Tom Clancy's EndWar (Xbox 360)

Unit 1 attack Hostile 5!
11/12/2008 8:29 PM | 3 Comments | Page 1 of 2

Think for a moment about all the standard, traditional handheld controllers you've ever handled. After the years you've spent using them, you probably thin k they're a perfectly natural way to control a game. But that familiarity obscures the indirect, imprecise way these controllers convert our desires into on-screen actions. Just consider all the times you've missed a jump in a platformer, or been shot in a first-person shooter, because your fingers weren't nimble enough.

The ideal interface would skip this middleman entirely and directly convert our thoughts into deeds without delay or interference. While other companies work on that pipe dream, Ubisoft has been trying to spruce up the real-time strategy genre with something to bridge the gap -- an interface for Tom Clancy's EndWar based on simple voice commands. While the idea and its execution have some merit, EndWar's flaws as a game pretty much guarantee that most people will make little note of the developer's achievement in voice-based controls.

The game's compelling narrative is not among these flaws. I was immediately hooked in by its extended, playable prologue, which illustrates a highly plausible near-future scenario that leads to a non-nuclear World War III. The end of oil, a worldwide missile shield, an ascendant United States of Europe, Russia's collusion with the "forgotten" nations of Africa and South America, and a terrorist attack on America's space defenses all combine toset off a powder keg of international conflict. It feels richer than the paper-thin fictions behind most war games. Once the war starts, short news vignettes between skirmishes provide quick, engaging updates on the international political situation. The backstory is marred only by some occasionally clunky writing and a few consistently wooden vocal performances.

Speaking of vocal performances, the thrill of using your voice to control an army is surely EndWar's biggest selling point. Seeing my tanks roll down the road after I spoke my first command ("Move Unit 1 to Bravo") was enough to bring a wide, self-satisfied grin to my face. The feeling of empowerment didn't wear off as the game progressed, and I began to feel like a god of the battlefield, moving units about the field effortlessly with the sound of my voice. The game's voice recognition held up reasonably well to all sorts of variations in tone, inflection and enunciation in the heat of battle, failing only occasionally. Like the first time you touch an iPhone, it's hard to try out this new control scheme and not feel like you are finally living in the future (lack of flying cars notwithstanding).

There are limits to the voice command structure, though. While the commands roll off the tongue naturally enough, they weren't always as intuitive as I'd have liked -- instead of saying "Helicopters attack tanks," for instance, I was forced to say the more generic "Unit 1 attack Hostile 5." The bigger problem is the surprisingly large number of commands that simply can't be given through a headset. There was no vocal option I could find to tell infantry units to find crucial cover -- this was done using some rather clunky, controller-based camera-fiddling and button-pressing. Similarly, voice commands can only send units toward other units or specific checkpoints on the map; planting a unit as a scout in a strategically important open area requires the controller. What's more, the game bizarrely fails to assign numbers to some hostile units, again forcing the use of the controller over the headset to set up an attack. For a game that sells itself on being totally controllable by voice, these omissions seem rather odd.