Tom Clancy's EndWar: A RTS for the lobotomized.

This is a very old article I've had on the backburner, and have only recently decided to fully write up... Perhaps to just divert attention away from the newly lambasted behemoth of a disgrace, Command and Conquer 4. I wonder if that game is worth writing about though, considering that the outrageous fan retaliation is more drama and lulz-worthy than speaking of the game itself.

Ubisoft's attempt to foray into the RTS genre was a careful one, intending to utilize the popularity of the titular series as a brand of excellence and to garner a sizable playerbase with relatively small investments in advertising. Ultimately, the plan flopped, as RTS veterans and Tom Clancy fans alike recognized the amateur level of design put into EndWar.

In EndWar, you have 2 factions, but the faction differences are purely superficial. The units either possess are the same in utility and function, and are equally few in number. You have 3 units to control in this game. Yep. THREE. Be careful counting them, it's quite a hefty number to wrap your mind around. You can control engineers (ground infantry), gunships (choppers), or ground armor (usually something between BMPs to Light tanks). You order in these units via menu reinforcement support, but once they're in, the headaches begin, despite the game being simple enough for a toddler. I think that is actually the problem: you cannot play this game if you are a RTS veteran who likes to be in control. Immediately lop off all your fingers and just run your face over the keyboard to succeed and prosper.

You'll find immediately that despite being limited by a crippling population cap, 12 units to be precise (infantry squads count as 1 unit), you will be sympathetic towards the reasoning behind the design, as EndWar is a RTS created with console players in mind and their problems stem from this foundation. Official reviewers, such as IGN/Gamespot/Gametrailers rate the product from a console viewpoint, and absolutely adore the game, lavishing at the brilliance of a voice-command interface, streamlined action, and the vivid closeup visuals. But of course they'd fawn over it, as being console players, they are unable to appreciate a game with sustenance, depth and a respectable skill ceiling. Instead, with terrible standard control schemes with analog sticks and a very limited set of command hotkeys, they'd see Ubisoft's latest 'voice command' gimmick as a godsend. Using voice command, a player can issue orders to their units, like 'Squad 4, attack Hostile 3'. Perhaps this puts into perspective why there is such a limited number of units to control, as well as actions to assign. Just imagine trying to say 'Rifleman squad #654, utilize grenade launcher upgrade and lay suppressive fire on hostile infantry #352, 366, 775 until hostile light armored vehicle #445 arrives, then switch to mortars and armor piercing rounds, but individually retreat to LZ positon #34 before your health is diminished below 10 units.' Just imagine trying to issue micro commands with your voice on the fly. With fewer units to control, and a very limited set of possible commands to issue, it makes it easier for console players and their retarded voice command interface. It has all the problems of that AVGN listed about the Konami Laser Scope. Your mouth gets tired, everyone around you finds you annoying, and you feel like a total dork. And you should, for playing this piece of crap.

But you can still choose to turn off the voice command interface, and resort to conventional controls, but you're still severely crippled by absurd command limitations I briefly mentioned above. This is the first RTS I've played where your units cannot be told to move to a location. You did not misread. Selecting your units and right clicking an open area in the map... And nothing will happen. In catering to console players, who do not have the freedom of clicking all over the map like PC players can with their mice, EndWar forces players to move units by either tying it to specific targetable areas or units. That is, if I want to move my gunships anywhere, I have to give it an order to attack something. If there's nothing there, I won't be able to send it anywhere, except for specific 'capture' locations on the map. Just imagine playing Starcraft, but you cant move your tanks unless you have something to attack, or if there's a map object like a mineral to target, yet any of the terrain ANYWHERE are not possible movement zones. It's like playing World of Warcraft, but you cant click anything, or use WASD. You have to use tab to cycle to something you want then type /attack and watch your character auto-path its way to the target. Seriously? Who fucking thought this was a good idea in a RTS? So Gunships don't move anywhere without a valid target. Neither do vehicles. Squads of infantry can take cover behind specific map entities like bunkers (they're a part of the map... You don't build them.) but otherwise can only move in the same way the other units can. How are you supposed to employ strategy when the movements and pathing of your units are so limited? EndWar is literally a RTS on rails, and IF they had rally points, that would already conquer what minuscule challenge exists in this game.

