Tom Clancy's EndWar

[Strazos]

Didn't see a thread on this one, so I'll just save hopefully Someone some money.

Do you like Rock-Paper-Scissors? Would you pay $60 to play it on your shiny next-gen console? No!?

That's what I thought. In that case, Do Not Buy This Game.

You see, you have a few different units. 2 types of infantry, IFV (infantry Fighting Vehicles), Tanks, Choppers, Artillery, a command unit, and a few special abilities.

Remember my RPS reference? Yeah, it is in play here, in full force. You see, you'll mostly be using IFVs, Tanks, and/or Choppers. And it's very easy to remember what beats what: Tanks beat IFVs, IFVs beat Choppers, Choppers beat Tanks. Every time, to the point where a Tank squad could be at, oh lets say 25% strength, and handily beat a full squad of IFVs. 10% strength on the tanks would be pushing it, but it would not be impossible. That is how you could describe most of the gameplay here. Sure, you can be fancy and use artillery to rain some death down from afar, use rifleman to cap points, and engineers in cover to do some damage or upgrade things, but really, the game is all about throwing the right foil at the units you are facing.

Tactics mean next to nothing, which is sort of a shame, because the voice command system is actually pretty nice. Once calibrated, i found that it worked exactly as I wanted it to. Even so, you'll still be using point and click commands from time to time to get your units into precise positions.

Yawn, another stupid Clancy game.

[Aez]

Tanks beat IFVs, IFVs beat Choppers, Choppers beat IFVs.

What?

[Strazos]

Exactly. That's why the game is retarded.

I'll clarify. The game is squad based, so when you buy something, you get a group of them; choppers, tanks, IFVs, riflemen, etc.

So, when you send a group of tanks to attack another squad, if they run into Choppers, they WILL be killed, pretty much without question. Same with choppers vs IFVs, and IFVs vs Tanks. Anything can kill infantry easily enough outside of cover, and pretty much anything can kill the command vehicle or artillery units.

The attack bonuses and such are so bad that even though tanks are weak vs choppers, they will still lose vs choppers that are at, say, 25% strength.

Better? It's not complex at all, in practice.

Oh, heh, I see what happened.

Tanks beat IFVs, IFVs beat Choppers, Choppers beat Tanks.

Fixed it.

[squirrel]

Tanks beat IFVs, IFVs beat Choppers, Choppers beat IFVs.

I think that last one is Choppers beat Tanks.

[LanTheWarder]

The only RTS on a console I have played that I even remotely like was Civ: Revolution. The rest just made me wish I had a damn mouse.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Is there a PC version of this coming out?

Also any World in Conflict players tried this game? How do they compare? I ask since Endwar basically looks like a WiC clone, not a bad thing since WiC is a VERY good game (recommended for anyone looking for a PC rts).

Interestingly UBIsoft just bought Massgate (WiC devs) 2 weeks ago in the Activision-Blizzard firesale.

[Venkman]

PC version is out on Steam. It bites.

I never played the console version, but these controls feels terribly sluggish on PC. It reminds me of the first Halo PC port. Compared to Unreal Tournament then, Halo felt like I was playing in Jello. Same here.

I haven't bothered with the voice system. I honestly don't care. If it's cool, that's cool, but it felt gimmicky to me when I read about it. The game shouldn't live or die by that feature.

The RPS is painfully obvious here, so that seems to survive transition from the console version that Strazos noted. Between this and the play-in-Jello feel, you will lose early and often until you memorize it.

And the voiceacting. Oh God the voiceacting. I'd rather stand in EQ2's Qeynos Harbor with the NPC barkers on loop than listen to this trash. And while the game itself looked fine, in that I managed my expectations before going in, whoever designed the interruptive elements like the UI and transition screens... must have drawn the short straw that day.

Pass. Which sucks because I bought it