Infiltrating Enemy Territory

By The Jackal

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is an online first-person shooter based on the gameplay of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. It involves 2 teams, the GDF and the Strogg, who are out to physically dismember one another by any means possible. 

Any means!

These 2 teams originate from an unreleased “Quake” race which never made it into production. The GDF (Global Defense Force) are a paramilitary rapid-release force from earth which were formed in the year 2030 to combat natural and terrorist disasters sweeping the Earth. 

The Strogg are a race of very aggressive aliens that come from the planet “Stroggos”. They sweep the galaxy in search of destroying planets and enslaving different races to keep themselves alive and occupied. Kind of like rich people.

As you can imagine, this sets the basis for the story of the Strogg clashing with the GDF in order to enslave and feed on the human race (feed = the insertion of straws through the skull to drink brains like milkshakes).

The GDF are the humans, they have (what we consider to be) normal weapons, such as machine guns, assault rifles, pistols, tanks and helicopters etcetera. The Strogg have very different weapons however. 

These abnormal alien scum are equipped with things called lacerators, lightning pistols, obliterators, nailguns and vehicle like the cyclops heavy walkers. 

The Strogg basically have really cool stuff compared to all the normal human things that we are used to; they have the big robot walkers with missile launchers, they have hover tanks, they have bee-like attack craft and some very cool deployable turrets.

The gameplay is confined to single player with bots, or LAN games and online games with lots of human players. I was sad to see that there was no story mode because there was a lot of potential to create a great story out of the game. 

In a sense, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is like the 'Battlefield' series except that it has an alien race intent on sucking your brains out through a straw. 

Just like the Battlefield games there are huge maps with large amounts of player space on each server, there are objectives and there are many cool and explosive things that you can do with your equipment and surroundings. 

Although it has similar qualities to many different styles of games, it is unique because it gives you loads of freedom. You can choose which objectives you complete, you can alter the reality of the game, and the unique weapons and machines available to use culminate in an overall experience that's utterly addictive. 

I like to think of the game as many different online shooters combined into the one box, with the added spice of originality which I have never experienced before.

There are many different scenarios available to play in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and they include terrain tilesets from places all around the world - including Australia. 

There's environs as diverse as tropical islands, canyons, desserts, army bases and snowy mountains and all of the different tilesets look spectacular. It's a very nice looking game world.

Because Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is a team-based game, the objectives always have something in common: one team must destroy something which belongs to another team (often their dignity). 

An example: the GDF must destroy a large security gate, hack a generator and destroy a core machine belonging to the Strogg. The Strogg team's objective is to counter this attack. 

These missions usually focus on destroying something in particular, but during the mission you have the freedom of choosing which mission you would like to complete from a list. Completing different missions will give you a various amount of points; if you choose an easy mission/target you will obtain a low amount of points; if you choose a more difficult mission then you'll obtain a larger amount of points. 

Easier missions may give a low amount of points, but along the way you might seize the opportunity to blow up some alien scum (or human scum, depending on which side you swing for) and grab yourself some bonus points. 

These points contribute to and unlock bonus weapons, skills and add ons that you can get once you reach a certain number of points. The add ons are given in order, so you don't have the freedom to choose what you want, but that can be a good thing because it means that you don't have to sit around all day deciding whether to have a faster lock-on time or an extra grenade.

The missions in the game are what makes it extremely fun and diverse. Sure, you can blast enemies and set up defensive perimeters, but the many and varied mission objectives ensure that you never become bored while playing this game. There is just so much variety available.

The gameplay is one topic which excites me, because this game has some of the best and most satisfying gaming that I've ever experienced.

Playing the game, I can't really decide whether to call it fast-paced (like Unreal Tournament) or slow paced (like Battlefield 2), so I'm going to call it medium-paced. 

The reason for this is simply because at times the gameplay is fast and at times the gameplay is slow. The gameplay tempo is well balanced between the two, and I've never become bored while playing this game.

The single most important aspect of gameplay is the weaponry and the transport. The weaponry is amazing as I've mentioned above, and you can choose from 5 different character classes:

Soldier: This character is basically used for blowing stuff up. If there's a bridge or a gate which needs to be blown open then the soldier has “High Explosive Charges” and arming tools ready for the job. The weapons available for the soldier are: assault rifle, rocket launcher (only available for soldiers), GPMG (massive machine gun) and shotgun.

