Tom Clancy's EndWar

by Ubisoft

Product Features

• Watch the destruction unfold in spectacular detail in massive battles.
• Experience a chillingly realistic vision of World War III in the fashion of the best techno-thrillers.
• Explore 40 stunningly realistic real-world battlefields set in Europe and the United States, including Washington D.C., Paris, and Moscow.
• Go to war online in a persistent multiplayer campaign allowing hundreds of player matchups in battles that can last for months at a time.
• Deeply customizable armies featuring unit ranks and hundreds of upgrades add up to endless replay value.

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000X99VYE
• Item Weight: 4 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: February 24, 2009
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,477 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Platform: PC

Experience World War III in your living room with Tom Clancy’s EndWar, a revolutionary new game destined to change simulated war-games on the PC platform forever. Nobody thought humanity could possibly let it really come to this, but in 2016, the unthinkable happens… The first nuclear exchange occurred over Middle Eastern soil. It lasted only 5 hours and resulted in the launch of the world’s first joint missile defense system to ensure peace, that is, until now. With the United States, the European Federation and Russia at odds a final war is inevitable. Although intercontinental ballistic missiles have been rendered obsolete, command technology has evolved. Now battles will be fought from war rooms. Leaders will rise and countries will fall.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Real Time Tactics Game, July 14, 2009

By 

Lisa Shea "medieval swordfighting enthusiast" - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Tom Clancy's EndWar (Video Game)

Based more on games like Ground Control or World in Conflict than Tom Clancy's previous games, "EndWar" is a real-time-tactics game taking place in World War III.

EndWar's depiction of WW3 is fought between the United States, Europe, and Russia after Russia sabotages European missile defense networks to cause them to attack a US spacecraft. The game takes place in the future, and all the units are meant to reflect this. Gone is the modern-day grittiness of most Tom Clancy games, as well as the fairly plausible storylines. What's mostly odd about the plot is that it's meant to take place in the same universe as Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon, meaning that the three main superpowers, despite having worked together for years, decide to go to war at the drop of a hat.

The goal in EndWar's standard mode is to capture command nodes, which are locations scattered around the map. Controlling half of them starts a five-minute countdown timer; controlling all of them leads to instant victory. The player commands up to 12 units, each a platoon of 4 squads or vehicles. There are 6 types of unit. Riflemen (meant to be elite special operatives, not standard army grunts) are good against other infantry and can capture nodes the fastest. Engineers are armed with missile launchers and various tools, but do poorly against other infantry and capture nodes more slowly. Transports can carry infantry and have good anti-air weapons, but are weak against tanks. Tanks do well against ground vehicles, but poorly against air vehicles. Helicopter gunships destroy tanks easily, but are vulnerable to transports and engineers. Finally, artillery is powerful at a distance, but highly vulnerable at close range.

The seventh vehicle type is the command vehicle; you can only have one on the battlefield at a time. The command vehicle offers two major advantages. The first is satellite imaging. The game is viewed with a camera that follows one of your units; there is no "free camera". There is a mini-map, but for practical purposes all the player's orders need to be issued from a third-person camera perspective. With a command vehicle active, the player can go into a more traditional top-down view and see the whole battlefield, as well as issue orders. Losing the command vehicle, or choosing not to bring it, means you don't get access to that ability. Secondly, the command vehicle can launch Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to scout locations or fire missiles at enemy units.

One of the game's main attractions is that it can be played by voice - all units, command nodes, and visible enemies are given a name ("Unit 1", "Point Alpha", and "Hostile 1", for example). By following the game's methodology, in theory it should be possible to say "Unit 1 attack Hostile 1". However, one of the main problems with this concept is that saying all that stuff (for every single action you would take in the game) takes a long time, and it's really just easier to use the mouse. Using the game controller (for the PS3 or Xbox versions of the game) also seems like an unusual hassle; really, as with any RTS, using the mouse is basically the best idea. The voice commands are a neat idea, but also impractical.

