Tom Clancy's EndWar demo deployed on Xbox Live

by Ludwig Kietzmann on Oct 15th 2008 4:00PM

If you read our E3 hands-on of Tom Clancy's EndWar, you'd know that we were rather surprised by how well the real-time strategy game's voice commands worked. Rather than function as a vector for our usual hate speech and bigotry, the Xbox 360 headset could now allow us to command our armies from afar and pick fights by proxy. It's just how we envisioned the future of warfare, minus the odd laser or two.

You don't have to take our word for it, though, as Ubisoft has announced that a public demo is now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The sampler includes a single-player tutorial, as well as a one-on-one multiplayer map with matchmaking support. Let us know if it manages to command your attention.

EndWar is out on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 4th.

Tags: Endwar, Tom-Clancy, Ubisoft, XBLM, Xbox-360, Xbox-Live

Reader Comments (36)

How is the demo?

It's not bad. It's hard to tell how deep the game will be with just the one mission, but the voice stuff is solid, and quite a bit of fun.

Will there be a PS3 demo?

Maybe they would do it if more ps3 users had headsets. Just sayin....

I think I'll be picking up Socom with the headset since Toys R Us is having that big sale.

lol needed voice commands on a ps3 game ?
& especially for online with many other players..
that would be a disaster IMO...
just sayin'...

i would have rather had a headset come with my ps3 rather than printer support and etc functions that i will never use and are not needed on a gaming machine.
at least every 360 owner owns a headset.
this game makes sense on the 360.

the fanboy wars will never end.

Unit 4 attack fanboy 1!
Unit 5 attack fanboy 1!
Deploy tanks!
Deploy tanks!
Deploy tanks!

Every friend of mine who has a PS3 has a headset. Any bluetooth headset works.

miguel- have u played ps3 cod4 online, or MGO online..
most people do not have a headset on the PSN.

brick- does it not make sense that every one of the 15+ million 360 owners have a headset.
and that most people either do not own or do not turn on their ps3 or bluetooth headsets...

i was just sayin... made sense to me.

No, I haven't played those games but I do know I don't like to use my headset on games like those. All I ever hear is whiny little kids cursing a storm.

yeah i guess if someone is going to play endwar with voice controls, more of those people would have a headset anyway and use it...

i have a 360 and ps3 and for me it just seems like the better choice to go with the 360 version for many reasons, one more being the fact that most every 360 headset is plugged into the controller and the voice commands will work better.. low quality bluetooth headsets might be a problem with people on your team with communication.

The fact that PS3 consoles don't include a headset is sort of a mixed blessing. On the one hand you have to pay for a headset, but on the other hand the headsets can also be used for cellphones and the like (Bluetooth anyway).

My other concern is that because 360's include headsets, anybody with the inclination to be a jerk online can do so. If you want to be a jerk on the PSN you have to spend money. Jerks don't like spending money.

Did you seriously just say jerks dont like to spend money? Tell that to the guy at the starbucks typing his "manuscript" on a Macbook Air at 2 in the afternoon, smirking at everyone as he hopes to look impressive, or to the guy driving a tricked out hummer with bass so loud your house rattles whenever he drives by at 3 am.

C'mon man - jerks love to spend money. Hell, they buy the console in the first place, so another 20-40 dollars won't stop them.

Hmm sounds good, but what about those from Boston, Rhode Island, or deep in Brooklyn? Or the "deep South"?
Or CANADA?!

Hope you can adjust it...(im sure), If not it wont know what yer talkin' aboot!

At one demo I heard of, one person was using it with a french accent just fine and it immediately worked fine for the english speaker.

That sounds great, no pun intended. I figured you would have to calibrate the voice recognition similar to a cell phone.

The game lets you 'train' it in the options menu. Even without that, it seems to do ok.

"Units in sector 4 are oon scoot duty! Move oot!"

Either way, it won't understand what I'm saying as I have both a shitty mic and a shitty accent.

I played the beta, even then the voice recognition was working very well. The game just wasn't really my bag, maybe with more presentation going on it would have been more enjoyable.

Based on the beta, would you say that this game is more about strategy or tactics? I've been waiting for a tactics-heavy game for the consoles and End War seems like its the closes I'll get.

Sadly, in the beta, strategy devolved into who could get a helo, three artillery, one infantry, and one tanks out the fastest, and who could hammer the other from the farthest distance away while still being unhammerable.

Also, more tactical than strategical, and high ground didn't increase range, only a small, insignificant vision boost, that a helo outclassed easily.

It was fun, dont' get me wrong, but easy to dominate, especially when it was 2v2, as one person would just spam artillery, the other person focusing on point capturing and artillery defending.

I dunno I mostly just yelled into the microphone. I guess you could say that was a tactic.... it didnt work out so well.

This is the game that ubisoft "wisely" is going to delay for the p.c. for the piracy....now tell me how´s that supposed to be an intelligent way of thinking, the p.c. version is going to be superior plain simple but most of the people is going to buy it for the machines that are available in this case consoles, so i can see that the p.c. sales are not going to be strong but ubi is going to blame piracy. I want to see how much time is going to take for the pirate versions of this game for the 360 to appear, if ubi thinks no pirate versions are going to appear for the 360 then they are plain idiots.

Too many good games are coming out. I need a second job to buy them all, and then I need to quit both jobs to have time to play them.

So EndWar comes out November 4th? The same day as election day? Interesting considering the name...

When I read that all I could hear in my head was the soldier from TF2 screaming after being ignited by a pyro...

I've been playing way too much TF2 lately.

So when you're playing a multiplayer match, how does the game differentiate between you speaking orders and speaking to other players?

Different buttons. You hold down right trigger to give orders, voice chat is mapped to something else (the bumper perhaps?)

Thought the demo was solid enough, voice command really gets around the awkwardness of console RTS controls; no more feeling like a five-thumbed, greasy-palmed spastic whilst trying to co-ordinate attacks. I was however slightly disappointed that you couldn't yell "faster, you lazy twats" at my infantry.

I thought about Fox from Melee...

Man I played wih him every game, fox is the man!!!

The voice commands work. Really well. But the actual game isn't that fun. Um is it possible to go wherever you want with the camera? Cause it's kinda lame that you have such a limited camera angle.

I thought that was a little off at first, but if you use your gunships for recon it isn't too bad, plus with the voice controls you don't need to see a unit to select them and give them orders, so you can always designate targets from your current position. Also if you've got a command vehicle you can view an overhead 3D map of the battlefield and give orders from there.

You can set the camera angle in the options, its a very good idea to push it to high.

Also, the command vehicle gives you a UAV that I havent seen shot down to scout with, once you get your head around the game its pretty fun.

I think people arent using the overhead map very much. I would say im pretty damn poor at this game yet ive won 4/5 games on.line since my opponents never seem to have a clue

I cannot believe how well it works. This system should be liscenced and used by every RTS, in some capacity, on every platform.

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Tom Clancy's EndWar demo deployed on Xbox Live

Reader Comments (36)

Posted: Oct 15th 2008 4:06PM Vol said

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