Console Combat

Full Spectrum Warrior

Full Spectrum Warrior
www.fullspectrumwarrior.com/index.php
Developer: Pandemic Studios
www.pandemicstudios.com
Publisher: THQ
www.thq.com

In recent months consoles have finally managed to catch up to PCs in the military realism stakes, primarily because of the introduction of voice communications and better designed command menus. But the first-person tactical games, to me at least, are still let down by the controls used by modern consoles – rapid aimed shots are quite difficult to keep accurate when targeting with a little joystick.

The elimination of that problem is without doubt what makes Full Spectrum Warrior my favourite console game to date – yes, I even rate it higher than Halo.

Originally developed by Pandemic Studios as a US Army training tool for squad-based combat in urban areas, it instantly highlights the problems faced by many of the junior commanders currently operating in the streets of Iraq.

The game is a strategy game, not a first-person tactical shooter like Rainbow Six 3 or Ghost Recon. Players don’t actually do the targeting and shooting (except for specialist weapons) and must rely on getting their fire teams into the right place at the right time.

Essentially, you are a squad leader in charge of two four-man fire teams equipped with the current inventory of US Army light infantry weapon systems. This means you have the basic M4 Carbines, an M203 and an M249 (Minimi), as well as frag and smoke grenades and intra-squad communications in each fire team. With this potent but unfortunately lacking mix of weaponry, the player embarks on a series of combat missions in the urban area of Zekeistan.

The scenarios are a mix of Somalia and Iraq 2003 (right down to the dust storm) and are very realistic for what a squad-level group could be required to achieve. There are no hordes of bad guys or seemingly endless supplies of enemy forces to tangle with your little squad. Instead, a whole mission might revolve around clearing a suspected roadblock before the arrival of a supply column or scouting on reports of a mass grave.

When combat does come though, it can be quite intense. Without the application of fire and movement principles, the game cannot be played for more than five minutes.

Essentially, it is about using your two fire teams to patrol to a point and clear anything along the way. In basic terms it’s a game of angles – ensuring one fire team can support another as they duck in and out of narrow alleys or cross wide motorways.

The enemy, although not always as smart as I would have liked, will do his best to keep you cowering in cover – when the RPGs start flying, your heart rate will definitely accelerate.

For all of Full Spectrum Warrior’s good points though, there are a couple of negatives that I would love to see fixed. Firstly, no-one in the fire team is carrying any sort of direct-fire anti-armour weapon, each fire-team is limited to three M203 rounds (implemented as a method of play balancing) and the player’s troops are essentially locked into ground-level activities. The enemy can appear on the dominant terrain but there is no option to get height or even enter most buildings in order to regain the initiative. This results in at least one silly scenario that requires catching an enemy tank crew’s attention while sneaking a lone sapper in with a shaped charge, Private Ryan style.

Another undocumented feature is the ability to enter a code now easily found on the Web and unlock the original US Army game – if you thought the released version was hard, wait until you play the actual training tool.

Full Spectrum Warrior is rounded out with a great soundtrack, a squad made up of individual characters that mentally transported me back to my section very quickly, and some excellent, if somewhat shocking, effects.

One of the best features that easily shows the level of effort put into the game is the comments from squad members when something happens. The comments are realistic, definitely soldier-authored and make for another level of realism.

Some gamers are already complaining that the game is a little repetitive. As we all know, that’s what life in the military is all about – repetition of well practiced drills is required to keep people alive; Full Spectrum Warrior clearly emphasises that point.

My favourite XBox game to date and it will be available for the PC later this year.