Full Spectrum Warrior

Added June 14th, 2004 by James Bolan

Introduction:

To quote Barbara Bush: “War is not nice,” but we sure enjoy to sit on our couch and experience it. Whether it be video-games or movies we can’t get enough of it. Full Spectrum Warrior is a 3rd person RTS/Squad-based shooter that takes the player and saddles him up for a modern day conflict. Originally developed as a tool to train U.S. Army soldiers, the game has been developed into 2 versions, Army and retail. We get the retail version meaning it has less technical details and is supposed to be more entertaining.

A devastating wave of terrorist attacks spreads across Europe and Southeast Asia, targeting specifically U.S and U.K. interests, including embassies, regional corporate headquarters, and even western retail and restaurant chains. After months of intense hunting for burning our Wacdonalds, U.S. intelligence tracks the source of the attacks to the tiny eastern nation of Zekistan (small desert nation between modern day Afghanistan, Pakistan and China).

After the U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, thousands of ex-Taliban and Iraqi loyalists crossed the borders of Zekistan seeking asylum by invitation of the nation’s dictator, Al Afad. It wasn’t long before the same terrorist training facilities and death-camps that the U.S. fought to remove in Afghanistan were operating again under full sponsorship by Al Afad’s government. After repeated warnings and failed diplomatic resolutions in the UN, NATO votes to invade Zekistan to depose Al Afad, eliminate the terrorist element, and stop the ethnic cleansing of the Zeki people.

Gameplay:

You need to learn how to walk before you can lob a grenade…is that how it goes? Before you can start the Single Player campaign you need to go through an extensive tutorial. This tutorial is about 30 minutes long and covers everything you need to know to survive in Zekistan. FSW gives you control of 2 fire teams, Alpha and Bravo. You need to utilize flanking procedures along with cover fire, suppression fire and use of your G.P.S. to find ways around heavy artillery, or just to get around a dug in enemy.

The orders for your team are given by the team leader in each squad to simulate the chain of command. You move your men by moving the left analog stick to bring up the move cursor, and then press A when the cursor is at your desired location. The team leader will give the order and the squad will move out. Getting around in this game is extremely simple but it gets a little monotonous after an hour or so. When you’re engaged by an enemy, your men will not automatically return fire unless you clear them to do so. The problem with this game is that it builds you up for something with the tutorial and the stress of the battlefield but doesn’t deliver it.

What you did in the tutorial is what you’ll do for the entire game. Moving both teams from cover to cover and looking around corners, that’s pretty much it. The occasional moment of stress when an enemy with an RPG, a tank, or sniper, adds some much needed fun to the game. This game must be a recruiting tool for the Army, I’m positive of this. NO ONE IN YOUR SQUAD EVER DIES. I’ve seen my men take multiple bullets to the head and when I go to give them aid, they always make it. Once a member of your team is injured by a mere flesh wound, a meter appears on the H.U.D. counting down until their death. You stop this meter by bringing the move cursor over them and having one of your remaining soldiers pick them up and bring them to the med station or CASEVAC. The mission is over if a single member of your team dies.

Save points are in-game in FSW. After you reach a certain point in the level a SIT-REP will appear. You move both your teams into the circle and your progress will be saved. Another feature in Full Spectrum Warrior is the replay. You can save a replay at any time or start a new replay from your last save when you die. At any time in the replay you can jump in and take control. The downside is that you cannot rewind the replay to look at something over again and the fast forward is too slow. If the part This feature is a great idea and I hope to see it improved in the sequel
Graphics:

FSW is a very good looking game. The environments are very well done from the streets to the buildings and sky. It looks just like Black Hawk Down. The character animations are also very impressive. The movement of the soldiers and reloading animations are fluent and precise. Death animations with the Havok physics engine are just hilarious. A game going for realism should not have chosen the overdone Max Payne 2 physics. For example, one of my soldiers took a bullet to the head, the game went into slow motion and he did a backflip over the car he was in front of from the impact.

The game models look very realistic, from weapons to uniforms, it all looks like it should. One of the coolest graphical features of this game is cover damage. When the object your team is behind is taking fire it will take realistic damage depending on what it is. A car will have bullet holes in it and fragments will fly off, especially when you fire a grenade at it. I once got my team behind a sofa and within 10 seconds, I had no cover left.

Audio:

The first time you hear that trace of Arabic and then the whiz of a RPG going by your team leaders head, you know the audio is good. When you get your men pinned down by tank fire and they’re screaming at you to get them the f*** out of there and you start to panic, you know the audio is good. The audio team for Full Spectrum Warrior did a great job, enough said.

Controls:

Left thumbstick- Activates soldier movement cursor
Right thumbstick- Camera control
D-Pad- Select individual soldiers (Up is Team Leader, Left is Automatic Riflemen, Down is Grenadier, Right is Rifleman
A button- Issue command (activate)
Holding A while issuing a movement command tells your men to bound (move 2 at a time)
Holding A while issuing a fire sector tells your men to lay out suppression fire
X button- Toggle firing cursor
Holding X- Toggle grenades
Y button- Switch between Alpha and Bravo
Hold Y- Switch to Charlie team if available
B button- Cancel any command
Hold B- Orders soldiers to take cover
White Button- Call in report, get mission hints and objectives
Black button- Opens and closes G.P.S. menu
Left trigger- camera zoom
Right trigger- Activate Fog of War (Shows you where your men aren’t looking)
Start- Menu/Pause game

Replay:

This is where Full Spectrum Warrior falls on its face. After you beat the campaign you won’t want to play it again. The enemy positions don’t change and after playing it once you know how to handle each enemy without having to worry. This destroys some of the key gameplay elements to this game: fear, paranoia, and stress. Co-op doesn’t help either. Sure it’s nice that you don’t have to move 2 squads everywhere now but it’s now 2 players that know where every enemy is. No new challenge, no real reason to play.

Summary:

Full Spectrum Warrior is a decent game that has wasted potential. It has some thrills and fun gaming moments but they don't last sadly. It could have been fantastic with a simple adversarial multiplayer mode or even random enemy spawning in the single player campaign. Hopefully in the sequel these problems will be addressed and fixed. Bottom line, RENT this game and play through the campaign with or without a friend before you buy it.