Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers review

Two years since making its impressive debut on the Xbox, Full Spectrum Warrior has got a sequel in Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers. After events in the fictious city of Zekistan, it’s now time for the US and coalition forces to bring peace to the terrorist-ridden city as the Taliban and other terrorist forces use it as a haven, but the Al-Afad regime looks set to fall.

As the terrorist activity remains to the southern and central parts of Zekistan, an area that has avoided the political violence is the Tien-Hamir Province, located in Northern Zekistan. As you would’ve probably figured out by now, Tien-Hamir translates into Ten Hammers, thus Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers. Tien-Hamir’s terrain differs to southern and central Zekistan, due to it being located in much more rocky terrain due to its mountainous location.

Giving a brief overview of what’s on offer, those who haven’t had the chance to complete (or even play) Full Spectrum Warrior may feel a little daunted. As most war games go for the hands-on approach with run-and-gun scenarios, the Full Spectrum Warrior series takes a more subtle approach: you don’t actually shoot; you command your team to shoot. Being a strategic RTS, players of the previous game will have a doddle with the controls, however, those who haven’t played the first might fight it tricky, but they can be made as easy as you want or as hard as you want.

Alpha, Bravo, Charlie … and Delta?

Having completed Full Spectrum Warrior, controlling two teams was easy and eventually getting to control Charlie team (which was a two-man team of snipers) was unexpected but enjoyable. Ten Hammers now goes one step further with you controlling up to four teams. Another interesting addition to Ten Hammers is the new split-team option. Instead of controlling four-for-one (i.e. four members in Alpha are all controlled as one), Pandemic has now allowed you to split your team in to two teams of two, making it much more strategic than before, manoeuvring both teams through the battlefield and easily switching between team A and team B.

When having the option to control all four of the teams, it can be either an annoyance: constantly switching between them and getting confused, but it can be a godsend: when in trouble you can flank the enemy. So, you’re controlling one of the four teams, going wherever you please until you are ambushed by insurgents, making you take cover and being constantly under fire from them. Well, simply switch to the three teams and set up flanking manoeuvres from both sides.

Happiness is a Warm Gun

So, what’s on offer for your teams? Well, you don’t actually use the weaponry on offer as stated earlier in the review, but your team has a selection of weapons, from suppressing enemies with machine guns, to using smoke grenades to gain a vantage point, to blowing enemies out of trenches with grenades.

When in a gun-on-gun situation, you can control your team to specifically target an area where the insurgents are hiding, then by carefully selecting, you can use your Team-Leader to take out enemies – long range – with the sniper rifle, but being visible for too long will result in injury, or even death.

Although there’s no real control vehicle wise, Pandemic has included a Bradley infantry fighting vehicle in the game as well as allowing players to call in air-strikes to the heavily armoured areas of Zekistan.

Let’s get Serious

Full Spectrum Warrior was a very enthralling game, yet when it came to the online side, it was frankly disappointing; no versus action, just a Co-op scenario for you and a friend. Pandemic has included the good ol’ Co-op scenario for you and your friends, but more impressively there’s now vs. levels.

While it’s only a simple scenario you can pick between the Coalition forces or switch to dark side and be the insurgents. Pandemic went out of its way to put 8 maps in for your pleasure, while the vs. mode is parts of each of the levels – recognisable to say the least. On the more serious note, the hardcore commanders will be glad to know that there are scoreboards for those of you who want to be the reigning insurgent… or coalition force.

Yes Sarge but it's a Dry Heat

Ten Hammers visuals and audio are incredible similar to those of Full Spectrum Warrior and that’s not a bad thing. The scenery looks life-like (as far as the Xbox can manage) and the vehicles look and move like their life counterpart. What has been improved is the authentic movements of the teams (Alpha, Bravo etc.). Whether moving around the battlefield or looking around deadly corners the animation are excellent. However the enemies don’t look as good and suffer from faults such as poor texture work.

As with most war games the sound comes to life in tense situations. Team Alpha and co. like to speak their mind and you won’t be disappointed when they’re f’ing here and there. The voice acting is above par – constant remarks on and off the battlefield with only a few tedious phrases occurring. Whether it’s from an automatic rifle or the cannon on the Bradley IFV the sound is certainly powerful and atmospheric, perhaps more impressive than the graphics.

Ten out of Ten Hammers? No.

So, the game doesn’t score ten out of ten but it does score quite above average. Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers is much more of the same as Full Spectrum Warrior with slight improvements and a bonus online mode. Those of you who experienced the original and didn’t like it, you won’t like this either. Those of you who enjoyed it will enjoy Ten Hammers and the extra vs. mode.

It’s a game like Marmite; you’ll either love it or hate it it’s as simple as that. For those of you who completed Full Spectrum Warrior fairly quickly, don’t expect Ten Hammers to a whole lot longer. The action lasts approximately 1 hour a level or faster if you’re a run-and-gun type; well move-suppress-move. A good sequel nonetheless, but not a great one.