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Full Spectrum Warrior - Hands On Preview
Derek dela Fuente
26/04/2004
We take a close look at the military simulator heading to the Xbox...
It is hard to keep tabs on all the great shooters around at present but if you want things a little more serious, possibly with a little more depth on the cerebral front, then Full Spectrum Warrior could well offer something not only unexpectedly good but a game that will have you transfixed by its focus on detail and a truer fix on the events of war.
Full Spectrum Warrior is a squad-based, tactical-action game and those who have kept tabs on its progression over the last year will know that the developer, Pandemic Studios, has deigned a military simulator for the US army and this game is based around the technology they created and the ethos and strict Army regime, which could equate to what you see in real life action, is what you get onscreen!
FSW is set in a fictional Middle Eastern City, torn apart by a brutal dictator who seized power in a bloody coup. Since that time, he has mounted an organised attack against the country's ethnic minority while using a platform of anti-Western sentiment to ally with terrorist factions. Your platoon is a part of a UN coalition sent to remove the dictator from power and deliver much needed aid. Your tasks and objectives range from protecting your platoon's convoy, to securing parts of the city, to eliminating snipers that endangered civilians and other soldiers.
Coming from a team which has specialised in creating a military program, it does have what you would expect; a number of benefits and this becomes obvious as soon as you play. If you have a vision of cutting loose on the battlefield wastelands and doing some serious damage then think again. A more strategic approach is required and to be honest, this creates a more idealistic and plausible setting to what is a serious matter.
The realism is taken a further step forward in the fact that you won't actively control any one soldier. You will issue orders to the group or individual troops instead ā“ collectively, pertinent to situation. It is a collection of very precise and well thought out ideas that gives this game its uniqueness.
Not assuming the role of an active solider but in charge of two fire-teams, Alpha and Bravo - each with four soldiers, offers a different mindset. Each soldier in your charge has a distinct personality that you'll come to recognise over the course of the game.
In each group there is a team leader, a rifleman, a grenadier, and an automatic rifleman. Your team has equally balanced skills, but they depend on your strategy and team leadership to survive their missions.
Getting to grips with things, understanding the procedures, feeling in total control will take a little longer than you would intend but that is all part of this realistic approach. If war was as easy as bish, bosh, order this, order that and come out triumphant then it would all become pretty mundane and there would be even more wars. No itās all about planning and activating the right approach! The adrenaline fix that the game possesses is extremely high and within an hour you will be totally in tune with both the teams! There are a number of games that give you an instant affinity with them but fewer still where you worry about making the wrong decision.
The AI, which runs seamlessly in the background, must be working on full blast as the behavioural traits of each members of your four-man fire-team, who have defined roles - mostly derived from his equipment, appears to work in unison and feel almost intuitive. The AI works as a kind of second sense for the soldiers. The regular army load of M4 rifles, some with the M203 attachment, SAWs, frag and smoke grenades, and occasionally other specialised pieces of equipment means you stick to the āreal rulesā.
Ok, letās get into the centre of the action!
Picture the scene, you have your squad of eager soldiers and you are under fire, snipers shooting at you, and you can only roughly plot out the position of where hostile fire is coming from. You have to clear the streets and find the sniper.
The first thing that really hits you is that your orders are more to do with telling individual squad members a general direction to move whilst using each of the soldierās individual skills to get on top of the matter! On a number of occasions you just wish that you could take over one of the soldierās body physically and see yourself onscreen in a first person mode but we are afraid itās not the case.
Tactical action is about manoeuvring the set squad into the right place whilst at the same time thinking five or six moves ahead. Keeping out of the firing line is easy when you are thinking of yourself but when there are other soldiers itās a darn sight harder. Manoeuvring behind objects and using a number of clever in game controls are just a few things under your command.
The in game AI is constantly at work on each of the players autonomously! FSW tactical approach is very much akin to RTS gameplay mechanics and the whole ambience of the game has a clinical feel ā“ which is a big positive. You just sense that one wrong move will have dire consequences so constantly you are trying to think ahead and all this hard āgrey matterā action keeps you very concentrated but it is hard work! Much has to do with using the controls and moving the squad about, as it is to do with understanding the deeper tactics of each mission. The left analogue stick controls the cursor that is used to move your units around the screen and the right stick adjusts the camera!
What you need to understand is that this is a team job, you and your squad and both sides rely on each other a great deal. You need to learn about their skills and use them accordingly. When you have cleared a path to where the central action isā¦ flushing out the sniper for instance, you simply move the team to where he has been spotted and the team automatically begins attacking!
Controlling two squads also has a number of tactical benefits and put simply you can use one as bait, whilst the other team will be the instigators to effectually take out the enemy. Although it all might sound straight forward, every move and action you make has a number of knock on eventualities and it is not always choosing the obvious that will win the day. In some cases you may have to lose some ground, even bodies, to win through!
Full Spectrum Warriorās real joy is in the ambience it conveys and the vast amount of detail and dynamism it communicates and this can only be felt and seen when playing. The game feels like it is being played on the fly and you are really in the core of the action and not a game recreated to play, like a set of moves you must copy - if you get what we mean. It has a vast range of complexities many of which are pertinent to each mission. The closest analogy we can say is that Far Cry is more than your average shooter and from what we can pull from our first hand experience is that Full Spectrum is the same ā“ it offers up the kind of intricacies and tactical cunning that gamers just love! Every mission has a variety of deep analytical plotting and decision making.
Another area worth mentioning is the replay mode where you can watch some of your orders and see where you went wrong or better still admire some of your tactical acumen.
The game also serves up a good portion of moral goodies. If one of your comrades goes down then the onus is just as much on his well-being as completing the mission, well in theory that is the idea but you canāt help wanting to complete the mission, can you?
The sound, along with some dazzling particle effects, really heighten the senses and complete what is a really polished and well thought out specialised offering!
In addition to the single-player game, Full Spectrum Warrior will offer some Xbox Live fun.
