Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

We’re so current here, you know. The cutting edge of games journalism. Fresh, new, so hot right now – that’s what we’re all about, and it’s in this vein that I want to talk about Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. The bleeding edge. Ok, so it’s a game that was released in 2007 – and one that I always had my eye on and never bought for reasons unknown. Anyway, I have it now – a mere two years on, so I’m going to talk about it now. If we pretend it’s 2007 everyone will be happy. OK? ok.

I don’t think it would be controversial to say that Quake Wars is rather like Battlefield at first appearances. It firmly plants itself in that vein of online shooter that takes its self seriously (that’s not to say it’s striving for realism though) and has an air of grandeur about it – epic and structured front line battles rather than the more chaotic free-form of more traditional multiplayers. And of course this is a good thing – Battlefield does the same and look at the following that gets, but where Battlefield is fairly simplistic in it’s execution (capture points, win) Quake Wars is a whole different thing; it’s more complex, it’s more varied, and ultimately it’s harder to get to grips with.

Before we continue let me just clear two things up before people go rabid and start attacking me. Firstly, I adore Battlefield and calling it simplistic was by no means a dig at it – I know it has loads of depth and all the rest of it, all I’m referring to is that it only has one game mode and that in it’s self is easy enough to get your head around. Secondly, saying that ET:QW is harder to get to grips with isn’t an insult either. It’s just a fact. In a game of QW there is a lot going on and a hell of a lot to think about because it’s not just a case of ‘capture points, win’ – each match is a set of structured missions, each of which only certain people can complete.

The best way to explain how a game of QW plays out is to give a rough example. You have two teams – Humans and the Strogg. The humans have to infiltrate the strogg base and blow up some…things. The problem is that the things that need exploding are inside a shielded building, in a base, behind a massive wall. For starters then the humans need to blow up the wall. To do that they need to get a big vehicle in range to launch a big missile at it, but getting in range means going over a bridge – a bridge that has been destroyed. So what happens is this: You fight off strogg enough to give engineers a chance to rebuild the bridge. Bridge built someone drives the big truck into a strogg outpost which in turn launches a missile breaking down the wall. Now people can get inside the Strogg base you need to get some covert ops guys to sneak in and disable the shield generator. Once the shield generator is down soldiers get inside the building with the stuff that needs exploding in and, well, explode the stuff. Win. It sounds like an RTS doesn’t it?

Like I said, ET:QW can be hard to get to grips with and it’s further complicated by the fact that the events listed above are just the essential missions. Each class you play will get sub missions generated for them to complete as they go. For example if an enemy engineer builds a radar then a friendly covert ops guy will get a mission “destroy the enemy radar” – and that’s all fine, but it’s a lot to get your head around when you start playing. Thankfully everything does start to slot together and as you play more you will understand more and more just what the hell is going on, it’s just getting to that point can seem impossible at times.

When everything does slot together – and by no means is that happening a “eureka” moment – you realise how ambitious Quake Wars is, and how it has wonderfully filled these ambitions. Teams have a wonderful synergy – each person having a job but all working together for that common goal. It’s amazing when you see a group of soldiers covering a lone engineer as he fixes up a bridge; or seeing a space clear of friendlies as an artillery strike gets called in, only for them to then rush back when it’s done. While each class plays totally different – each requiring a different pace, a different mind set to get the job done, they slot together perfectly. And yes, other games do this, but by no means does that devalue when something does it right, and ET:QW does do it right.

The other thing that Quake Wars gets right is the sort of intense atmosphere it creates. It’s like a permanent controlled chaos – people dashing around frantically, explosions, helicopters, tanks, gunshots. It’s that constant feeling of ‘I’m going to die’ each and every second. You’re never really in control, you’re a cog in this crazy war machine fighting more for survivals sake than the big win and you can feel it. The best testament I can give here is that as I write this I haven’t taken a single screenshot and this isn’t down to Quake Wars not being pretty (which it is by the way). It’s down to the fact that when I start playing I don’t have time to think about taking one. Quake Wars takes over your entire consciousness, forcing you to think of nothing else but staying alive. It’s that intense and it’s not even particularly fast paced.

Often when I think of games, I think about how fast they move on. Two years can be a long time when it comes to gaming, but Quake Wars could happily come out now and be unaffected. We don’t have to pretend that it’s 2007 for this to be relevant because for the most part people either haven’t played it or don’t play it any more, and that’s a shame. Yeah, there is a bit of a hill to climb but I’d argue that’s the same with anything so relentlessly designed for us – the core gamers. Don’t get me wrong, Quake Wars has it’s share of problems and it’s far from perfect, but then it’s far from it’s original price point. You can pick it up for less than a tenner, and for that price I can’t recommend it enough.