Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

Written by Ashley Coomer  on September 07, 2007

First Impressions: Instant Strogg Ц just add water.

Tweet

Comments

When it comes to making a good game nowadays, multiplayer is the key to success. It's what people want and man, it's what people are getting. Quake 4 was one of the most successful shooters of the Xbox 360 launch and it is still mass-populated by online players today. So it's about bloody time for an update to be in order.



Fortunately, an update is coming at just the right time Ц and boy, what an update Enemy Territory: Quake Wars will be. The game was originally announced back in 2005 and has come a long way since then, trudging through beta tests (on the PC) and various updated details. Taking place before the events of Quake II (and more recently Quake 4), Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is set in the near-future of 2065 where the evil alien species, the Strogg, invaded Earth. This means the surroundings will be more familiar, as opposed to the attack on Strogg territory of old.

Being set before the events of Quake II yet still in the future, the Strogg are a new enemy species to the Global Defence Force. In Quake Wars, you'll be able to play as either Human or Strogg and, in a move following the Battlefield games primarily, choose from one of five character classes. The solid single player experience itself will be set over the various maps available for the multiplayer, with four different campaigns allegedly lasting around 90 minutes each. Short but sweet it is then.

Persistent character growth will be awarded through teamwork and completion of objectives, too, which is, you know, nice and will certainly be interesting to watch over Xbox Live; it's undoubted that those who are really the top of the bunch will put man hours into this game and will get a lot out of it until they reach the high ranks. The fact there's persistent character growth is not to say that the game will have a less meaningful story-led mission structure than before, though. Far from it, actually; the gameplay in Quake Wars is going to be all about advancing on and securing enemy territory, and holding your team's front line. With that in mind it might be expected that character class-exclusive abilities and vehicles will have to be used strategically and to your advantage. Correct! In multiplayer Ц where the game is heavily led Ц players will be able to work together by using these tactics to attack and defend valuable installations and unleash huge assaults.

A game so dedicated to its multiplayer mode could well be inundated with a strange species indeed. These are, for lack of a better term, n00bs. Yes, with two С0's to make the term totally l33t. Anyway, fortunately for the more advanced of the game's inhabitants Ц and indeed, for those who are new to it Ц each player's skill level won't necessarily affect the game and make or break a victory. That is to say, the gameplay is designed with both sides of the proverbial coin in mind, so the n00bs will be able to make an equally good contribution to the mission (provided their MadGamerSkillz aren't crap) without potentially ruining the experience for those ranked so high above them. It's awesome defined, people.

It will look pretty damn awesome running through just about any display too. One main gripe the consumers had with Quake 4 on the 360 was that, while it essentially looked lovely as a day one launch title, it was soon (like, on the same day) outdated and was one of the less impressive titles of the bunch. It looked, in comparison, quite poor alongside the likes of Project Gotham Racing 3, Ridge Racer 6 and Condemned: Criminal Origins. The reason, you might be wondering? It had been released on the PC around a month previously, and most of us will know that PC games are soon outdated thanks to ever-enhanced processing power, something the Xbox 360 wasn't short of. Thanks to id Software's new MegaTexture rendering technology, Quake Wars will be able to produce large and stupidly detailed environments with an impressive draw distance, too. Dynamic lighting, shadows, real-time physics and weather are all elements we need to thank id's new rendering technology for, as they'll be what will make up the real-world locations and, more importantly, make them so damn real.