Enemy Territory: Quake Wars - E3 Preview by Jason "Rodzilla" Rodzik   Posted on May 12, 2006   Our tour of duty as a member of the GDF forces combating the Strogg in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars began with a briefing on the mission objectives. The mission was to play out similarly to the Assault gametype in Unreal Tournament: our team had four main objectives to complete, and the Strogg’s goal was to prevent us from completing those objectives. Rodzik’s Impressions The game features five separate classes of players, all of which are vital for completing a mission successfully. For example, our first objective required that we build a bridge to reach our next objective, requiring the use of an engineer, while covert ops were necessary to disable the opponent’s shield generator. I chose to be the standard heavy grunt, and went around killing everyone who was attempting to interfere with my team’s completion of the objectives. We had about 15 minutes or so of gameplay with Enemy Territory, and it was a good time. With class-based games such as this, it takes a little bit of getting used to each class’ specialties and how to use them, and unfortunately by the time I was just getting into the groove we were done. It was cool to be able to play as humans combating the Strogg, and I’m sure it’s an interesting experience to be playing as Strogg as well. Enemy Territory is composed of a variety of various missions, and will probably end up supporting around 64 players per game, with teams of 32. This should provide some intense combat and war-like battles that both fans of the Quake series and general gamers alike should enjoy. Vince’s Impressions Enemy Territory is the ultimate turf war game. It plays as a moderately paced first person shooter with a heavy emphasis on “real time strategy” style objectives. Players side with either the GDF or Strogg armies in an effort to take as much territory as possible from the rival faction. Each mission features objectives for each side to complete in order to take the territory. For example GDF may have to construct a bridge before they can proceed to another section of the map, Strogg may have to build a long range mortar cannon to take out a GDF stronghold, or a spy may have to infiltrate an enemy base to shut down a defense grid. It is not possible to win any mission by frags alone. To help complete objectives, it is possible to play as a number of different classes of troops. Soldiers (GDF) and aggressors (Strogg) receive a wide array of weapons to keep rivals at bay. Medics and technicians can revive fallen allies before the respawn clock ticks down. Engineers and Constructors can build bridges, anti-infantry, and anti-aircraft weapons, as well as repair damaged vehicles. Field ops and oppressors can call in tactical air strikes. Covert ops and infiltrators can hack enemy computers, steal resources, and provide sniper fire. Thankfully, it is possible to change classes during the missions, so you’re never stuck in situations with seven medics and an engineer. Missions can support up to 64 players on extremely large maps. There is no single-player mode; this game is purely for network/online play. It is only offered for the PC. Because of the wide variety of tasks to complete and possible actions to take, the learning curve for this game is higher than usual. The controls are pretty standard and easy to grasp, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out whether you should be building a bridge or providing anti-aircraft support for your teammates. Anyone familiar with this genre, however, should have no problem picking it up. All in all, Enemy Territory is an awesome strategy FPS to play whenever you get tired of all your frag fest games.