When thinking of Quake, traditionally one would picture the fast paced arena shooters that are all about blowing off your opponent’s face before they do the same to you. While that has been the only multiplayer Quake games offered until now (not counting mods), Splash Damage decided to fuse the Quake universe with a more strategic side of gaming after seeing the success Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. As the name suggests Nazis and Allies got replaced with the Strogg and GDF, for what could end up being one of the most memorable wars ever.

Whose side will you fight for?

Although the storyline isn’t all that important, basically it’s the year 2065 and the alien race known as the Strogg are invading earth for whatever reason. As a gamer, all you need to know is that there are only a few different overlying objectives throughout the game. On any given map, one team will serve as defense while the other pushes on offense. For example, on the popular Valley map the GDF must push forward by constructing a bridge and moving their MCP up through contested territory, which will eventually allow them to obliterate the Strogg’s Contaminator facility. While it would seem easy for the Strogg for merely setup a few snipers and tanks and wait for the opposition to meet their doom, the developers managed to create tons of well-balanced scenarios that will leave both sides always planning their next move.

The most popular game modes are campaigns, which are 3-map cycles that really deliver a sense of conquest. Currently available in North America, Pacific, Africa, and Europe, the two opposing teams will, of course, battle for domination of a region. An interesting feature of campaigns is that your experience from one battle will carry over for future fights. As such, if you find yourself just joining a server as the third map is beginning, you’ll find yourself missing out on some enhancements, which will leave you with a disadvantage. The offense and defense positions will change based on what map is selected, but you can switch teams between maps if you prefer one over the other.

Another creative feature of Quake Wars lies within the “asymmetrical gameplay.” As you might have guessed, this simply means that fighting for the Strogg is considerably different from fighting as the GDF. While each team has the same basic classes, how each side actually plays is a different story. For one thing, the GDF rely on health and ammo packs to survive, while the Strogg utilize a resource known as Stroyent. GDF Medics can instantly revive unconscious teammates and can provide med packs for allies, but they can’t create spawn hosts from fallen enemy corpses like the Strogg Technician can. On a wider scale, GDF troops have to reload their weapons, while the Strogg just need to make sure their weapons don’t overheat. Additionally, the Strogg can convert their ammo into health, or vice versa, which can help in dire situations.

In terms of vehicles, again the sides carry have different characteristics. As a whole, the GDF sees more team-based vehicles with support for gunners and passengers, while most Strogg vehicles are lucky to see even just a gunner seat. The GDF sport some massive helicopters, quick ATVs, and even APCs for quickly transporting units. The Strogg have an arsenal of original vehicles that won’t be found in real life, including the massive Cyclops Heavy Walker. The Icarus vehicle is fun for the Strogg because it serves as a jetpack that allows them to reach rooftops and other locations that the GDF will never be able to travel to. Of course, different vehicles have their own stats, such as respawn time, damage, size, and health to help keep things relatively balanced while also delivery a noticeably different experience for each side.

If anything, the weapons offer the least amount of difference between the two classes. Aside from how the guns are powered, you can expect similar weapons from each side to perform similarly, although still not entirely the same. The GDF’s Sniper Rifle is great for picking off heads from hundreds of meters away, while the Railgun on the Strogg side is essentially the same. Each team also has a type of lock-on rocket launcher used for taking out heavy vehicles, grenades for some quick explosive action, and all of your other traditional weapons.

Enough with the lecturing, let’s fight!

Any game can have an interesting enough premise and still be a load of garbage, so the real question is, “Is Quake Wars fun?” For all of you impatient readers out there, the answer is yes for the most part. The first few hours are bound to confuse and possibly overwhelm you due to all the aspects of team play, vehicle control class specifics and map objectives. But take enough time to learn it all and ETQW becomes an interesting mix of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Battlefield 2142 with tons of features that make it unique.

As a recommendation, I would suggest that anybody starts off by playing at least a couple of maps against bots on an easy or medium difficulty. Simply put, the learning process is a lot easier if you’re playing against lame computers instead of hardened elites who will ensure that you never have the chance to leave your spawn. It definitely would’ve been nice for the developers to throw in a tutorial, but it won’t take too long to figure out where to go using the on-screen hints.

As mentioned, the game revolves around one side completing objectives while the other side attempts to thwart their efforts. While some objectives aren’t class specific, such as delivering energy cells or guiding APCs, others can only be completed by a certain class. For instance, if you need to destroy a target, only a soldier or aggressor can plant the explosives. Likewise, only the covert ops or infiltrator characters are capable of hacking enemy objects. This creates an interesting dilemma in that online, especially with the new guys, a significant amount of people will all switch to the same class in hopes of being the one to complete the objective, and thus getting an experience bonus. While some may argue that having more people going after the objective is a good idea, depriving your team of its versatility will certainly have some serious drawbacks.

