The Strogg forces are going to contaminate a local water supply in California, and you need to stop them. Are you going to be a combat engineer constructing bridges, or a soldier securing an area for others to work, maybe you can make use of the hacking of a Special Ops, then again Field Ops are needed to call in artillery to keep the enemy forces pinned down, and without a Medic no one is going to stay in fighting condition long enough to make a difference, and these are just the decisions of one faction at the beginning of one mission. Here at LANgaming.net we have been spending quite a bit of time with the demo to ID’s upcoming title and all around we are nodding in approval of what is looking to be the next big LAN and Online title when it releases on October 2, 2007.

Enemy Territory presents teams with goals that are deeper than a number of kills and a flag capture. With the mission players have been presented in the demo the GDF (Earth’s forces) are tasked with first building a bridge, then driving a MCP (mobile command post?) deep into an outpost to set it up. Once this is accomplished the GDF must then break through more defenses to hack a shield generator and finally plant explosives on a device deep within a factory and guard it long enough for detonation. Meanwhile, the Strogg (evil alien forces) are to defend and disrupt the attempts of the GDF at each point. Capturing spawn points is another concern of both armies as they can sway the tide of the opposing force. Players are well rewarded for helping complete these objectives with experience point that can raise their rank allowing for new and improved skills and access to new weapons.

As mentioned in the introduction Enemy Territory: Quake Wars presents players with five classes with varying skills. Thanks to the mission objectives it is crucial for each team to have a variety of each class. The differences in each class go well beyond weapon load out, including not only a variety of various equipment types that can be air dropped into the battle field but also various upgrades earned through gaining experience.

The handheld weapons of Enemy Territory unfortunately are the weakest piece of the great puzzle. All of the guns feel quite uninspired being only fairly standard rifles and shotguns, and alien versions of the same. While not original most of these weapons respond well, only the shotgun types do not make the grade as they seem to lack crunch.

Enemy Territory does turn around and do us right by giving us some fun and sometimes down right mean deployable items and vehicles. The deployable items consist of a variety of defensive turrets, artillery pieces and radar. Balance is kept by limiting the number to one per player at a time. Vehicles come in a wide variety for both teams with everything from ATV’s to giant mechs and most of them feel great to pilot (and I must say that the interiors of these vehicles are top notch). All of these feel useful and really make a difference on the field. The only vehicle failings are in aircraft that feel overly awkward to control, and the Hog (a Strogg attack vehicle) that can seemingly ram anything (even tanks) into oblivion.

Some remaining things well handled by Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is both Respawning and class swapping. Respawning comes in waves that occur over time, so dropping in the field could leave you with any where from an instant respawn to a wait of nearly twenty seconds. Twenty seconds is not too long, but long enough to make it cost your team and make you play a bit more sensibly. Never needing to worry over the class that you choose to start with is also nice thanks to the option of switching class as much as you want. The switch is simply set in a menu and occurs upon your next respawn.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars has quickly gone from a game that had fallen off the radar to the one to really watch. I can see many LAN parties getting a huge amount of mileage out of this title. Hopefully the fun that the demo has provided will only grow more once the full version hits on October 2nd. Until then enjoy the demo on the LANgaming.net game server, which will make the switch over to the full game after release.


LANgaming.net Game Server:

66.150.121.248:27733
or
langamingdotnet.nuclearfallout.net:27733

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