The camera is also terrible, and again, unsuprisingly a fault of trying to cater to console players. Staring at a mass of small individual units is understandably tough on a console player's eyes, who could be trying to squint at their TV across the room. To compensate, Ubisoft places you nearly at street level, with an individual tank taking a massive amount of the screen real estate, which is compounded by the fact that it's no longer a birds eye view camera angle, but a forced tilted angle that's useful for nothing but scenic photography. Pictures explain better than words, so I'd like you to analyze this:

EndWar... This is with the camera zoomed out and tilted as much as possible.


Now, the tanks in the distance don't look huge, but look at your workspace... A thin strip of screen real estate on the lower quarter of the screen, yet above the UI. And with this tilted angle, you can see how impossible it is to select one unit from another. Anything further in the distance is too small to manage, so you need to continually move your screen just to see whats going on in a single skirmish. Why must they have such a stupid ineffective camera angle? Is it a strategy game or a I-like-staring-into-the-sunsets-lulz game?

Barely recognizable as a RTS, EndWar attempts to solidify its position by laying its groundwork with a supremely basic rock-paper-scissor counter system. It is hard to stress how basic the counter system is, but considering that there are only 3 units in the game, it's pretty easy to guess that tanks counter infantry, infantry counter gunships, and gunships counter tanks. There is absolutely no strategy either, you just radio the counter units to what your enemy possesses the most of, issue an attack command and then repeat. If you're slow with your reflexes, there's no need to fret! The counter units take an ETERNITY to kill an opponent, even if you outnumber the target or flank them. I could go take a piss and come back and STILL have enough time to reinforce the squad with units that can counter whatever I'm being attacked by. I get bored idling around watching the battle unfold predictably, seeing a whole set of health bars slowly diminish. Want to be pro at this game? Have an Actions Per Minute of 3. If that wasn't slow and shallow enough for you, there's no need to construct a supportive unit or use skills with cooldowns or even micro your existing units. More accurately, there's no way to do that even if you wanted to. There are no supportive units, there are no unit skills, and you can't issue movement commands, which basically kills any of the usual things you'd expect in a RTS.

EndWar turns extremely aggravating in about 5 minutes of play as you realize, the more effort you invest to manage your units, the more futile and infuriating it becomes. I best describe EndWar as a Chinese fingertrap; don't bother trying to overcome it's crippling mechanics, just put hot irons in your retinas and sign up for a lobotomy, then sit down and enjoy. It's not even close to being acceptable as a RTS; I find a children's Fit-The-Shapes-Into-The-Slots game more strategic.

HAWX, the Arcade Sim that Appeals to No One

I played through the entire campaign on PC with a Logitech 3D Pro in under 3-4 hours. I was beyond disappointed. I'm going to mostly compare it to the Ace Combat series, as it was intended as its primary competition in development, but really, you should keep in mind that whether or not you liked Ace Combat, it won't matter: this game appeals to nobody. You won't find much to like in this game whether you're a fan of arcades, simulators, or bullet-hell coin eaters.

After accepting the game for its surreal tone, and the ridiculous maneuvers and poor assist-off camera, all things that are recognizable from the in-game-footage trailers, I was hoping it'd at least match up to being somewhat entertaining as the Ace Combat series for me. That is, I wanted the game to have interesting mechanics, challenging missions, larger-than-life boss fights, and some wild environmentals like in Ace Combat. I got none of that.

HAWX is has 19 missions, all of which are either defend a specific airspace, escort a platoon or another aircraft, bomb a set of ground targets, slip through radar, or shoot up all your objective targets as they close in on your position. Or a combination of any of those. It gets pretty tiring after a while, since there really isn't much more to it than that, and you wouldn't be able to tell some of these missions apart. Their biggest and best gimmick was when your plane's electronic systems go haywire and you were unable fire any missiles. That's kinda funny, since I thought assist-off turned off all your computers anyway? Regardless, I like gimmicks, but if that's the best they can do, that's pretty lame. You have to really dig to find creativity or inspiration that went into the mission or map designs. (Oh wait, I forgot. They didn't design the maps, since they just took satellite images and converted them to landscapes. Fantastic.)

