Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night, dripping in sweat, close to tears upon the realisation that the game of your dreams, a hybrid of Quake 4, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Final Fantasy does not in fact exist? If you have, I have both good news and bad news. The bad news is that you clearly have issues, but the good news is that such a game will be released this year and if it realises its promise, who cares about those issues?! Yes, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars should be released by this fall. A sort of sequel to the free download Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory set in the world of Quake 4, this FPS should hopefully satisfy the itchy trigger finger of you 360 owners hoping for a deep and tactical online experience.
Totally multiplayer focused, Quake Wars aims to establish itself as the definitive Xbox Live experience for those wanting a game that requires a little more thought than “something just moved, lets shoot it”. More akin to battlefield than Quake 4’s online side, players must work as a team and communicate for any chance of victory in matches of upto 16 players. Players pick whether to assume the role of a human (as a Global Defence Force troop) or a strogg, those rather nasty aliens that tried to harvest you in Quake 4. Perhaps you wish to exact revenge on those merciless killers, or maybe you respect their ambition and ruthlessness? This will be followed by another decision, which class? Each race has 5 different classes – humans can choose between medic, soldier, engineer, field ops and covert ops while the strogg have differently named equivalents. As well as each class of course having unique abilities, strogg and human counterparts of the same sort of class also boast exclusive abilities, some quite innovative. Unsurprisingly, it seems that the strogg posses the more unique of these, with infiltrators (covert ops equivalent) able to possess human corpses and medics capable of uploading dead team mates onto a dead body, making it a spawn point, while human field ops can drop ammo packs. Each class plays an integral role in a team’s quest for success, and all must be pulling in the same direction to succeed. In some games, being a medic often has little effect on the way you play, only someone will give you a shout for help now and again. In Enemy Territory, such a role will decide the way you play. Not too hot with your aiming? Assume the role of medic and you can be a key member of your team regardless, focusing on helping your colleagues. Such an emphasis on the importance of every individual can only be good for a game of this nature.
Further importance on the class which you occupy comes with the in-game sub-missions. As you’d expect, games go beyond ‘kill more than they do’ with objective based games being the focus, where players must, for example, breach an area with explosives and secure it. There are also ‘sub-missions’ and this is where the Final Fantasy aspect comes in, though don’t fret my friend, if you’re RPG-phobic. Players can complete non-essential but beneficial sub-objectives that are often specific to class, such as an engineer repairing a bridge. Achievement in these tasks is rewarded with experience points (see? Who needs FFXIII on 360?) which can win you promotion through various ranks, from private to sergeant, each promotion being accompanied by improved attributes.
