Joystiq E3 hands-on: Tom Clancy's EndWar

"Attack the enemy base!"
"Yes sir, I'll enter a foot race."
"No, launch the missiles!"
"We'll harvest all nearby thistles."
"Attack the enemy units. Please, listen to me."
"Downloading latest DLC."
"Oh ... just forget it."

This doesn't happen in Tom Clancy's EndWar. It may be a sad comment on the history of in-game voice commands, but the best compliment one can give to Ubisoft's robust interface is that it works. There's no need to plead with it in a robotic tone or a slowed pace, and no voice training is required beforehand. Despite slipping in an "uh" here and there while contemplating orders, EndWar understood everything we said. Well, everything aside from the muttered curses prompted by our utter defeat.


EndWar can be daunting at first, especially if you missed out on the tutorial's explanation of what that icon means, what this part of the HUD is telling you and why you shouldn't drop a nuclear bomb on your own tanks. This is precisely why the voice commands needed to work well -- if you can trust that your orders won't be mangled somewhere along the journey from your mouth to the game, you'll quickly gain confidence in your ability to command troops.

"...the game feels more involving and immediate than many typical RTS games we've played."

Though you're sure to read this on the back of the box and in just about every piece of marketing material, EndWar truly feels like a real-time strategy game built for consoles, as opposed to one that's been ported from a mouse-equipped platform. This is true for two reasons: Firstly and quite obviously, no PC version has been announced. Secondly, the game feels more involving and immediate than many typical RTS games we've played.

It's not just an issue of controls. It's about bringing you, the general and player, closer to the troops who so loyally follow your every command, ill-advised or not. Most strategy games place you high up in the sky, asking you to peer down on your troops, drag boxes around them and send them off to some contested corner of the map. With EndWar, this distance has been diminished and your comfortable, Cheeto-encrusted couch has been dropped right into the battlefield. The third-person camera, which can be attached to any of your units (say: "Unit X, camera."), sticks low to the ground, faithfully following your armies and allowing you to aim and target incoming opposition (or say: "Unit X, attack hostile Y").

Of course, you can play the whole thing without uttering a single word -- all your commands can be issued via a branching, on-screen menu -- but it feels more exciting to bark orders directly and desperately yell for reinforcements (say: "Deploy tanks."). The action-packed EndWar doesn't seem to place much emphasis on resource gathering and exploitation ("Dumbed down!" goes the PC crowd), instead focusing on capturing locations and protecting them. It gives the missions an exciting, brisk pace that forces you to remain active and pay attention to unit hierarchy. Don't expect your infantrymen to triumph against tanks!

"Mutually assured destruction is still chalked up as a loss, you know."

We should probably have listened to the Ubisoft representative when she told us that. Ordering our men to take cover and garrison some buildings would have been more tactically intelligent, certainly more than our plan to jam enemy tank treads with crushed bones and human mush. Another poor decision: Dropping the bomb. The resulting mass destruction not only damaged our own units, but triggered the enemy's cataclysmic retaliation. Though the "EndWar" phase gives you the chance to turn the tide of battle, acting impulsively gives the enemy permission to get its hands just as dirty. Mutually assured destruction is still chalked up as a loss, you know.

And where does EndWar stand to lose? Well, despite being more acclimated to the console realm, it's still a real-time strategy game. Missions can't all devolve into capturing uplinks, and the game's multiplayer meta-campaign, a turn-based tussle for world domination, will have to remain dynamic to maintain interest. There's also a four-player online co-op mode in there, though we question whether the game's voice recognition will be able to make sense of all the racial slurs and homophobic slang on Xbox Live.

Still, we really don't have many bad things to say about Tom Clancy's EndWar. The skirmishes are exciting, the voice controls work well and it boasts some solid production values. With Halo Wars not due until next year, it seems EndWar might just deliver the first real-time strategy that intuitively clicks (sans clicking devices) with consoles. It's out on October 14th for Xbox 360 and PS3, with DS and PSP versions to follow later. Watch out for a demo on Xbox Live and PSN within the coming months.

Preview author, retreat!