Take Ghost Recon and multiply each soldier by five, add a couple of tanks, and replace your controller with a headset. You have now upgraded to Ubisoft’s new RTS game, EndWar, where online competition and vocally issued commands will have you addicted to winning World War III again and again.
Unfortunately, EndWar’s solo campaign tends to lean on the repetitive side. Each turn, you’re given a choice of missions: Would you like to commandeer a Russian airfield or destroy waves of hostiles on a French plateau? But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what you decide. You’ll still find yourself commanding your troops in the same fashion you did before, whether you choose to play as the U.S., Western Europe, or Russia. Under all three flags, transports attack gunships, gunships take tanks, tanks kill transports, and infantry runs around securing command points in order to deploy, well, more transports, gunships, and tanks.
Thankfully, multiplayer manages to avoid this lackluster manner of waging war because teaming up with a buddy in two-on-two adds a whole new level to strategizing. Race across the map to save your teammate from an onslaught of artillery, secure command points as your friend takes on the enemy, organize repetitive airstrikes, nuke your partner’s high-ranking engineers...er, just kidding.
And as if we needed another excuse to beat online opponents to a pulp, each Live battle you fight helps determine the victor of a worldwide game of global domination called Theater of War. In this mode, the outcomes of each online skirmish are totaled daily to determine which nation takes which territory. At the end of 20 days, one nation triumphs and another round starts. Furthermore, you can upgrade your units’ armor, attack, and abilities with cash awarded after each battle.
Besides sending your foe’s infantry sky-high, EndWar includes little beauties that’ll have you giggling with glee: fluid battle animations, multiple terrain (from hillside villages to urban Paris), destructible buildings, and more. With such attention to detail and exciting co-op battles, EndWar will draw you in until you start issuing commands in your sleep.
+ Shouting "Unit 4 attack hostile 5" never gets boring.
+ Co-op multiplayer offers new ways to strategize.
- Tedious solo campaign with little variation other than terrain.
? Why is the conquest of Paris so terribly appealing?
