Jonny takes a look at Tom Clancy's EndWar, a game that really does make you feel like a battlefield Commander.

If any modern gaming genre needs a good old makeover at the moment it's the RTS.

Look at it! Mock it! It wears shell-suits with smart brogues, and appears to be growing some kind of ridiculous handlebar moustache! Talk about out of touch.

Although attempts have been made to evolve the genre numerous times over the years it keeps coming back to settle upon the basics that were introduced by Westwood Studios' Dune and then popularised by their follow-up Command & Conquer.

The war to end all wars

Ubisoft's upcoming EndWar – the first ever real-time strategy game to bear Tom Clancy's name, is looking to make some genuine and quite major changes, spurred on by the genre's bad fit with console-style play.

The biggest change is the control mechanism…although standard control will be possible, one of EndWar's big selling points is a voice command system that allows you to keep control of everything happening across the battlefield merely by barking orders into your Xbox 360, PS3 or PC headset.

Now, we know how it sounds. It sounds like some form of chicanery surely? We have horrible memories of shouting "BLUE! I said BLUE you Hexagonal-Headed Freak!" at Dr. Kawashima a couple of years back and we all know how well this "technology" works in automated phone services, don't we? "Which cinema would you like to visit today?", "Basingstoke", "Thank You! You have selected Glasgow", yet Ubisoft's Shanghai Studio remains confident that they will crack this with EndWar, and the code they've been showing off so far certainly seems to back this up.

Losing the dead weight

A further step in streamlining the Tom Clancy's EndWar experience is to remove the elements of the RTS genre that tend to turn it into more of a management game. This means that there are no bases to build, no technology trees to develop and no raw materials to harvest or refine. Nope, EndWar is promising action all the way.

One further change EndWar has made with console owners in mind is how the action is viewed, getting rid of the usual overhead map view and going with something that shows the unit you're looking at from a close-up, over-the-shoulder, third-person viewpoint. Cor, that's a lot of words just to say that you'll be just behind 'em isn't it?

From the "Rock-Paper-Scissors" description of the strategy in the game it sounds like we're going to get something akin to the mighty Advance Wars - compared to some strategy games it may appear shallow from a distance but once you get into it, it's one of the deepest strategy games around. And that's exactly what Ubisoft are going for, accessibility without sacrificing the depth of the strategy on offer.

Can Clancy do it again?

Games bearing the Clancy name have rarely put a foot wrong in recent times, and real-time strategy is just the next step after dominating both squad-based combat (Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon) and stealth (Splinter Cell) genres for so long. Overall, Tom Clancy's first foray into the strategy genre is looking mighty promising so far, and could EndWar could potentially point the way forward for all console RTS titles in the future. As long as your squad doesn't start trying to get on a train to Glasgow every time you issue a move command.

Preview by: Jonny Austin
Preview Published: 05.03.08