The game's other main feature is that units are persistent and unique. Each platoon has its own callsign and matching voice; as you play through the game's Risk-like main game, your platoons gain experience, and gains access to upgrades to attack, defense, mobility, and so on. Therefore, keeping your platoons alive becomes a major priority. If a platoon is injured heavily (having lost 3/4ths of its squads), they are evacuated by helicopter unless the enemy specifically chooses to continue attacking them (which results in permanently losing them). Luckily, the computer does not do that; it's only a risk from particularly cruel players online. The customizability and uniqueness of each unit means that losing a particularly favored one is a direct punch to the player. Unit voices can be either male or female, with a variety of accents; the Europeans, for example, have French, Italian, German, or Spanish accents (Britain is neutral in the game's universe). Therefore, recognizing a unit by its voice can assist in making speedy decisions on the battlefield - if a unit says it's under attack, you can recognize the voice and go to its aid more easily. You can even assign camouflage to your whole unit, to make them distinct from other players' units.

One of the main problems with the gameplay in EndWar is the superweapons. After half of the control points on a map are captured by one side or the other, both sides get access to their superweapons, which include a laser satellite for the Europeans and an orbital missile platform for the United States. These weapons cause massive destruction, and are guaranteed to wipe out any units caught in their range. In fact, they are one of the few sources of perma-death in the game (if the targeted unit is wounded enough). What's frustrating about this is that there's no way to avoid it, you simply have to resign yourself to losing your units once half the map is conquered. It's not like one side has to set up arrays or whatever; once you hit half, everyone gets a nuke.

The other main problem is that the gameplay is very repetitive. The main Risk-style conquest mode has you attempting to take over the entire world, but what it actually pans out to is doing a single play style (capture the nodes) over and over and over until you win. The six unit types mean that there's not a lot one can do in terms of strategy or development, though the unique platoons at least give it some variety.

Overall, EndWar is a good concept, but a lot of its potential was taken out by being adapted for consoles. The controls on the PC are basically good, with some frustrating bits arising from unit selection (you can't select units on the mini-map, for example, and it's hard to drag a selection box over helicopters without selecting units far in the background as well). However, for the most part, EndWar is a good game with a lot of neat elements to it.

7/10.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Casual RTS, February 26, 2009

By 

R. Ray - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Tom Clancy's EndWar (Video Game)

End War is mainly a command point capture and hold game. It is much similar to Star Wars Force Commander of years ago. It plays smoothly and has no bugs that I've seen. The developers really did a good job porting this to PC. The game is really light on my cpu and video card given that it's graphics are rather good for an RTS. Part of this is the fact that any one side is limited to 12 units (4 vehicles or fire teams per unit). The voice acting is also noticeably good and varied.

I do not like how the camera angle is set to something similar to an over-the-shoulder 3rd person shooter game like Splinter Cell. I would like the game more if it had an option for a free roaming camera, rather than one locked to the units I own.

It isn't in line with the standard of other PC RTS games in terms of complexity and involvement. Micromanagement is not something this game does much while in combat. I don't like heavy micromanagement, but this game is too light on it. It can be a good introduction to more complex RTS games or can be a game for the more casual player who wants to get a little RTS-like action in, without the tedium. I gave it 2 stars on fun rating and 3 on overall rating because I like more complexity and especially because the camera issue is really annoying.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Doesnt live up to the Hype- Disapointing, February 27, 2009

By 

Steven Gotts (Saginaw, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Tom Clancy's EndWar (Video Game)

Do we start with the failed activation or the robo support? Then we move on to bad voice recognition and the inability to train that feature. Under cover its a typical Rts in the vein of c and c. The camera view is wild and unwieldly, and the constant pop ups which halt the game, are out of control. I had more fun with the new comand and conquer. their was a strategy there and you had much more control over many more units. The PC version of End War limits you to 5 "rock paper scissors type units, that have to try to capture a majority of check points. ie you have one helocopter unit to cover all the control points on the map. If your into all the between battle cinamatic storylines, you might enjoy the excess of them. Myself I prefer to watch a real movie on DVD, and do battle in a video game. I think the long ago game "real War" was more advanced and fun to play than this. In Conclusion, Ill keep playing, to get my moneys worth. Now I know I wont be tricked into their new soon to be released airfighter program. first time ever in my life Ive been so disapointed. Maybe when its in the $9.95 clearance bin, will I recomend you buy it.

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