The Wargamer

Playing a strategy game on a console has always been a bit of a trick.  Limited by the buttons on a controller and, until the widespread use of HDTVs, low pixel resolution on the screen, strategy games have been developed for consoles but were typically less satisfying gaming experiences than on the PC.  However, with widespread use of HDTVs with 1080 screen resolutions, the display for console games has begun to approach PC levels.  The controllers, while still challenging to use, could be mastered but strategy gaming has continued to be dominated by the PC.

Ubisoft has crafted a solution to move past the limitations of console controllers.  Tom Clancy’s EndWar is the first voice-controlled strategy game.  The voice system works remarkably well so long as players speak clearly and calmly.  Shouting, like much of real life, rarely works.  He who hesitates is lost, too.  On more than one occassion I wasn't sure about what I wanted to do, and would say something like "Unit 2...I mean 3..."  Needless to say, that doesn't work.  However, when spoken clearly I had no problems.

Set about 10 years in the future the game sets the player in a tri-polar world where the US, Europe, and Russia are all at odds with one another.  True to the Tom Clancy franchise, a fair amount of investment went into constructing an interesting plot; the voice acting is good, and the conflict sets the stage for a plausible futuristic conflict involving both a strategic as well as tactical game.  The strategic game is determined with the player selecting where he wants to battle – either to defend the homefront or take the fight to the enemy.  The tactical game is then set with the player controlling a number of units in a fight for ground on one of over 40 battlefields.  Invariably, this involves taking a series of objectives; in some cases controlling “uplinks” which represent a network grid, and in others destroying objectives, which represent the enemy’s infrastructure. 

The voice command system works well.

 

At the tactical level, all units can be controlled via voice commands.  The syntax is fairly simple and usually involves something like: Subject-Verb-Object.  For instance, if the player wants his tanks (his Unit 2) to attack an enemy’s Infantry (Unit 5), he simply holds the right trigger button on his controller and speaks into his headset, “Unit 2 attack Hostile 5.”  At all times the player can see the status of his units in the lower left of the screen, and any visible hostile units are easily numbered for identification.  Objectives are also named (e.g. Alpha, Delta, Sierra, Zulu) to it’s easy for the player to simply order, “Unit 2 secure Sierra” and off they will dutifully go. 

Target and friendly unit identification is easy.

The combat is interesting.  Success in the game is a slightly complicated version of rock-paper-scissors, which does a fairly good job of representing the concept of combined arms combat.  Units are represented in groups of four; an infantry unit has four squads, vehicles like tanks and transports come in groups of four individual vehicles; only the command and other special units are solitary.  Infantry units left in the open are pretty much toast to anything shooting at them.  However, ordering them into cover (either through the voice menu or by selecting a building on the map and clicking the A button to direct them into it – one of the few times the controller might be used) will then place them in a fairly secure position.  Attack helicopters make short work of tanks; tanks and mobile artillery are best used to take out infantry in cover.  Transport vehicles double as taxis for infantry and anti-air assets.  In all there are nine different types of units: two of infantry (riflemen and engineers), plus transports, thanks, gunships, artillery, command vehicles, drones, and UAVs.  Making things a bit more interesting is the ability to upgrade units.  During the campaign game, as the player makes progress he earns credits which can then be spent to provide units additional weapons and abilities.  The player is also given an incentive to protect damaged units since they can be repaired and accumulate experience as the campaign progresses. 

Upgrading a tank unit.

EndWar offers several modes of gameplay.  Theater of War allows the player to jump into a big online game and battle through ranked matches with other players.  Skirmish allows the player to either play solo or online in unranked matches for some quick fun.  The Solo Campaign offers two modes:  Prelude to War, which is a good tutorial, and World War III, which is a dynamic campaign where the player’s performance determines the progress of the game.  Within these modes of gameplay are four mission types: Conquest, Assault, Raid, and Siege.  Conquest involves capturing at least half of the uplinks on the map and holding them until time expires.  Assault’s objective is to destroy all enemy units on the map.  Raid is either to destroy or protect over half of the objectives on a map.  Siege is slightly more complicated – as the attacker the player must capture and hold at least half of the objectives until time expires.  As the defender the objective is to destroy all attacking units…but reinforcements aren’t available until a certain amount of time has expired.  Since there are limits to the number of reinforcements available to players, destroying all of the enemy’s units will result in a win.

Selecting a battlefield in the campaign game.

In order to achieve supremacy a couple of constraints had to be placed on the gamer.  The player’s view of the map is limited to a ground-level perspective – perhaps 20 feet above the unit itself in the game.  There are two ways to overcome this perspective handicap.  The player can either change his view to the perspective of an air unit, which zooms out to the perspective as seen by the helos on the map, or he can view a truly strategic situation via a command unit.  Either of these perspectives is only available if the player actually has these units in play.  By limiting the perspective of units the player effectively is immersed in a fog of war without the artificial black cloud that often accompanies RTS games. 

The different perspectives offered by ground and air.

Because of the rock-paper-scissors aspect of combat, getting the right units to attack or defend is critical.  Also important is taking and holding uplinks, which not only count toward victory objectives but also may add to the player’s amount of command points, which determine reinforcements which can replace damaged and destroyed units.  Upgrading secured uplinks also can unlock special off-map support like airstrikes or crashing the enemy’s uplinks.  Players will also do well to try to secure as many objectives as they can without fighting, which will yield greater reinforcements while leaving initially deployed units intact. 

So how does it stack up?  In a word: great.  EndWar won’t be a substitute for deep, complex PC strategy games like War in the Pacific, and it’s probably not going to have the endurance of StarCraft.  However, it cranks the fun to 11 for console strategy games.  What it lacks in complexity it makes up for in action and it brings the strategy genre for consoles to a new level.   The voice-driven menu is revolutionary and the pace of the game unfolds ideally – there is plenty of action, yet things rarely feel out of control.  A quick order like “Unit 4 Camera” almost instantly zips across the battlefield to bring the player to the desired unit to assess the situation.  As a result, while the player isn’t issuing orders at the speed of thought, it’s close enough.  Fast, fun, and furious action are the best way to describe EndWar, and it’s worth checking out if your Xbox 360 needs some new action.