Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
Posted By: Richard on Sep 21 2008

We open with a view of space, silent and cold. That is until massive ships begin to come into view, deploying waves of vicious Strogg towards Earth. Voice-over provides you with the only back story to the game: The Strogg have reached Earth. Soon, the screen fills with ships descending on our defenseless planet and it quickly becomes apparent that you are in for a fight.

There is no real story to this game, and that is a bit of a let down. Something to tie together the various missions you undergo would be nice. Would it have been too much work to create a cut scene between each of the campaign missions?

The single player game is solid, though not very long. It is broken down into four campaigns, each consisting of three maps, spread throughout the world. Your objectives have you performing various tasks in order to either stop the Strogg invasion, or help it along depending on the side you choose to play. Those tasks can be completed only by certain classes of soldier which you can switch between as you play at the cost of redeployment. This keeps things varied, although it does not require the player to use the Medic class at all, leaving it only useful during multi-player. A few of the stages did not seem well designed and enemy AI can be predictable in these circumstances. Setting up defenses in areas where you know the enemy will come at you can allow for the easy defense of key areas. This is not to say that the AI is bad, although it does have it's pitfalls, or that there are no other options. Let me give you an example. When playing the stage Volcano, you are required to protect a computer terminal from attacking Strogg. The terminal is located inside a bunker with limited access. The most direct route in leads the enemy into a bottleneck and down a hallway that can be defended by a a soldier on a mounted gun, with one good engineer laying mines in the hall and standing back to pick off stragglers. For twenty minutes I held off this position with only one Strogg getting past, and another engineer on my side had mines laid out to greet his arrival. As the difficulty is increased The enemy uses other tactics and tries to come at you from additional angles, as good AI should. But in situations like the one I described, only a few make it that far and are simple enough to take out. Team AI can be aggravating at times, calling for help can often as not leave you out in the cold. You may at times find yourself charging alone into a well defended area, calling for your teammates to follow you the whole time. Sometimes the help you call for takes the most direct route and sometimes the one that answers will be the farthest way.

Multi-player can get pretty laggy, and I often saw other players running through terrain. There are only three game types available, stopwatch, objective and campaign. With a game that seems to be seated in multi-player, from a franchise that is known for the same, you would expect at least death match and capture the flag to be included.

As for the controls, they are generally solid except for two small problems. The lack of a general melee button makes close quarters combat dicey. You have a melee weapon, but must switch to it by pressing the RB three times cycling though your entire arsenal before reaching it. Auto targeting locks on too well making firing down your sights almost unnecessary at times, but helpful if you are caught in a room by yourself with two or three enemies. It will track enemies, even if you aren't holding the analog stick. The biggest problem with this is when you want to target someone in a particular group, the sights will automatically shift to the nearest target.

Overall the graphics are an improvement from Quake 4, but still a little behind the times. Environments are well rendered, vehicles show damage as shots are taken, and equipment and walls will get pock marks when hit. Explosions are huge, but a bit lack luster, and the fire effects are good although muzzle flare looks a little unrealistic. Physics seem okay though, even to the point that when something deploys that kills you if you are standing under it. This is funny to watch. Watching your body dissolve after a Strogg Technician inserts a hypo into your dying body is also pretty neat.

The soundtrack is paced well, keeping you feeling as though you are in the middle of a war, but lacks variety. Voice work is horrible, and you will often wonder if it is you or your teammates talking. Sound effects are shallow feeling, with explosions and gunfire failing to get my heart rate up at all.

Replay value comes almost entirely from the achievements, being spread out over single player, instant action and multi-player. Achievement hunters will spend a good deal of time replaying levels and trying different classes in order to get them all. After once through the campaign as both the GDC and the Strogg, multi-player is all that is left for the casual player and there are much better games out there.

A good deal of what PC gamers were treated to was removed from the console version including the leveling system, and rewards. No new levels or weapons are present, or new modes of play. So if you are bound and determined to play Quake Wars Enemy Territory, play the PC version. On the 360, it was good for a weekend rental, but not worth a buy.