Despite appearances - specifically the vehicles, the character classes, and the open maps - this is not an attempt to make a sci-fi version of Battlefield. Nor is it, despite the name, much to do with the deathmatch tradition of Quake. It's therefore perfectly possible that fans of either of those series will be disappointed. This is, first and foremost, an Enemy Territory game.
What this means is that ETQW is a class-based first-person shooter with asymmetric, objective-based maps, quasi-realistic weapons, lashings of Quake-derived horrors, and a daunting deathmatch pace.
It is a sequel not to Quake, but to Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and the free Enemy Territory expansion that Splash Damage created for it. Most crucially, however, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is simply brimming with possibilities.
Every class has multiple weapons at their disposal from the off, and the vehicles and static weapons and turrets just add to the overall elaborate network of tactical variation within maps that are as detailed and expansive as they are visually impressive.
Although ETQW's two opposing forces have slightly different technologies and very different appearances (GDF are futurist contemporary soldiers, while Strogg are nightmare alien cyborgs) the classes nevertheless correspond and match up. It's a game where the two sides are different, and yet, on the field, fight as military equals.
The Soldier and his opposite number, the Aggressor, both have access to fast-firing assault rifles, guided rocket launchers, shotguns/nailguns for up-close, and heavy calibre support rifles. This most martial class can also plant explosives to take down the many objectives on each map, while also acting as the primary source of firepower in any battle.
The Engineer and Constructor are both lightly armed but are able to plant mines and call in defensive structures. Anti-vehicle, anti-personnel, and anti-artillery structures are all vital to holding a position, whether you're fighting for the Strogg or the GDF.
The Medic and Technician do the standard patching up and reviving stuff, with the Strogg technician able to gruesomely turn fresh enemy corpses into spawn points, and the medics able to destroy these hosts.
The Covert Ops and the evil Infiltrator take on a less familiar role, being able to hack objectives that require it, as well as using EMP to temporarily disable turrets. The Infiltrator has a flying drone which can explode near enemy targets, while the Covert Ops can create localised radar with his spy camera. These classes can also steal enemy uniforms from stricken troops, taking on a temporary disguise.
Finally, the Field Ops and Oppressors are spotters who can call in artillery support. In the outdoor sections of a map they're deadly adversaries and tend to get a lot of kills as a result of their power. The Field Ops can also drop ammo for his allies, while the Oppressor can create a super-useful energy field to shield himself and his comrades.
Add to this all the various vehicles and weapon loadout options, and you have a game that demonstrates far more diversity of martial options than anything else I've ever seen. And it's infantry-focused too - not for ETQW the problems of over-used air-power.
You'll find yourself tackling vehicles and turrets with rocket launchers, getting down and dirty at close range with grenades and assault rifles, and finding mad uses for explosives, shields and flyer drones. It's a game that provokes invention, suicidal heroics, and momentary genius. All this, however, takes place within the (beautiful) context of ETQW's objective-based maps.
The game is set during the Strogg invasion of Earth, making its fiction a kind of prequel to the events of Quake II. The game takes place across 12 maps, which are in turn subdivided into four campaigns across the Earth: Africa, North America, Northern Europe, and the Pacific. The highly individual maps are an impressive achievement on their own, and there's no single theme or look that ties any two together.
Each has a number of objectives that the different sides must either attack or defend, depending on whether they are Strogg or GDF. Some maps are tailored purely for Strogg defence, others for GDF. These scenarios are so detailed and specific that I believe this would be the first multiplayer shooter ever on which I could deliver spoilers based on the story alone. But I won't.
Suffice it to say the map contain all kinds of assault missions, object-movement ops, and demolition objectives, and occasionally a genuine revelation.
The three-map campaigns are essential to understanding how ETQW works because characters and stats are persistent across the three maps. As in Enemy Territory you'll take on any one of five classes, and you can swap between them at any point in a game.
However, if you stick with a certain class, and with a certain weapon configuration, you begin to unlock improved abilities. If, for example, you stick with the rocket-launcher variant of the soldier class, and get plenty of hits with that setup, then by the end of the first map you'll have a faster lock and reload time, making your performance better for the second map.
By the third map you might have improved with a secondary weapon or class too. Once the campaign is over these stats are reset and the playing field levelled. ETQW's unlocks are available for a short time only.
All this combines to create an experience unlike anything else. The series of objectives and the way that players spawn in 'waves' makes it a little reminiscent of Enemy Territory, but in other respects it's in quite a different category from its peers. This can only be a good thing.
