Games for Lunch: Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
In a nutshell: Putting the FPS in RTS.
by Kyle Orland, 7/30/2008 7:13 PM
(Page 2 of 3)
0:28 As far as I can tell, I just died because the bridge that's being built appeared on the exact spot on the riverbank where I was standing. For serious.
0:29 "Well done, engineers. The bridge is complete." Finally! "Now stand by for an MCP." I'll pretend I know what that means.
0:30 Apparently the MCP is a big-ass tank. It barrels on by me as I desperately try to catch up and defend it. Suddenly, both the MCP and I are stopped in our tracks by an enemy hovertank known as a desecrator.
0:31 This time I respawn on the bridge and manage to take out the desecrator on foot. When I reach the MCP, I find it's disabled and on fire. Um, what now?
0:33 "MCP disabled: Repair our MCP!" Thanks, guy in my ear! Now HOW EXACTLY DO I DO THAT?
0:34 Slashing the MCP with my knife fails to repair it. I'm running out of ideas.
0:35 Ah ha! Playing around in the menu, I find I can become an engineer. Of course, doing this kills my current character. R.I.P., soldier.
0:36 The desecrator is back, busy firing at nothing as I wallop it from the back.
0:37 Now that I'm an engineer, I can repair the MCP with a pair of pliers? Seriously, the game shows me twisting a pair of pliers on the hull of the tank, which fixes it somehow! Hooray for simplified animations!
0:39 So by now I've maneuvered the MCP to the "outpost" we're supposed to go to (after mastering the wonky vehicle controls), but I can't seem to get it in the garage. There are two indestructible crates in the way. GAH!
0:43 After dying multiple times and making the run from the bridge to the outpost over and over again, my computer ally manages to get the MCP into the garage somehow. Thank god.
0:44 "We fired an SSM" This is some sort of missile, apparently, as I can see it flying through the air. Then, poof. "Their shield generator stopped our SSM." Um, you couldn't predict this before you fired the missile?
0:46 MY computer ally hacks the shield generator as I use a tank to provide cover from a hulking, Gundam-style metallic beast. I actually feel like I'm getting into this, now!
0:48 The SSM blew open a "contaminator" warehouse, which we now have to infiltrate. I kill one enemy that's just sitting there, unawares. I set the difficulty to "easy" not "braindead."
0:49 Raid No. 2 of the Contaminator warehouse, the computer enemy kills me, then continues to desecrate my corpse. "Eat that, human," he snarls. Wow. It's just like playing with jerks online!
0:51 I can't help but imagine what this would be like with 32 humans fighting it out, instead of me and three computer-controlled opponents.
0:53 The two enemy characters seem to continually get the jump on me as I get close to the contaminator itself. I can't even see where they're coming from.
0:55 Whoops. They weren't getting the jump on me, I was just running into their proximity mines. Now that I'm savvy to that, of course, they're both actually there, firing on me. Sigh. What's one more respawn, really?
Filed Under: Quake Wars, Quake, rts, Enemy Territory, real-time strategy