When we heard that Ubisoft was developing a game that used nothing but voice controls, and that the game was a real-time strategy title we were skeptical to say the least. Now that we have spent a good amount of time with the title we have to be honest and say that Tom Clancy’s EndWar is something very special, that any fan of RTS games should play. The voice control works better than anything out there and the deep single player campaign will keep you busy for weeks. Throw in the insanely interactive multiplayer mode (complete world domination ie Risk) and EndWar becomes one of, if not the single, best real-time strategy game on the Xbox 360 to date.
The voice-activated controls that this game features is the single thing that will set it apart from every other RTS game out there. To get players familiar with the voice controls, EndWar has tutorial mode that also doubles as a way to tweak the audio settings. Once this is complete you will jump into “Prelude to a War”, which is basically a single-player campaign that sets up the meat of the game, multiplayer war. There is a fairly deep, interactive storyline that follows the single-player missions providing you with just enough Tom Clancy inspired plot elements to stay interested. EndWar takes place in the reasonable future where World War III has started and Europe is banded together by hate for America.
The American forces go by the name Joint Strike Force (JSF) and will be your main army throughout the prelude section of the game. Once finished you can choose from JSF, European Federation, or the evil Russian superpower. There are multiple types of gameplay modes in EndWar and each one is very unique in what tasks need to be completed in order to achieve victory over your opponent. The units of each army play out like a modern game of paper, rock, scissors in that tanks may have an advantage over helicopters but infantry can easily beat tanks. This develops into a very strategic style of gameplay where the largest army doesn’t always win and you must think long and hard before deciding which unit to push into battle.
Overall the voice commands in Tom Clancy’s EndWar work surprisingly well, especially when using a high-end headset (some of the older, cheaper accessories don’t work as good). The bulk of the movements and attacks that we had to give were fairly simple, consisting of a who, a what, and a where (example: unit 5 – attack – hostile 3). The hardest thing to deal with when playing the game this way is the worry that someone may come in and see you screaming at the television using commands straight out of the latest army movie. On the other hand there were a couple times during our play that we actually felt cooler than normal, a small sense of overwhelming power crept into our colonel-etched foreheads.
The entire game can also be played only using the controller and it’s buttons, we think however that most gamers, like us, will play using a combination of the voice commands and controller/button configuration. By having the ability to speak certain command and quickly press the A or X button for others EndWar turned into a very fast-paced RTS game. Most matches took around 15-20 minutes to complete; it would have been nice to see some really detail-oriented levels later in the game. The shining star of this title has to be Theater of War, the completely online multiplayer mode, coming as close to MMO as any real-time strategy game we have ever seen.
Theater of War is consists of a huge map of the entire world, with spaces carved out for battles; these battles must take place between actual human players – each choosing his or her own team (JSF, European, or Russian). When either side conquers an area of the globe it becomes theirs until one of the competing factions re-claims it, thus creating a never-ending online battle. Whichever overall faction controls the most spots on the map is winning the war, we found this to be much more entertaining than the single-player and assume most other RTS gamers will as well. Tom Clancy’s EndWar has some of the best graphics for any real-time strategy game out there on the market, or that we have seen (other than Halo Wars).
The normal map that most RTS fans will be looking for is available for use, but hidden behind the more entertaining default camera view. This decision by the developers, to focus on action over boredom, will help EndWar interest a more broad type of gamer. The entire presentation (audio, menus, etc.) of the title was just really well done, brining us into the world of Tom Clancy and forcing us to play just one more game; or conquer one more spot in the Theater of War. Considering how many insanely great Xbox 360 games are coming out this winter we can only hope that the quality RTS game that is EndWar won’t get overlooked.