What did Ace Combat offer? You got to fight spaceships armed with laser batteries. Gigantic bomber fortresses with a cloaking field. Fly through caverns in training jets with no armaments dodging the detection of enemy ace fighter pilots. Sinking submarines with splintering ICBMs raining metal shrapnel from the sky. Flying through narrow vent openings in nuclear compounds to blast missiles within the silos ala. Death Star. Or dodging giant pillars of lasers fired from space. It was ridiculous but once you got past that, the game was actually enjoyable... It's an alternate universe. Think of the game more like a bullet-hell game where you slaughter hundreds of enemies until you get to the end where you fight a massive firepower-excessive boss. Those were always fun. The problem is that HAWX went halfway and fell short at pleasing anyone. You get past the insane flight mechanics (or lack thereof) but there really is nothing left for you to enjoy. HAWX's big problem is that past its thin unpleasant exterior shell, there is only a hollow, lifeless, generic game underneath, with an unfulfilling story, forgetable characters and monotonous gameplay.

Speaking of the plot, for a Tom Clancy storyline, wow... Was it ever predictable and just mundane. I won't spoil it for anyone here, but the story was something you could see coming a mile away, and wasn't particularly noteworthy anyway. Maybe they wanted to really keep it down to earth (relative to Ace Combat) and possibly even within the framework of the Tom Clancy novels, despite a few of the aspects about Artemis being outlandish, but what really bothered me, was the lack of personality in both of your wingmen. They both like money, whores and money. Did I say money? They can't get enough of that. At least, until they need to be patriotic all of a sudden. Then it's all honor and glory. But now they want medals. And women. And medals. Did I say medals? So first they fall in love with their new job in exchange for a vast sum of material payment, then they turn on a dime and decide they don't care about the pay at all and are willing to work for free? Inconsistent and contradictory doesn't even begin to describe it.

Furthermore, did they just cookie cutter these guys out of Army of Two or something? They're shooting down hundreds of pilots, tanks, bombers and reducing bases to rubble... Yet they mind as well be fist-pounding. Even when your own cities (read: civilians) are being burned to ash, its just an "Aw, shucks" here and there. There is not the slightest air of seriousness in any of the pilots you encounter, which really ruins immersiveness as to them, it really is just a video game. Coming from the pilot instructors who describe your movements as 'drifts' and 'power slides', I guess I shouldn't be surprised. At least in Ace Combat, when your cities are being destroyed, your wingmen are either too shocked or enraged to say much of anything like this.

Its even worse that at the end of every mission, you get the most juvenile dialogue out of these two, and its even REPEATED. As in, Ubisoft was too lazy to give them new lines for scripted triggers. And these are scripted dialogue lines, so obviously someone at Ubisoft didn't give a shit that you had to listen to the same ignorant crap that they already made you hear 3 missions ago. Beer, bling, tits and ass after every successful mission.

Thankfully, a few of the missions you fly will have your wingmen mysteriously not be by your side. I'm guessing that it's because of an infiltration directive or possibly they're off fulfilling their own missions at the time. What a relief right? Nope! They still come over your radio just as often (and their portraits show them flying in their planes??) to pester you with their frat-boy depiction of warfare. "Alright, score one for the good guys, we just sprinkled radioactive debris all over our cities. Let's go back for some booze! Oh, and some medals."

