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lace w:st="on">lacename w:st="on">Enemylacename> lacetype w:st="on">Territorylacetype>lace>: Quake Wars or just Quake Wars as I’m going to refer to it, debuted on the PC 7 months ago. So why has it taken so long to be released for the Xbox 360 and has the wait been worth it?  

The action here is all multiplayer - whether with other people on Xbox LIVE or in single player - which replaces real people with bots. There’s of course no doubt that the online mode is better than playing with the stupidly dumb AI bots in single player…..most of the time anyway.

My first stop was the very linier training mission. Immediately your game playing task seems very daunting indeed. Every single task is explained in the most complex way possible. Had they had a regular Joe attempt to inform the player what their tasks were - it’d be a whole lot simpler. A little gripe perhaps, but a gripe nonetheless; your commanding officer has no mouth animation when he is speaking to you. Sure, FPS’s don‘t need it in the heat of battle - but when some dude is looking your character in the eye talking to you - and his lips aren’t moving? You’re left wondering if he should quit the day job and put is arm in Orrville. OK, enough of that - it probably won’t bug anyone else but it damn sure struck a chord with me. Although the training is presented with such complex overtones - it doesn’t really explain a hell of a lot.

Quake Wars involves two teams; the Global Defence Force (GDF) and the Strogg. The Stogg are an alien race who are obviously eeeeeevil. Each team has 5 different variations of Class. For the GDF you can (and need to) play as; Soldier, Medic, Engineer, Covert Ops and Field Ops. For the Strogg - pretty much the same set up with different names; Aggressor, Constructor, Oppressor, Technician, and Infiltrator. The different classes are all here for a reason and all have vital jobs. Wiping away the mist of confusion - the objective is basically very simple, all you need to do is capture the enemy territory. It’s obviously not as straight forward as just capturing a flag on each section of the map, though. You are presented with a selection of objectives which you must fulfil in order to gain the territory. This is where the different classes come in. For instance - if you need a bridge built to advance, you’ll have to use an engineer. As an engineer your goal will be to head to where the bridge is needed and hold the X button. Varying on the size of the bridge, a small meter will pop up which you have to fill - you are defenceless whilst doing this. This is where it’s advisable to have someone near by who can throw you health - the Medic being the only class who can do this. Likewise the Medic is the only class who can revive you if you’ve lost all of your health - you can choose to either wait for a medic or just respawn. None of the classes are any more or any less important than another, but I’d be lying if I said anything but a Soldier is that much fun to play. Covert Ops are the sneaky, tactical guys, armed by default with the worst sniper rifle in gaming history. The objectives work pretty much the same whichever team you’re on, as do the different classes.

Controlling one’s soldier is immediately pretty satisfying. It’s rare nowadays to have an FPS character than can run - very quickly - without having to hold something down only to have your character run out of steam after what appears to be 20 yards. Yes, movement is quick. Aiming is also very good and actually killing other people is probably the easiest part of the whole game, which is why it’s no surprise to learn that it’s also one of the least important parts of the game. Sure, if you’ve planted an explosive, naturally you have to defend it from the opposing team, but you’re never actually killing people for the sake of it, which is what video games are made for. I honestly found a good portion of the on foot controls to be very good. Small niggles like having to position yourself perfectly so the X icon pops up is basically me lying when I use the words “small niggles”. It’s a pretty meaty flaw in the middle of a battle zone. Not half as horrible as the vehicle controls though. Quake Wars offers up a selection of vehicles to take control of and I soon learned not to bother with them. Your entire movement when driving is controlled by the left stick, to move forward, back, left and right. If you were to assume the right stick obviously controls the camera then of course you’d be wrong. Quake Wars doesn’t let you shift the camera whilst in a vehicle. This is just really poor and pretty much kills any fun you could have had.

Visually Quake Wars is average at best. Suffering from juddering slowdown during the more confined battles, the animation of the characters you can see moving about is almost worthless. If they could have stuck hover boards under their feet it would have made the walking on water effect look a little cooler. The locations are generic. Sand, snow, big empty grey buildings and dark corridors are all present and correct. Detailing and textures range from pretty good to non existent. It is this kind of inconsistency that plagues Quake Wars. Environment damage is minimal and destroyed vehicle debris just fades to nothing. Sound wise it feels like you’re playing the whole thing in an empty can of baked beans. Of course a battle between aliens and humans about some old waste land isn’t a realistic setting, but they could have at least tried to make it sound realistic. Everything is very tinny, indeed.

Loading and spawn times are shameful and just reloading your weapon seems to take an age. The entire range of weapons is weak. The already mentioned Sniper rifle is pathetic, as too are the hand grenades. It just appears to me that they have done everything possible to make Quake Wars as tedious as possible. The actual idea of completing different objectives isn’t my problem, it’s the actual execution need to do so.

16 Player multiplayer sounds OK, but when you consider the PC version has 32 spots, it’s a bit of a let down, especially considering the very team orientated mechanics which the game is meant to exploit. A team of 8 people with only 4 headsets would dispose of 50% of the tactical nature immediately. Sure, if you can get 7 friends on your team, the experience will improve tenfold, but with a very limited 12 maps, despite their size and the same objective set for each map, things are going to get old quick. There are various secondary objectives which reward you with weapons and rank you up, but to my confusion these don’t carry over between games.

I couldn’t possibly recommend lace w:st="on">lacename w:st="on">Enemylacename> lacetype w:st="on">Territorylacetype>lace>: Quake Wars to anyone. Even massive Quake fans. The game does nothing to explain itself apart from telling you it’s a prequel to Quake II, however there is no story whatsoever, no matter how much it tries to convince you that there is. Anyone who is a hardcore team tactical FPS fan would be better advised getting the PC version, which from all accounts is far superior to this lazy console port. Non PC gamers need only wait a couple of weeks and Battlefield: Bad Company will be released. From playing just the Battlefield beta I can tell you that it is far more accomplished, exciting, better looking and more fun than Quake Wars.>>