End War Preview

[Gingerlink 2]

Real Time strategy games have never worked as well on consoles. Ordering around a series of troops with a joypad is much harder than doing the same with a mouse and keyboard. The wii may stand a chance of producing the odd good real time strategy as at least you get a pointer, but it's not yet been done. The fact of the matter is mouse > console controller.

However, End War takes a different approach. The whole game can be controlled purely by voice commands. Now you may be thinking this is some sort of gimmick that will be dodgy and won't work very well. I was on the game for maybe 15-20 minutes and, despite the large amount of background noise at the convention, it only missed one voice command, which it then followed up, recognising my complaint that it missed it (it was quite a funny moment). The smoothness and speed that you can reel off commands seems to bring up another point. The microphone works better than a mouse and keyboard, at least in the context of the game.

In End War, you only have up to 12 groups of units, although this may seem a bit boring, it keeps all of the action focused into a small area, which means it doesn't get too confusing. Each unit is given a number and to "select" that unit, you merely say "unit 3", well, if you want to select unit 3. You then tell it what to do, i.e. "attack" and then what you want it to do that to i.e. "hostile 5". "unit 3 attack hostile 5" can be reeled off much faster than selecting the unit then clicking on the unit to attack would be with a mouse. Each individual base is all given a phoenetic name, i.e. alpha, sierra, delta, therefore it's difficult for it to mistake the wrong thing.

As far as units go, it's fairly basic rock paper scissors stuff. Transports are the only thing with anti-air guns, so are very strong against gunships, gunships are good against most other things, tanks are good against most things, but they get torn to shreds by gunships, artillery have a huge range, but can be hurt badly by most units. Only infantry can secure bases etc. The aim is to secure more than half of the bases on the map, the bases also have other benefits in that they allow you to build more units and get other upgrades, like airstrikes.

Once one side has half the bases, you hit defcon 1. If one side keeps hold of the bases for 5 minutes, they win. However, the thing about defcon 1 is that it allows the side currently losing to use a weapon of mass destruction. In their presentation, they said this was based off mario kart, where when you're in second, you almost always get a red shell (no blue shell references here, you have to be in 5th or worse to get one of those), which could turn the tide of the game, depending on how it's used and how the leader reacts.

A minor point about end war, but one that makes it quite interesting. It's a Tom Clancy game, so it's based off the book with the same name. The general story is that it takes places in 2020, during what's known as the "end war". There are 3 factions, Russia, America and Europe and on your online mode, you choose a faction and contribute to the global online war. Ubisoft have said it's their most ambitious online mode yet, so it's definately one to look out for.

This game is one that I probabbly wouldn't have thought twice about before, but having gone hands on with it. It definately looks like one that I will almost definately be buying. I will hopefully be doing a preview for it on release, first week of November.

Feel free to ask any questions and I will answer them to the best of my ability.