This is why it’s important to find a community of players that you are either familiar with or that you can trust to work for the team instead of just for their character. Some gamers not get as many kicks out of reviving wounded soldiers instead of trying to snipe enemies from afar, but not using the medic or technician character can leave your teammates struggling to stay alive and therefore making it difficult to push forward.

If you like the idea of being a one-man team, however, Quake Wars might be frustrating from time to time. Often times I found myself striving to plant explosives, only to curse myself for not also being able to take out an anti-personnel turret and heal myself at the same time. More so in the demo than in the actual retail game, people seem to jump right in to the action without even familiarizing themselves with the objectives. Combine this with a few experienced players who will camp your spawn with tanks and the like and it’s sure to be frustrating. This problem will hopefully work itself out over time, and even now you can always just look around for a good server, but it’s still a pain to find yourself feeling useless.

Vehicle usage is also a key component in online play, and failing to utilize your equipment to the best of your ability can also be fatal. To a newcomer, the engineer and constructor classes can easily be seen as a turn-off because they merely construct deployable objects and occasionally build radars, shield generators, and things of that nature. However, setting up anti-vehicle and anti-personnel turrets can easily setback your foes from completing their objectives. Similarly, field ops and oppressors might not seem tough at first, but these are the only units capable of calling in massive air strikes and long range attacks which will tear your enemy to pieces. Now it’s not to say that being a good shot isn’t important because it is in fact very crucial, but without every piece of the puzzle completing your overall objectives might be out of reach.

As a whole, this game does an amazing job at building upon the illusion that you’re actually participating in a struggle for territory. From the second your feet touch the ground to your valiant struggle to blow up the enemy’s core structure, there shouldn’t be a moment when you aren’t actively modifying or at least thinking about your battle strategy. Environmental awareness is extremely vital here because the battle area is constantly being shifted forward and back depending on which side is dominating, and you can find yourself playing any of the twelve maps over and over again without reliving the same battle.

War isn’t supposed to look glorious anyways

Quake 4 is still a pretty sharp looking game by today’s standards, so we were expecting Quake Wars to be at least as good looking as its predecessor. Oddly enough the one aspect that all of the Doom 3 engine powered games so far shined in looks the worst in Quake Wars, namely interiors. You won’t spend nearly as much time inside as out under the clear (cloudy really) sky, but the almost sterile look of the underground bases just struck me as odd. Outside things are surprisingly better looking, apparently due to the new Mega Texture technology. The draw distance is really amazing, as is the amount of detail seen on the screen relative to that. The vehicles and characters sport a fair number of polygons and don’t have that plastic look some of the older D3 engine games had. And while other games (BF2142 for example) had vehicles that were just as detailed QW goes one step further, offering cockpits with live screens that update accordingly to the action. But none of this impresses as much as the sheer scope of the battles.

Thanks to the long draw range you’ll be able to observe massive tactical explosions several hundreds of meters away, shoot down flying vehicles from the other side of the map and more. The physics are pretty good as well, making controlling the vehicles a delight. Things are not perfect though. Next to the already mentioned drab interiors you’ll occasionally experience framerate drops when several big explosions fill the map, due to all the physics calculations that go off at the time, as well as all the particles that are being rendered. The texture work isn’t always great either, but unless you pull out a scoped rifle and aim at a wall 10 feet away you probably won’t notice it. Oh, for those of you worrying about overall performance – the game is pretty well optimized, so it is possible to run the game (with some tweaking of course) on pretty much any rig that can run Doom 3 or Quake 4.

In regards to the audio, nothing here will stand out aside from the sometimes off-color commentary made by the Strogg. While simply typing in-game is always an option, there are a few preset voice commands you can have your characters say, like if you want to thank a medic for healing you. If you hear the Strogg thank a medic, it almost seems as if they’re saying it in a derogatory manner. Also, it’s comical to hear the aliens refer to time as “earth seconds.” The GDF vehicles have distinct engine noises, while the Strogg vessels have a futuristic tone. Couple this with some decent musical accompaniment and your left with a satisfactory auditory experience, although there are certainly better ways to break in a new surround sound setup.

Conclusion

Anybody with even the slightest interest in the FPS genre should at least download the demo, but if you’re looking for a captivating battlefield experience that isn’t part of the Battlefield series you won’t be let down with a purchase here. The vast environments, variety of vehicles, different character classes, and an overall solid gaming engine make for a rewarding experience if you take the time to find your forte. Granted there can be moments when the game isn’t fun at all if you’re playing with the wrong people, but as a whole Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is highly recommendable.