Tom Clancy's EndWar

If everyone dies then is there a reason to even bother?

	Version 360, (PS3, PC)	Developer Ubisoft Shanghai	Publisher Ubisoft	Genre Real-time tactics

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If you're wondering why we haven't given you the lowdown on that ultramodern voice interface just yet, it's because Ubisoft Shanghai has done such sterling work on this front that we haven't felt the need. EndWar is a textbook example of how to put forward-thinking ideas into practice with minimal pretension. The game calibrates itself to your particular specimen of spoken English via some simple repetition exercises at the outset, and (providing you're not eating fudge or something) seldom struggles to comprehend: even when configured for our own, dulcet Buckinghamshire tones, the grunts were capable of taking orders from a Spanish acquaintance. That's reaching across boundaries, that is.

As you'll know if you read our interview with Ubisoft's Editorial Content Director Julian Gerighty last month, EndWar recognises around 40 terms which can be strung together while holding right trigger to form straightforward subject-verb-object commands, such as "Unit 1 attack Hostile 3", "Airstrike target" and so forth. Each battle map is dotted with well-indicated, codenamed waypoints - "Alpha", "Bravo", etc - which makes movement orders a cinch; you can also just tell a unit to move to the area under your viewing reticule. There are a few well-chosen short-cuts: you can "call all" units, pair them off with "plus", and bellow "retreat" to have them turn tail and head for home.

With touching consideration, Ubisoft Shanghai has built in parallel pad control support, generously seasoned with context-sensitive commands, letting you dictate strategy via any combination of button inputs and gleeful, nerdy squawks. This can prove invaluable during long-haul sessions, as your throat starts to deteriorate under the strain of yelping "Secure Zulu" a dozen times in a row (you may also simply not want the people in the flat above to think you're orchestrating a terrorist attack).

The heads-up display is laudably clean and clear-cut, with one, easily read line of status bars keeping you up to speed on unit health, active orders and battle status, but we're reserving our heartiest high fives for the audio design. Every injunction you dish out is met by some hard-as-nails militaristic quip via your speakers or the headset, and you'll quickly build up a gruff rapport with the squaddies. We haven't had such involving conversations since we showed that Jehovah's Witness our collection of fertility idols.

Such charismatic touches can't, however, disguise the venerableness of the RTS principles here, nor do some solid instances of specular lighting and healthy levels of unit detail - watching your riflemen take cover, strafe and support one another under fire is very impressive - entirely veil the limited battle mode selection. Assault is your deathmatch default, while Raid tasks you with attacking or defending a number of key installations within a time limit. Conquest has you trying to seize over half the Uplinks on a map and then defend them for a certain time, and Siege sees one player protecting a key Uplink without the benefit of reinforcements.

While the AI has its moments of brilliance on the harder settings, you'll have to venture online to get your arse truly handed to you. Skirmish play lets you throw together any unranked combination of up to four AI and human players, but the real "meat", as we so often like to phrase these things, of the multiplayer is Theatre of War, a competitive community mode akin to UEFA Euro 2008's Battle of the Nations mode. You log in with your persistent task force and do battle on behalf of a faction as before, but every day Ubisoft tots up the number of victories per faction and redraws territorial boundaries on a server-side world map accordingly. We doubt Theatre of War will outpace COD4 or for long-term Xbox Live/PSN appeal, but there's scope for dozens of hours' play here if you're committed.

EndWar's antiquated inspirations and narrow mode options set a bullet-proof glass ceiling atop its scoring potential, but Ubisoft has still cobbled together what is perhaps the only must-have current-gen console strategy title outside of Civilization Revolution. Which bodes rather well for the publisher's second shot at franchise diversification, Tom Clancy's HAWX, whose Enhanced Reality System is attracting the same publicity focus as EndWar's voice commands. A year back, Mr Clancy appeared to be suffering from the law of diminishing returns; after nuking Paris moments ago at his behest, it's safe to say there's life in the old dog yet.

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