Full Spectrum Warrior

Home » Reviews » Full Spectrum Warrior

	Full Spectrum Warrior	CG rating 84 /100
	Developer: THQ, Producer: Pandemic Studios System requirements: CPU 2 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 3D Video Card with 128 MB, DirectX 9.0c compatible Game: Full Spectrum Warrior Genre: Shooter

Posted by Assassin on 23-Mar-2005 08:25

You need to login to be able to vote

Page 1 of 3

›

If someone were to ask me to name a couple of respectable game producers, Pandemic Studios would definitely be on the list. That’s because their portfolio includes games that made a really good impression when they were released: Dark Reign 2, Army Men RTS and Battlezone 2: Combat Commander. Also, they are the people behind the recently released Star Wars: Battlefront and the acclaimed Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. But the game that stirred the most spirits when it was announced has to be Full Spectrum Warrior (FSW), which snatched two awards from the 2003 edition of E3: Game Critics Best Original Game and Best Simulation Game.
Originally, FSW was first conceived as a training simulator for the US Army’s Light Infantry in urban combat situations. Pandemic wanted to first release the game on PlayStation 2, but if you recall, the US Government decreed that the Sony console can be categorized as a weapon of war, so FSW first saw the light of day on Microsoft’s XBOX and then on the PC, with the PS2 release scheduled for this month.

     If you played one of the Rainbow Six / Delta Force series games or Conflict: Desert Storm, then FSW shouldn’t be something new, especially since there are some references in the storyline to the events depicted in the movie Black Hawk Down. Nevertheless, I don’t recommend skipping the tutorial, since it outlines some important characteristics which make FSW different from the above mentioned games. You will be in command of two fire teams, Alpha and Bravo, each one made up of four soldiers. You will be able to issue orders to one soldier or the entire team from a third person perspective, which made some players say that FSW is like a Real Time Strategy game without the economic component (think Myth: The Fallen Lords or Commandos here).
     Both Alpha and Bravo teams will have a Team Leader, a Rifleman, a Grenadier and a Heavy Gunner, each soldier having a specific role in the team, according to his weapons and equipment. This will force the player to think on a more strategic level, rather than an individual one. Moreover, the level design, the objectives that need to completed and the enemy placement will require the player to move the teams at the same time or in tandem, in order to avoid the “Load Game” option in the main menu.
     Since they didn’t want the thirteen chapters of the game to be boring, the producers tried as best they could to individualize each soldier of Alpha and Bravo teams, especially since the characters, location (Zekistan) and the events in the game are all fictional. This is why the intro (which is one of the best I’ve seen in years), has the role of introducing all the soldiers that you’ll be commanding, each one having a name and a mini biography. However, due to the fact that most gamers like to dive straight into the action and aren’t too delighted to remember names and such, the producers also added some dialogues during the missions, some funnier than others, which will further strengthen the personality of each soldier.