If there are some criticisms then they're based around how you might perceive some of the mechanical systems of the game. How you feel about these things will come down to the nuances of taste and personal experience, but I think some people will be put off by them.
One of these issues is the amount of time you spend dead. Because of the spawn-wave system you'll be waiting for anywhere between two and twenty-five seconds to be respawned, and you still have to hit Space for it to happen. Miss-time your thumb-action and you're going to be waiting another 25 seconds.
For such a fast-paced game that seems a long time to be spent lying prone on the battlefield. Death is routine too, especially as the game has a potent mix of automatic and precision weaponry - you're worrying about snipers and close-quarters spammers at the same time, which can feel like a nightmare when things really start to kick off.
The other problem, which isn't one that can be addressed in any way, is how you feel about asymmetric combat as a whole. Because one side is always defending a series of objectives they are, in some sense, only staving off the inevitable.
They are, by default, fighting a retreat. In a game where the objectives are symmetrical there's always the chance you can come back from the bad position to win the game, capping the flags, holding the objectives for those vital seconds, and so on. In ETQW the best defenders can hope for is to hold on until the counter runs out. Something about that doesn't sit quite right with me.
Ultimately these points do little to detract from the overall achievement of ETQW. It's a game with relentless pace, but where flanking, careful sniping, and support actions are all a part of a successful co-operative experience. Watching speeding buggies going flying madly off ramps into deep canyons is just as much a part of the action as the prone support gunner, or a leaping, bombing Strogg jetpack dude.
ETQW does diversity in vehicular combat, and it does it brilliantly. It also provides some superb scaffolding for newer players, in the form of the context-based missions and command menu. Any player can, with just a keypress and a click, give orders.
And they're always based on context - look at an enemy turret and report it, and missions are generated for the soldiers who can destroy it. If you're injured then (and only then) you can call on medics for assistance.
What's more is that every class, in every context, can select a mission that will be helpful to the overall objective, even if it's just the ones built into the game. Accomplishing objectives becomes how you get XP for the campaign unlocks, and it's all skewed towards teamwork. Even selfish play should end up rewarding the team as a whole. In years to come all multiplayer games will want to do this.
And so, as the remaining word count for this review spools down to nothing, I realise there's much more to say about ETQW and we'll probably touch on that in the coming months.
Hell, I haven't even got space left to talk about the persistent stat systems and all the community support tools that Splash Damage have tied into the game, or even the astounding bot AI. Instead I'm going to have to recommend that you go and discover them in person. Enemy Territory Quake Wars is worth seeing for yourself.
yeah, thank god you've pointed out that this is not a BF game or a clone.
For those who played and loved the original ET this game will be amazing. ET for me is one of the best MMOFPS's out there, still, and the demo map, although short, was still damn fun. I don't see it being as popular as TF2, but I'm still off to buy it right now!
I'll see you online, probably stabbing you in the back!
You say its not a BF Clone and man you couldn't be more right. I should preface this by saying, I love the battlefield series but i've played it to death, i've bought all the expansions and now the maps are getting a bit old, so I was really looking forward to this game for a bit of a change.
You guys have praised ETQW but I must be missing something, because i just don't get it.
The whole choose your own mission thing seems pretty poorly implemented, you get a dropdown list of missions that as a constructor usually consist of "drop mine" and not much else. I may have missed it but the missions don't seem to link to the tacticle map, you just end up placing random mines and turrets etc..
The team chat is horrible, in battlefield you'd hover the crosshair over an enemy press the chat button, choose spotted, then all your team would know where that enemy was. ETQW has a similar system, but its very clunky, and hardly anyone seems to use it.
Vehicles just don't feel right, the walkers are not the battlefield dominating monsters I hoped they would be, the handling is twitchy and they get stuck on terrain. Vehicle fire feels like it needs more work (you can't tell very easily where your rounds are going to go) I don't like the fact that you can take out the tanks with machinegun fire.
Does this game only support 24 players? I couldn't find a server that supported more.
And when will the teamwork part finaly be added? I've played for a few hours and so far i've been revived twice, and all my requests for repairs have gone unanswered.
I liked the battlefield unlock system that rewarded play, but the unlocks in this are only temporary, so it lacks that little extra motivation to keep playing.
If youre into Battlefield this isn't the game for you. If you just want a mindless quake stlye blast (like we all do from time to time) this is more like it, but I can't see it living up to the test of time, indeed most of the servers online atm seem to be empty, maybe its too early to tell.
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
