Thursday 16 December 2010

Gaming Reviews

Tom Clancy’s Endwar
Focus Multimedia
Available now - £9.99 (PC), Also available on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3
Review by Blake Harmer

Do you want to feel like an actual general and bark orders to troops from a radio headset? Well thanks to Tom Clancy's Endwar, you can as you lead your army to victory by issuing orders via a PC headset.

This is a fantastic idea and for the most part works surprisingly well. You order troops by selecting the name of the troop, what you want to do with them (e.g. move to) and then your target e.g. sector gamma. This concept feels strange at first and takes some getting used to which means you will probably die a lot to begin with, but persevere and you can enjoy a fluid and unique RTS experience. This re-release on PC also includes extra maps and missions which means there is more to keep occupied as well.

This is not a completely perfect experience though. When compared to other PC RTS games, this is a very basic experience, with choosing the best units to taking out a specific target coming down to a rock, paper, scissors affair (For example, infantry are killed by armour but are good against aircraft, aircraft are good against armour etc). The voice recognition software also has the occasional flaw with it sometimes struggling to recognise similar sounding words or just not understanding you completely, but considering this is the first use of the technology that has actually been playable it is still considered a success.

The Emotionally Fourteen Games Rating
Graphics: Some nice visuals, with the added nice touch of being able to view the battlefield from practically any angle.
Sound/Music: Fairly standard gunfire, explosions and voice acting, nothing overly special though.
Gameplay: Simple and accessible RTS made unique through its use of using a headset to issue voice commands to your units.
Lasting Appeal: This re-release includes extra missions and maps, but whether you’ll spend a lot of time playing this comes down to how much you like its gimmick.
Summary: A fairly simple RTS with a unique approach to the gameplay. With it’s new bargain price this is worth having a look at for those who wish to try something new, but at the end of the day, this is not going to contend with the likes of mouse controlled RTS games such as Starcraft II or Dawn of War. 6/10
The winner of our Borderlands: Claptrap's Robot Revolution DLC competition was Lewis Pettit. Congratulations (as well as the download code) have already been sent out.

No comments:

Post a Comment