Being released as a PC title the previous year-- October 2007 to be exact-- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars takes the fight to consoles and make its debut on the Xbox 360. You can either stand together as the human Global Defense Force or destroy all of humanity as the alien race known as the Strogg. Players must work together to complete each objective to earn each and every achievement in the game.  Serving as the prequel to Quake II, Quake Wars takes a standard first person shooter formula and tries to mix it up with an in-depth multiplayer experience.  Quake Wars unfortunately falls short of being a worthwhile shooter.

Fire it up Soldier

If you have ever played Star Wars Battlefront, then you’ve already played Quake Wars.  Quake Wars takes place in the year 2065 with the invading alien race Strogg blasting through to capture Earth as its new harvesting planet. You must choose your side to either defend the bright blue planet as the human Global Defense Force or try to capture Earth for yourself as the invading alien race, Strogg.  As the game unfolds, there are unbearably long load times in between matches. You would be much better off spending your time trying to brush up on your reading through the instruction booklet.

You won’t find much to talk about if you’re looking for some kind of in-depth storyline with characters that you’ll remember after you finish the game.  Quake Wars has no real story to speak of, so you might just be better off searching in Wikipedia if you want to know about the history of the game and get yourself acquainted with the series. You are only introduced to the game through the cinematic that can be more or less called a trailer before you reach the game’s start menu.  With the only effort being put into that cinematic, it is quite disappointing that we won’t be treated to much else afterwards.

While the easy pick-up-and-play mechanic works here, Quake Wars isn’t exactly deep. The game carries with it five character classes to help you complete the various objectives on the battlefield. These classes include Soldier, Medic, Engineer, Covert Ops and Field Ops. Strogg has the same exact classes although they are worded differently. If you spent that lengthy loading time reading through the instruction booklet, then you should have no problem deciding which class you can easily take advantage of during each mission. Split between the two races, there are various vehicles and deployables that will give both races advantages and disadvantages.  It would be quite handy to become a master of several classes as if you plan on playing the single player campaign alone, then you should have no problem.

You will unfortunately continue to be plagued with ridiculously long load times between matches to the point where you could have a full cup of tea before the next mission starts.  Once the loading ends, however, the battles that you will find yourself will surely make up for any long load time.  Enemy AI quickly becomes an issue as the computer just doesn’t seem to act all that bright and doesn’t really seem to cooperate very well and often units get lost on the battlefield. You can forget about trying to get inside one of wealth of vehicles you can choose from, because seconds later you’ll find yourself re-spawning. It is highly recommended you play as much online with this title as possible. It is always best to play with humans then to deal with the horrid AI.

Finally, Quake Wars is meant for the multiplayer experience. If you want to play this game solely for the single-player campaign, you will find it hard to cooperate with your teammates as I mentioned above, the enemy AI and ally AI seem a bit jaded. They know what they’re doing for the most part, but only work through the objectives embedded in them as you can’t have much fun with them. It is always best to play with human partners and friends, as online matches are quite the feat. You’ll be busy if you can figure which one of you is playing as a certain class and what your different jobs will assume.

Graphics

It doesn’t take long for the textures and large maps to load up as you’ll be busy sitting in the loading screen before the match begins. You have your basic environments like jungle, destroyed city and the barren desert. While it’s all rendered nicely enough, it doesn’t quite have that immersive feel to it that you might notice about other shooters. Explosions seem forced and don’t carry the weight and free-flow you might normally see. Characters are about as basic as they can possibly be, and obviously don’t have much detail to them as you don’t seem them much at all. You do get some glimpses at them during the single-player campaign and you’ll want to turn your head in fear of the emotionless figures.

Sound

You might be better off using your own custom soundtrack as you won’t be hearing much throughout each match single player and multiplayer, unless you like hearing loud bullet noises and explosions that make no sense. You have some orchestrated tunes here and there but it’s not exactly enough to get you in the mood for the various battles you’ll be facing in the campaigns. Each level might have its own theme to it, but you barely notice that it won’t make much of a difference in the end if you are a game music junkie.  Don’t expect to hear quality voice acting here either, mostly a dead effort that only very few characters in the game get the voice treatment.

Plasma Factor

It’s hard to pin down one good or even great thing about Quake Wars. You might say that one thing which can give you a good time with the game is its ability to generate team work in an effort to complete various listed objectives. Players are suggested of course to play with human opponents and teammates as the AI is poor to the point of shrugging at the thought of it. You’ll be better off playing this title online as much as possible. Only fly through the single player campaign if you’re looking for easy achievement points because that is the only thing worth it about the title. Multiplayer is where this title shines brightly and unfortunately the only thing that will put a smile on your face.

Conclusion

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars unfortunately falls quite short with a few things that keep it from being a competitive and faithful shooter that was ported from the PC. With the ridiculously long load times, it makes the experience a little hard to bear. It would have been nice if there was an added story to the game seeing as this is a prequel to the great game that is Quake II.  It is highly recommended that players rent this title before even considering dropping the 60 dollars for it. If there is a demo available, download it first. The game is overpriced and needs a bit more work before it could even be considered a faithful shooter. You will most likely end up forgetting this title after completing the single player campaign unless you are a fan of the multiplayer experience.