The year was….well I don’t remember what year it was but it was certainly between 1989 and 2012. It was just a regular day at Best Buy. I wandered aimlessly about the video game aisle, perusing their latest selection. After saying “nope” and “meh” a few times, I stumbled across a game that was released just a few days prior. I remembered the trailers I had seen, but never bothered to check it out further.
A quick inspection revealed that it was a voice controlled RTS by Tom Clancy. If there is a better recipe for success in this world (besides bacon and chocolate), I don’t know what it is. I nabbed the game off the shelf and headed to the checkout counter to purchase my own copy of EndWar.
Arriving home in record time, I couldn’t wait to play. The disc tray popped out to the sound of two robots humping and my new disc went in. I decided to jump right into online play. I figured that I had built enough Lego structures without directions by now, so a tutorial was below my expertise. I was immediately hit by the one and only drawback to the game, nobody played it.
One minute passed…then five minutes…then ten minutes. I waited around in game lobbies, witnessing no more than a slow trickle of people that rarely amounted to a full squad. Finally, after much delay, a game started. I’m a stickler for little flaws, and there aren’t many games I would describe as incredible….but this was incredible.
It wasn’t your granddad’s RTS (I’m not sure what an RTS even was in his day actually); it was a whole new take on the genre. You don’t make units based on standard resources. Each team accrues points based on good performance in-game, and members of the team use points from this reserve to call in units. The units followed a basic rocks, paper, scissors trump system, but with depth and creativity. Each unit could also be upgraded with money (granting special skills) and could be ranked up through experience gained on the field of battle. There are three factions to choose from: Russia, US, and Europe. Each faction’s units have specific pros and cons. The highlight of playing, however, was the voice commands.
A lot of games have done voice control and butchered it. EndWar shows these games who their daddy is. Every unit on the field had a number, and every strategic base to capture had a military letter (e.g. Alpha, Beta, Charlie, etc.). Units can be told to move to bases, secure them, attack other units, move to other units, retreat, evacuate, and more. To highlight just how simple yet amazingly brilliant the voice system is, there is a YouTube video of two talking parrots playing a real game against each other…and one is actually able to win.
Overall, the game is a true RTS masterpiece, and for a console no less. It pains me to see gamers these days refer to trash like Halo Wars as the greatest console RTS ever, when this hidden gem is still on the shelves. Had EndWar received more advertising and reached a larger playing population, it surely would be remembered as one of the RTS titans. If you are interested in trying the game out, it’s still as fun as it ever was, and the graphics are still fairly impressive. Just be warned, there’s even less people playing now, so 1v1 may be your best bet.
