More Articles on Full Spectrum Warrior
More Live! Content For FSWFull Spectrum Warrior - DLC October 4th???Full Spectrum WarriorTHQ E3 Line-UpFull Spectrum Warrior - Hands OnLatest Previews
Midnight Club: Los Angeles - Hands OnStar Wars: The Force Unleashed - Hands OnToo Human - Hands OnRaven Squad - First LookQuantum Of Solace - First LookUser Reviews
There are currently 0 User Reviews for Full Spectrum WarriorWrite your own review for this game today and you will receive 100 Gamer Points.
Click here to register
Full Spectrum Warrior Preview
Derek dela Fuente
26/11/2003
TVG takes a look at a new direction in creating the perfect sense of actually being there!
Full Spectrum Warrior is based on a light infantry-training simulator designed by Pandemic Studios for the U.S. Army as a tool to reinforce Army doctrine and squad tactics among troops. Full Spectrum Warrior is a squad-based, tactical-action game that delivers the experience of squad level command in the heat of battle. The product was developed with expertise from University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies, which worked with Pandemic to bring state-of-the-art technology to the game. Designed to simulate today's challenges of urban combat missions, Full Spectrum Warrior is hoped to deliver a level of realism and accuracy that has never been seen in a military-based game. Pandemic has an impressive CV under their belt which includes titles such as Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Army Men: RTS and Dark Reign II.
TVG spoke with Laralyn McWilliams, Lead Designer of Full Spectrum Warrior, who started the ball rolling by informing us as to the expertise involved and the main objectives, innovations and visions for the game.
"Two kinds of expertise are involved in creating Full Spectrum Warrior, army expertise and technical expertise. We have a great combination of talent and experience making the game. Our Project Lead, William Stahl, worked on both Battlezone and Battlezone II, and he leveraged that expertise with strategy/action titles into the core design of FSW. The rest of the FSW development team here at Pandemic has years of combined experience making a wide variety of games in different genres. On the army side, we worked with ICT (Institute for Creative Technology) to create the army version, and we have several military consultants still working with us on the commercial version."
"Our central vision is to combine strategy gameplay with a realistic and immersive environment that places you right down on the battlefield with the soldiers. Creating an authentic experience is very important to us - we recognize the tremendous sacrifices and hardship endured by soldiers in the line or fire, and we've done our best to depict their duties accurately.â
"In terms of innovating and looking at similar games, we're not just game developers, long before any of us started making games, we were all playing games. While we are always trying to further the art, technology and design of our games, we enjoy and admire many games people consider our âcompetitionâ."
Two technical initiatives have been undertaken with most of the team's effort going into increasing the artistic and game play aspects of FSW. At the end of the day a game is judged on its presentation and its playability. In terms of the visuals the team is trying to push as many polygons and textures as they can to create a realistic environment. On the other hand, Pandemic has developed a series of tools to allow them to import art into the engine, and to allow them quickly to place and script enemies and civilians to give more flexibility in creating the game.
The FSW engine is presently, from the words of the team, looking terrific, with all of the effects and quality you would expect from a next-generation Xbox title. A plan is also in place to include support for Dolby 5.1 sound - to hear the battle and your soldiers' conversations in surround sound.
Being based on a simulator can cause a number of problems and ICT's involvement was primarily with the army version of the game rather than the commercial game currently in development. ICT's goal is to better facilitate learning through interactive training tools. Pandemic worked closely with ICT and several different army organizations to make the army training version of FSW - visited army training facilities and army personnel visited our studio on numerous occasions.
"Events and actions in the commercial version are very close to the feel of the army version. Most of our work has gone into making more environments and creating greater depth in the game play. Another key change comes from our focus on helping players ramp up in their tactical expertise. The army product was made for army personnel who have years of specialized training the average gamer doesn't have. Through our tutorials and the first few chapters of the game, we help you build your expertise in MOUT (military operations in urban terrain) combat."
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 organized 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 endanger civilians and other soldiers.
"You are in charge of two fire-teams, each with four soldiers. Each soldier in your charge has a distinct personality that you'll come to recognize over the course of the game. You can tell your two fire-teams to move, including using a variety of formations. You can also tell them to attack enemies with their standard weapons or grenades. While the controls are easy to master, your âtoolboxâ for interacting with the game is quite robust. In fact, there are so many different ways to solve the game's scenarios that we find ourselves playing the levels a bit differently each time"
The behavioral movements and actions of the players are critical in this genre of game and getting this right is one area the team believes they have got sussed.
"The AI we've developed is unique and quite powerful, enabling the soldiers to think and behave both as individuals and as a group. Soldiers respond to many events in the game world, whether it's a comrade being killed or a civilian crying for help. "
"Unlike other war settings, the soldiers in FSW are not drafted into service. They have signed up voluntarily, and they are experienced professionals. While the stress of battle affects their demeanor, they will never âbreakâ and perform poorly. We want your focus to be on squad-level tactics, not on managing each individual soldier's morale, so while they all have good morale, it doesn't affect their performance."
In game military support includes light infantry soldiers who always work as part of an organized campaign. They often accompany vehicles and armour (like Bradleys). During the game, you will interact with a variety of other authentic army, UN and enemy forces and vehicles.
Each member on your four-man fire-team has a defined role, mostly derived from his equipment. Once again, we stick to the authentic army load-out. Your teams use M4 rifles, some with the M203 attachment, SAWs, frag and smoke grenades, and occasionally other specialized pieces of equipment.
FSW will be rated M in America, and carry an equivalent mature rating in European releases. While the game isn't gratuitously gory, it does depict war in a very realistic manner. Also, the US soldiers depicted in the game use the sort of language you would expect from real soldiers, and that by itself is enough to warrant a mature rating.