Ace Combat, which has little story-writing base, at least does fairly well throwing in lively characters with differing (usually foil) personalities. In some games, where your wingmen actually die, you do miss them somewhat, which is already leagues more than what I can say for my wingmen in HAWX (I've tried killing my wingmen, trust me, they can't die). I won't say the Ace Combat characters are deep, but compared to HAWX, they're the Mariana Trench. Your wingmen in AC will actually play a role in establishing relationships and connections with other NPC characters... Especially those you save in several missions. Even better is that those you SAVE and assist actually often come back to help you out in your final missions. Cue the cutscenes of a fleet of jet fighters, bombers and AWACS and heavily-accented Russians singing along with your wingmen (who could do without that?). Damn that is awesome, to for once, have the numbers on your side, a good payoff feeling for having saved so many people and struggled against impossible odds all the way up until the end. Characters actually mean something in AC, especially since the cutscenes show them having some persona outside of their cockpits. If anything, at least they have a face. In HAWX, you'll never see your wingmen's faces. Talon and Casper (your wingmen) are as generic as can be.

Worse, I would have thought that the Ghost Team you save in the very first mission, who tells you they 'owe you one' and they 'won't forget'... never actually come back to repay their due. What a letdown. Everything is very impersonal in HAWX, you don't really feel anything from any of the characters, save whoever is debriefing you... Since he's probably barking his head off at you (if anyone has played GRAW2, it's the same sort of 'way too loud and obnoxious authority'). I figured hey, maybe since its a video game, and they've established that they're not aiming for realism... They'd actually try be entertaining instead.... Nope.

Characters aside, the storyline in AC's 3,4,5 and Zero still trumps that of HAWX. Sad to know huh? Fun events happen in AC, and you can have multiple mission choices. Depending on how well or what you do on your previous mission, your next mission may be something different. You may also unlock special planes by doing things differently. Your carrier gets sunk while you are being debriefed on it, so you get to emergency takeoff with whatever plane you want (a relief after being stuck with carrier-based planes for a good 3-4 missions). You deal with several layers of conspiracy and internal sabotage. You're led into traps. You have to fight people who were your allies in the past. You find unexpected help from people you thought were your enemies or who you thought were dead. You get framed for war-crimes that you didn't commit. They're not great plot twists, and some are more predictable than others, but at least they are there. For HAWX, they guide the player on a monorail of boredom: there are no alternative missions; you unlock planes purely by your grinded experience level; replayability is hugely lacking. Grinding experience and achievements to unlock new planes and their weapon packs (which you need to do if you want to use the other planes in Multiplayer) is not my idea of fun. There aren't any surprises either. People who start evil end evil... Those who start good end good. Not like it even matters, since everyone is so single-layered and predictable. The story basically follows the same stereotypical, overdone route. Its a war, and you're winning it step by tiny step. You don't ever feel like you're being pushed back, or have the carpet pulled out from under your feet... It's pretty linear, drawn-out progression.

HAWX singleplayer was a huge letdown. There's not much to do after you complete the campaign, other than doing it again on harder difficulties (or for achievements)... or free flight (fly around the map with no enemies). I don't remember for sure, but I don't think there were multiplayer modes outside of team deathmatch and coop either... So that will definitely get stale as well. Apparently most reviews have labeled the multiplayer as being the weakest aspect of HAWX, so I wouldn't expect any sort of recompensation by graduating from singleplayer to multiplayer - it only gets worse.

I'm fine with the fact that game developers can take liberty in modifying the genre or doing something new and unexpected with their game. It may not always work out, but it's innovative and progressive, and the only way for developers to foray into new territory, that may yet pioneer an unexplored direction of gaming. However, the main aspect, no matter what you're trying to do with the game, is to make it fun and entertaining. If this is sacrificed or lost in the concept, then the game just won't fly. HAWX is exactly like that, burdened with uninspired missions, maps, characters and gameplay, there really is no motivation to taxi to the runway, much less take off, regardless of whatever field of gaming you come from, sim-buff or arcader. Peel away all the fancies and shinies, if the game isn't fun to play, it appeals to no one.

One of the greatest, lingering facepalming moments in HAWX surely would have been the moment you hear from your wingman, "I haven't been in a battle like this since the Gulf War!"... Only for him to say again 3 missions later "I haven't been in a battle like this since the Gulf War!" .......... >_>