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Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Review - PC

Introduction

Quake Wars - Enemy Territory follows on from the successful cult game Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory. This in turn was a bit of a followup in style to the original Team Fortress mod for the original Quake in the mid 90's. This had you fighting to hold positions on a large map, and utilising effective tactics to work with your team mates to achieve victory. Rather than just one player, for the first time in a FPS, players could also choose their own character classes, each of which played a unique part in the squad.

This time the action takes place again in the Quake Universe, as you choose to either play on the side of the GDF (the Humans), or the alien Strogg, as they battle to take over Earth. The game has been awaited for many years now, and despite many delays, hardcore multiplayer fans have been eagerly awaiting it's release. For console fans, a Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 version is also set for release next year, which may be enough to knock Halo 3 off the multiplayer hot list.

Gameplay

The main goal of Enemy Territory is to battle it out on massive multiplayer maps, with one team aiming to achieve a number of objectives in the time limit, while the other aims to stop the attacking team from doing this. A time limit is also set, meaning that the objectives must be achieved quickly.

There are three main game types – Objective, Campaign, and Stopwatch. Campaign mode exists as a series of three arenas. Once one side has been defeated, the players move to the next map in the campaign. Objective is a once-off battle on a map, and Stopwatch has you trying to beat the other team's time in completing the objective.

The main goal for your squad is usually attacking or defending a key structure, however there are also a number of sub-goals which help towards reaching your main goal. This may be destroying a smaller structure, defending, planting mines, building weaponry turrets, moving a vehicle from one side of the map to the other, and many others. The best part is that they may change during battle, and you can swap to one you think is achievable at any time.

When you first join a match, you join the lobby where you must choose from a character class, and select your main weapons. There is the Solider, or pure grunt – which is usually the front line to secure or attack the objective. The Engineer class can build gunnery placements, build bridges, or repair damaged vehicles. Medics come in and can revive and heal injured team mates. Field Ops is more the brains of the operation, and can deploy systems – call in air strikes, and provide support. The final class is Covert Ops, who can move in behind the scenes, hack into equipment, pose as the enemy or snipe ...

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