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jakob187

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EndWar First Impressions

By jakob187 8 Comments

I came into work early today, like usual, to sit down and play some Fallout 3 for a little bit.  However, when I walked in, we had four fresh copies of Tom Clancy's EndWar!!!  I've been looking forward to the game just to see how well the voice commands work, but also to see if it's a good real-time strategy game in general.  There were quite a few guys on the forums that were wanting to see a little more of it past the demo before they made any renting/buying decisions, and so I have taken this as an opportunity to hook you doods up!!!

I had brought my camcorder with me to work, as I was going to use it to film some of Fallout 3 for my own personal blog on MySpace, but I decided that GB guys come first for once.

The video is in black and white, unfortunately, as I just got the camcorder a couple of days ago and have been playing around with it.  When I was doing some stuff for the personal blog yesterday, I left it in black and white.  Sorry about that.  Yes, you do see my ugly mug in the video, as I give a couple of criticisms and such at the end.

I was going to tack on a piece that involved showing you guys my workplace, but unfortunately, I wanted to keep the video under 8 minutes.

Enjoy, and if you have any questions, let me know.  If I don't have the answer to the questions, I'll be playing the game for the next couple of days to get a review up...so I'll get back to it when I get the chance and/or knowledge needed.

  

8 Comments

8 Comments

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jakob187

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Edited By jakob187

Not as far as I've seen.  You just make them retreat and then wait around until it's rock/paper/scissor unit comes around.  It's definitely a waste of a reinforcement space, as I wish I could just tell the units to commit suicide so I could call someone else in already.

I'll look a little more tonight for the definite answer on that, but in 7 hours of gameplay last night, didn't find nothin.
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shadows_kill

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Edited By shadows_kill

is there a way to heal your guys? cause that got annoying not knowing how to heal...

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jakob187

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Edited By jakob187

So I played a bit more of EndWar last night after work.  Some of the comments on my video...not so true now.

1.  You can view a drop down menu by just holding the RT.  I was issuing commands so quick after a while that I never had a chance to really look at it.  Also, there IS an overhead view of the battlefield...as long as you have a command vehicle on the battlefield and use the Sitrep command.  This takes you to an overview kind of map, but it's rather lackluster.  You can control everything from the screen the same way you would outside of the view, but nothing is detailed enough to make it a viable way to play the game.

2.  The Prelude to War is nothing more than a tutorial level area.  After that, you get into World War III.  The story is that, apparently, the Russians blew up Freedom IV, a space shuttle that was going into space from JFK in order to complete the building of the U.S.'s Freedom Star.  Yes, we turned into the Empire...it would seem...without voices nearly as cool as James Earl Jones.

3.Shit gets a LOT more hectic than what you'll see in the videos.  By the time you get into World War III, you need to really know your voice commands and the rock/paper/scissors order of things pretty well.  Basically, World War III is like the War of the Ring mode on Battle for Middle Earth II (or whatever that mode was called).  You've got a big map with points on it, and you pick one of the three factions and try to take the other factions' capitols.  That's about it.  There are certain points on the map that can take out another computer players' turns and such, but really, it's not any different.  The only change you'll find is that there is a barracks that you can visit to upgrade any units that have been promoted over the course of play.  This actually makes you want to hold on to your original troops, as some of the upgrades are pretty hefty and only available if the units are high enough in rank.

4.  Skirmish matches are basically the same setup as any skirmish mode you've ever seen.  It's you and computer AI going against each other.

5.  Theatre of War is something that I have yet to get into, so I'll probably check some of that out tonight.

A handful of gripes:

1.  Pathfinding is H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E!!!  I would explain more, but I think just answering every question you have with "H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E" works just as well.

2.  There aren't many unit types, and every faction has basically the same setup with a small variation.  The Russians are good with energy weapons, while the U.S. are good at brute power.  The third faction, the Europeans...well, they are good at never showing up for war.  Buh-duh-ttsh.

3.  The computer AI, on higher difficulties, is less about using better strategy and more about always having the perfect counter-unit to whatever you call onto the battlefield.  Also, the wait time for deployment on tanks and troops (helicopters have no deployment time) is FOR-EH-VER.

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Edited By Fosssil

Cool video! This game was completely off my radar until a few weeks ago or so, but seeing stuff likes this really makes me want to at least give it a rental to try out the voice command stuff. I have a feeling, though, that it'll take me a while to get used to telling my troops where to go as opposed to sending them there with a button press. Thanks for sharing your impressions with us.

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jakob187

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Edited By jakob187

Funny enough, everyone was asking what game it was.  We ended up getting a bunch of guys to try it out just because they thought it was interesting as Hell.

Plus, you gotta remember that here, it's not a problem.  I mean, we're a gaming center.  People are yelling into XBL mics and PC headset mics all day long!!!  lol  It's nothing new to us.
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Bulldog19892

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Edited By Bulldog19892

It seems like a really interesting concept, even though it's not very practical. I'd be embarrassed to be yelling commands into my headset with other people in the house. They would think I was insane.

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Edited By MasterOfPenguins_Zell

I played it at my friends house, and the demo before that and it is an awesome game. I can't decide if I'll get this or NinjaTown next. I really want them both, and for EndWar I'll have to sell a couple games but it may be worth it. ;__;

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Edited By jakob187

I came into work early today, like usual, to sit down and play some Fallout 3 for a little bit.  However, when I walked in, we had four fresh copies of Tom Clancy's EndWar!!!  I've been looking forward to the game just to see how well the voice commands work, but also to see if it's a good real-time strategy game in general.  There were quite a few guys on the forums that were wanting to see a little more of it past the demo before they made any renting/buying decisions, and so I have taken this as an opportunity to hook you doods up!!!

I had brought my camcorder with me to work, as I was going to use it to film some of Fallout 3 for my own personal blog on MySpace, but I decided that GB guys come first for once.

The video is in black and white, unfortunately, as I just got the camcorder a couple of days ago and have been playing around with it.  When I was doing some stuff for the personal blog yesterday, I left it in black and white.  Sorry about that.  Yes, you do see my ugly mug in the video, as I give a couple of criticisms and such at the end.

I was going to tack on a piece that involved showing you guys my workplace, but unfortunately, I wanted to keep the video under 8 minutes.

Enjoy, and if you have any questions, let me know.  If I don't have the answer to the questions, I'll be playing the game for the next couple of days to get a review up...so I'll get back to it when I get the chance and/or knowledge needed.