fullest. Simply put: these graphics are good enough to be a nice-looking shooter. The audio blends in that well too. Units all have individual voices to talk to you, and troops within a unit have chatter. The chatter doesn't grate like other games, as it's not at full volume nor directed to you after every order. It's just that: idle chatter. Together, it creates an immersive package. I genuinely became attached to my little men on the ground.
Above: The SITREP view. Here: My incompetence at forum code. Below: The normal view.
Time to talk about execution. There's a lot to say here, so bear with me. There's a few huge differences from usual RTS gameplay that must be explained properly: there are no bases, there are no resources to scrounge, and there is no need for a mouse.
That's right. In an effort to keep this game more realistic, one does not build a base in the battlespace. Every unit you will fight with is airlifted in or flies in under its own power. If you want a squadron of tanks, you give the order "Deploy tanks", or the matching manual control. Your support choppers will airlift a squad of tanks into the battlespace at the designated landing zone. Same goes for any other unit you want to command with. There is no tech tree, no upgrades, no prerequisites: if you want tanks, you get tanks. Their cost is deducted from your command points, and this brings me to my point on resources.
There are no arbitrary piles of 'stuff' to pluck from the battlefield. You have no 'harvester' or 'worker' units counting against maximum deployment. The only resource is "command points", which accumulate over time, or are granted for seizing objectives. These pay for reinforcements, or supports like air strikes. You must be wise in the use of them, but the actual aquisition just happens. This is satisfying to people who hate trying to find new tiberium patches, and hate hearing "Harvester is under attack".
I'm certain at least one person took off like a rocket from their seat when I said "no need for a mouse", rising like an ICBM, the word "OBJECTION!" on their lips as I spoke of a strategy game. Why is the mouse not needed? This game is voice controlled, and it works. In the interests of satisfying the audience, I put the voice control system to rigorous testing by having my friends test it. Further tests are still ongoing. The system works by having you key a push to talk button, give your orders according to a certain logic, and release button. How to do this is covered in the Prelude to War, and it's very intuitive anyways. All else failing, the key words appear on screen as you read, so you can flick through them by hand, or read one word at a time if you're stuck. I'm working on complete tests, but the system had no trouble reading me, two other male friends, or my girlfriend or my friend's girlfriend. (The ladies were actually better at giving orders than one friend). It also understood me when I commanded in a cheesy russian accent. I'm also going to try and put it to test in French by playing with my localization settings. So far, all is well. I LOVE this system: commanding is easy. If I had to find fault with it, it would be that you should have some familiarity with the phonetic alphabet to use it. Some locations are indicated by letters, and while the phonetic alphabet is designed for this kind of thing, it doesn't help people who don't know it. I do, but most of my co-testers did not. Also, some orders like garrisoning infantry cannot be given by voice as it would be confusing to designate a particular building by voice.
Let's move on to actual gameplay, shall we? In the campaign, there's four main game types that are playable: Conquest, Battle, Raid, and Seige. Conquests center on seizing control of missile shield uplinks in a given area, and are won by either holding a majority for five consecutive minutes, or seizing all uplinks. Battles are a simple game of annihilating the enemy. Raids are solely on army or air force bases. The attacker must destroy three of five critical buildings on the map before a fifteen minute timer expires. Raids also focus more on small-group combat, with reinforcements being strictly limited for both sides, and neither side may deploy artillery. Seiges only take place in faction capitals as the final battle, and the defender must hold out with no reinforcements whatsoever, nor any supports until a timer expires. The attacker must seize an uplink in the center of the defender's position, whereas the defender must destroy all attacking forces. All of the game types are fairly well balanced, although raids favor defenders while seiges favor attackers, I think this is likely intentional. A seige is a desperate mission, and a raid is a very difficult one by definition. Either way, the variety of game types keeps things mixed up and varied, while not carrying out a 'shark jump' genre change (See TVtropes).
