Enemy Territory :Quake Wars

On one side there is the Strogg, an alien race that assimilates other species, hacks off unnecessary bits and reconstructs them as subordinate cyborgs intent on destruction of anything not Strogg. On the other side is the Earth and the GDF, a consortium of combat-ready humans intent on destroying anything Strogg.

Quake is not a new franchise, by any stretch of the imagination. There has been the original title, Quake II, Quake II Arena, Quake 4, and in 2007 Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. There was the Ultimate Quake title, which had the first three titles bundled together and in 2002, there was a mobile phone version. The Strogg came into play in QII and in Q4 the battle was taken from Earth to the Strogg homeworld. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (ETQW) brings back the initial invasion of the Earth in an objective-based first-person shooter setting that features dynamic bots to fill in as team members in single-player action and a solid online component with up to 16 players on the side of the GDF or Strogg battling in objective-based scenarios.

Activision, along with id Software, Nerve Software and Underground Software, hosted a hands-on media event in San Francisco on April 15 to unveil the next-gen console iterations of ETQW. GameZone was on hand for the event, which features a taste of the single-player game and then a barrage of multiplayer games.

Both the PS3 and 360 versions will simultaneously release on May 22. Underground was behind the PS3 version (not seen at the event) and Nerve was the dev team behind the 360 build.

In ETQW players can play as either humans or Strogg, with several playable classes available for each faction (for humans that would be medic, soldier, covert ops, field ops and engineer – with comparable counterparts on the Strogg side). The 12 maps that released with the PC version will ship with the consoles, and “the level of depth increased in the console release,” according to id’s Kevin Cloud.

The action takes place around the world with each campaign segment consisting of three maps. There are objectives that must be achieved during the individual segments that may require players to redeploy as a different class. For example, you may have to repair an EMT emitter, which would be the job of an engineer, so you start as an engineer when you enter the scenario (the load screen shows exactly what is required as you enter the scenario). But after that is accomplished, you may have to attack and blast open a door to gain egress to the final phase of the scenario. Soldiers carry the explosives, set and detonate them. So you can redeploy as a soldier and move the campaign forward. But after blasting open the doors to some location, you may need to hack the computer or electronics inside, and that means redeploying as covert ops.

Bots take the roles of teammates in the single-play setting and the intelligence level is very good. They act independently, have collision paths and you can interact with them using the D-pad on the 360 controller.

Speaking of controls, the learning curve for this game is small. Considering that the game launched on the PC with the keyboard-and-mouse scheme, what has been packed into the 360 controller is amazing and reasonably intuitive.

There are many ways to customize the playing experience in terms of time limits, allowing friendly fire to kill comrades and so on.

The sound is top notch and graphically the game looks very good.

Playing the multiplayer was entertaining, and looks to have the most replay value in the game. Since the general campaign thread is somewhat linear in terms of moving through the scenario (you have to hit A, and then B, et cetera), the maps are very open and players can reach objectives in a variety of ways – which not only includes moving on foot, but using aerial-, land- and water-based vehicles.

As you deploy, you can select the weapon you wish to use, but there can be some frustration with weaponry. For example: playing as the Strogg, the objective was simple – stop the GDF from uploading data using a satellite bunker. Repelling assault after assault, time was running out on the GDF when, with 10 seconds left and victory near, a human got through. The Strogg I was controlling ran into the bunker, was standing five yards behind him and pulled the trigger on the nail-gun. Nothing. Out of ammo. A quick switch was made to the next weapon, and the result was the same. Drop a grenade? Nope, by the time it went off, the data would have been sent. So the Strogg failed, all for lack of one round of ammunition to interrupt the data upload.

But that is part of the thrill of the game. You get killed, you redeploy. Vehicles can not only blow up enemies, but if you are driving and lack a gunner, simply run over them. The end result is the same. Granted, the multiplayer was not spread out across the world, but the scenarios played at a steady frame rate without any noticeable lag.

ETQW is an entertaining title that looks good and plays well, and should give 360 owners hours of enjoyment.