Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
Developer: Splash Damage
Platform: PC
Release Date: Q3 2006
In terms of fast-paced, explosive, exciting shooter action, nothing grabbed our attention more than Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, the team-based shooter from Splash Damage (the developer of the original Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory) and id Software. While we had heard a great deal about the game and even had seen its impressive graphics technology in action, we never had a chance to try the game out ourselves.
Gameplay Trailer
This gameplay trailer for Quake Wars shows what fighting an alien invasion is all about.
To be honest, it was easy to be skeptical of Quake Wars; it seemed to be cut from the same cloth as EA and DICE's highly popular Battlefield 2, from the team-based objectives to the huge overland maps to the drivable, multiperson vehicles. We were pleasantly surprised to find that Quake Wars was more than just "Battlefield with aliens," and instead offered some of the most engaging shooter action at the show. Even though the game is being developed as a team-based shooter, and is succeeding another team-based shooter that appealed strongly to highly skilled, hardcore shooter fans, the demonstration version of Quake Wars we sat down and played somehow managed to evenly split the difference between sophisticated team-based strategies and knock-down, drag-out shooting action. Basically, every skill we'd ever picked up playing online shooters, both in deathmatch and team-based games, paid off beautifully in our play session. As the game's medic classes, we were able to keep the front lines guarded by constantly reviving and healing teammates; as antivehicle classes, we were able, with a little luck and skill, to tear enemy vehicles apart; as snipers, we were able to provide highly effective covering fire from remote spots--yet while all these roles seemed highly accessible, none seemed unfairly overpowered.
Every weapon in the game, including handheld infantry weapons and mounted vehicle weapons, had an appropriately powerful, satisfying feel to it, and unlike other vehicle-based games we've played, vehicles weren't almost completely impervious to most weapons. This made infantry seem much better balanced against vehicles, but the map we played on offered vehicles (such as the Strogg's "Icarus" personal jetpack) that were at once very unusual, but also very useful--yet very vulnerable to ground fire from infantry rocket launchers or from antivehicle turrets that could be deployed by engineer characters. Basically, we came away from Quake Wars at E3 feeling as though we'd played a game that was at once easy to pick up, highly deep and strategic, rewarding for skilled players, and very satisfying overall. Even though there were some extremely impressive shooters on hand at the show this year, making Enemy Territory: Quake Wars our shooter of the show was an easy decision.
Finalists
E3 2006 Editors' Choice Awards
In this feature, the GameSpot staff brings its considerable amount of collective experience at covering E3 to bear, distilling all of our coverage down to its most important elements and showing you what the biggest names and events were at E3 2006.
