I don't know which award Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (ET:QW) deserves more: "Poorest-timed Release" because of at least four huge FPSs released this quarter, or "Nice Try, But No Cigar" for its ambitious, but largely unsuccessful attempt to combine unique elements from other shooters.

My instant gut reaction on playing was, "there's no one who would like this." That's not entirely true; I was surprised to find a high number of servers that I pinged to well and were mostly full. After playing some more, I think ET:QW will fit some appetites, but not most.

The premise and story is old, continued from that of Quake 2 and 4: the alien Strogg are conquering Earth, and the Global Defense Force is attempting to stop them. The maps you play are key battles in locations such Australia, Japan, Africa, and Nevada. You play on one of these two teams in an attempt to win. Victory conditions are usually zero sum: if the attacking team completes its objective, it wins. If they run out of time, they lose. Objectives vary from retrieval of objects to blowing up key sites.

There are supposedly three sets of win conditions, but I couldn't find a single populated server that didn't use the campaign mode, which is three maps played in succession. This game is multiplayer-based, though you can play any of the maps single player with annoying bots. Really annoying. If I hear one more GDF bot say "Enemy disguised as….me!", I'm going to eject the CD and smash it across my forehead.

Your team is comprised of five classes, unfortunately named differently for each side: Soldier/Aggressor, who can plant bombs; Engineer/Constructor, who can deploy turrets and mines, perform repairs, and disarm explosives; Medic/Technician, who can supply health packs and revive downed teammates; Field Ops/Oppressor, who can deploy artillery and call in airstrikes; and Covert Ops/Infiltrator, who can sneak, snipe, hack, and plant cameras and team radar.

The strangest thing about ET:QW is that though there are a number of abilities and an abundance of what seem like cool features, they don't add up to much. This game doesn't know where it wants to go. It's fast-paced, yet a round feels like an eternity. You can go prone, but there is no cover. You can deploy stuff with three different classes, but there are very very few places to deploy them, they don't do much and are easily destroyed. You can aim down the sight, which is nice for sniping, but the combat system is still too much like Quake for it to be useful-your accuracy doesn't decrease by much while moving, rendering it unnecessary.

There are vehicles in the game, but they are overpowered, slow to spawn, and hard to kill, except with other vehicles. There's a distinct difference in the races, but it has little effect on gameplay. And lastly, you can get experience points for completing team or personal class-based objectives (which teaches you how to learn classes and maps quickly), but using them is much more complex than needed. ET: QW is loaded with features, but there are too many for how quickly people play. An FPS can be about strategy, or focused on intensity-the two have not been successfully combined here.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is an objective-based team game that has been done before, and done better. Advanced, Ventrilo-coordinated teamplay might save it if there were at least 10 players on each team, but it's unlikely such a community will thrive. If you need a new version of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory or you love Quake 4 and want to see it played in a larger-scaled environment, try it at your own risk. But don't say you weren't warned-once the servers stop hosting, your 50 bucks is gone, and it's doubtful it will last nearly as long as those other, better FPSs releasing right now.

Nov 16, 2007 | 0 comments
Michael Walbridge