The units are well-varied, but all realistic. This is not the game to play if you're looking to parachute bears behind enemy lines: every unit exists in real life. In-game, each serves a variety of purposes, and they are kept in balance by a core rock-paper-scissors mechanic. Tanks destroy transports, helicopter gunships mow down tanks, and transports turn gunships into metallic confetti. There are even more intricacies added by their varied mobility, and other units. This sticks to an 'easy to learn, hard to master philosophy'. You quickly learn what's effective against what, but the details of engaging favorably and avoiding bad matchups are where great commanders are born. Further complicating things are the various mission supports: air strikes inflict heavy losses on whatever you call them in on, but are at least as expensive as a reinforcement unit (if not more so), Electronic Warfare stops vehicles in their tracks, but inflicts no permanent damages. Force Recon calls in a company of weaker regular troops who are like weaker versions of your troops. They can inflict damage and hold down an area for a long time, but are oblitherated by more capable forces and cannot be ordered beyond their initial targets. The use of these is another fine art a commander must learn over time. Rounding the whole experience out is the DEFCON 1 status which is launched when one side begins losing badly. The losing side gains the ability to instantly and utterly destroy an uplink once, and only once, and recieves authorization to fire a weapon of mass destruction. These weapons are awe-inspiring, but must be used carefully: once fired, the opposite side recieves authorization to retaliate in kind. Eye for an eye...
If all of this seems complicated, have no fear: The AI is on your side, and it's damned good at its job. Players familiar with strategy are doubtless familiar with the words "Our base is under attack", typically delivered by some subordinate officer. Endwar assigns you a subordinate officer, but this one's smart. Your AI subordinate watches the entire battlespace constantly, observing every unit you have deployed. This AI gives updates on important events: an uplink seized? You will be informed. A unit taking heavy damage? You're told about it. Incoming superweapon? Informed, with a general (although usually futile) warning of what area it will impact. If there's a bad matchup on its way (say, your gunships are headed towards a unit of transports), you'll be informed of the problem and given the unit number. This sub-commander takes some of your load off, and co-ordinates things like extracting your fallen. In effect, this subordinate is a godsent who takes care of crap that commanders on the ground don't have to. I found myself reflexively thanking the AI: it's that good. Individual units will also report to you when they've arrived somewhere, transports inform you when a new unit has been delivered, and units will inform you when they're taking artillery fire.
Outside of the battlespace, the player has decisions to make. After each battle, the battle lines of the world map will shift, and new battlefields will be presented. Typically you are offered anywhere from two to five possible operations, and it's up to you to pick which one you think brings the biggest advantage. You also have an aspect of customization within your battalion. Remember how I said the AI co-ordinates extraction of fallen? That's right. You will come to care about every unit you deploy. When you join your faction, you take command of one of many available battalions, each with their own specialties. If you think tanks and artillery will be your thing, you can pick an armored battalion. If you think attack helicopters and riflemen will be your thing, an Airborne unit is right for you. If you like digging in engineers to hardened positions and moving them with transports, you should command a mechanized unit. As your units fight, they gain experience and improve... if they survive the battle. Fallen units can be rescued, but completely KIA units lose all experience. As your troops improve, you can customize and upgrade them in areas: your battlegroup is customizable. This leads to strategems in the metagame, and speculating on your enemies and what you will need to make your next tactic work. You come to care about your experienced troops: you could be losing seven or eight battles worth of experience and equipment if those men are slaughtered.
Multiplayer plays like the single player. You can play in a skirmish, assigned a battlegroup with average capabilites and equipment, and where you pick a map and game mode with your opponent, or you can play in the Theatre of War. I know my review's running long, so I'll keep this short. The multiplayer plays the same way as in single-player, although the persistant campaign has some slight changes. A "turn" is 24 hours long, so you can play the same missions in a territory more than once. Each win contributes to your faction's glorious victory, and every defeat hurts the war effort. Your battlegroup, and the actual gameplay remains the same, save that for your opponent is now human and much more likely to take things personally. While the AI enemies range anywhere from "slight challenge" to "nasty", humans are a mixed bag, are we not?
Let's wrap up. If you are interested in the actual combat and strategy of RTS games, but aren't a fan of the resource scavenging, base maintenance, and Tanya, I recommend Tom Clancy's Endwar for you. If you like strategy at all, I advise you pick up a demo, and go from there.
I'll see you in the Theatre of War.
*disclaimer: don't blame me if the DS version is radically different for no reason whatsoever.
