Firstly, the plot doesn’t revolve around shooting Mexicans. So far so good. Set in the years following 2020, EndWar takes place after nuclear warfare has ceased to exist. But being American means we have to be ahead of the pack and thus we’ve created a orbiting weapons satellite to protect ourselves much like the Justice League did with their “watchtower.’ That’s where our story picks up; with the launch of an American shuttle up to the satellite which other nations aren’t too pleased about and have decided to stop the launch with an attack on the shuttle.
When you first boot up EndWar you should launch its voice command tutorial. This feature is one of the coolest aspects of the entire game and helps separate EndWar from the rest of the RTS pack. It will also get you familiarized with the feature before you head into the skirmish or the one single player mission available in this demo. The voice command training gives the player a run down of all the ways you can command your troops through the Microsoft headset and it’s really a trip. It’s one of those scenarios that when I first started doing it on my own without the prompts from the trainee I was kind of flustered how technologically advanced this feature was. No longer would you have to cycle through menus to pick your commands, you could do it all on the fly by just speaking while holding down the right trigger. It definitely gives a new spin on the RTS game that is something that should be used in all future titles.
However, I did notice that when I got into the game and tried using my voice commanding skills I ran into some problems. Sometimes the game just would not recognize my command strings and instead think I said something completely different. For example, if I wanted to send my group troops to destination Sigma to attack, sometimes it would think I was saying “attack point Zulu.” This was without my voice shifting and I can see this leading to some frustration when you’re juggling multiple unit groups and meticulously micro-managing your team.
I also had trouble just remember the commands to be honest. I’m not a military person so all the military speak didn’t really come naturally to me. I couldn’t keep straight where I wanted my troops to move to and attack. This sometimes resulted in me using the menu system to pick destinations which removes about 80% of the fun from EndWar. But I’m sure once you play the game more and more, whether being into military terminology or not, you will pick up the commands faster and be barking orders with ease making all of these orders seem like common knowledge.
EndWar has a truly revolutionary thing going for it as a console RTS. Even with the few hiccups, I found commanding troops with your voice to be a hell of a lot easier and more fun compared to the standard menu system. Time will tell if the futuristic story delivers but at least we know the game-play will please and give players a spin on the normal RTS formula. I’ve never been a big fan of RTS games in the past (I’ve never even played StarCraft) but EndWar might be the game to change my mind.