Medic: The medic is not really used for any particular missions, but can heal teammates. If you want to get a large number of points and help out your fellow troopers then this guy is for you. He can wield an assault rifle and a shotgun.

Engineer: This guy is used for repairing things, usually a broken down vehicle or deployable turret. If your mission is to help a vehicle reach a certain position spawning as an engineer is a wise move. Like the Medic he can wield an assault rifle and a shotgun.

Field Ops: These dudes are basically the Sergeant Major's of your team. Although they can only wield an assault rifle, they can re-fuel your team with ammo, call down devastating air strikes and can wipe out heavily fortified outdoor areas with ease.

Covert Ops: This is the Splinter Cell dude of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Covert Ops are used for hacking objectives which render enemy equipment useless. Covert Ops carry either a scoped assault rifle or a sniper rifle which are perfect if you want to camp up in the mountains or canyons of a map, whittling down the enemies ranks from afar. They also have the ability to disguise themselves as the enemy, which is great for infiltrating the enemy base.

Listed above is the GDF force characters, but the Strogg force is almost exactly equivalent apart from the change in names (and sometimes function) of weapons and classes and that sort of thing.

All players have the ability to deploy turrets and radars which are extremely effective at destroying and detecting the enemy. You can choose which type of turret you deploy from the GDF team:

Anti-missle: Strong against missile attacks.
Anti-vehicle: Strong against vehicles.
Anti-infantry: Strong against infantry.
Artillery gun: Area effect cannon, fires five rounds per salvo, strong against everything.
Rocket artillery: Strong against most things, fires 18 missile salvo.
Hammer launcher: Thermobaric airburst explosion strong against infantry and lightly armoured vehicles.
Radar: Highlights enemies on your radar.

If these are placed correctly you'll be able to give your team bonus support and defense when completing missions. The Strogg also have an array of deployable turrets, and most of them mirror the GDF's, though there are exceptions like the Dark Matter Cannon and Shield Generator.

There's also a range of vehicles to use, which really open up the maps as you can cover ground much faster. In addition to increased mobility some vehicles also give you more firepower. There's eight GDF vehicles, and five Strogg. Here's a few of them:

Strogg

Desecrator: This hover tank packs two powerful weapons and can hunker down in a siege mode for more attack power.
Cyclops This robotic biped walker has a pair of massive plasma cannons and a heavy lacerator and also has a siege mode.
Tormentor: This flying unit packs an anti-infantry cannon, a light plasma cannon, and 'Strocket' missiles.

GDF

Anansi: An apache-like aircraft loaded to the hilt with high power weaponry, including guided and un-guided missiles.
Bumblebee: This aircraft is more like a blackhawk, with chin-mounted guns, and two turrets operated by passengers.
Titan: The mainstay of the GDF ground assault force, this tradition tank is quick, powerful and well armoured.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars one of the the best team play games ever realised because everyone has an incentive for completing objectives (which is gaining points for upgrades). Everyone helps each other complete the various objectives that are available to the different teams, so you always have backup when you need it. With a plethora of objectives to complete, and a huge variety of vehicles, weapons, and turrets to help you, it's a very enjoyable first-person shooter.

The overall experience of this team based shooter is extremely involving and the graphics are really quite amazing when they're turned on the highest setting (not that my computer has the guts to run it). The explosions and particle effects are luscious and watching a Cyclops walker crest a hill on its approach to your base can be frightening because the thing is so damn big.

Aside from all of the cool gameplay features, the two races, the vehicles and weapons, what I love about this game is that even a computer from around three years ago can run it well on low graphics settings. I built my own computer (as many do) around three years ago and I could run it on medium graphics with some bonus settings enabled. And it ran smoothly. 

I think that the ability to run the game is really important because it opens up the game to so many more gamers, which is great for the gaming community in general.

Overall I reckon that this game is awesome. It's just a really well put together game. There's no gimmicks, there's no innovations - it just works really well and everything's well balanced. It combines all the best aspects of the FPS genre, including the sniper rifle, the vehicles, the abilities, the graphics and the gameplay. 

My respect for id Software (and Splash Damage) has grown. In my opinion, this is the best game of 2007 thus far, and one of the best online shooters ever.

Game: Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
System: PC
Players: 1-32
Online: Yes
Developer: id Software + Splash Damage
Distributor: Activision

Rating: 95%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)