Full Spectrum Warrior review

War is hell...

If you’ve been searching for a strategy game that really puts you in the line of fire and in which you always feel the consequences of your actions, look no further than this.

The closest we’ve been to this type of strategy game was the overhead view mode in Hidden & Dangerous 2, but that’s still a long way from the gameplay style of Full Spectrum Warrior. Film clips and screenshots might give the impression that this is a shooter, but it’s really a full-blown strategy game of a new type.

As you may or may not know, Full Spectrum Warrior is built upon a US Army simulation game, used for urban warfare training. More about this later…

Simple controls

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it Superman? Nope, it's a UH60.

Let me begin by explaining how to play Full Spectrum Warrior. You control two teams –Alpha and Bravo - comprised of four soldiers each. You take control of one team at a time. By moving a cursor to a desired location and pressing the ‘A’ button, you make your selected team go there.

Using very few commands, you can also make your team do other things than just move, for instance lay down suppressive fire for the other team, or throw different types of grenades.

I know that this may not sound very cool. But Full Spectrum Warrior actually has the coolest gameplay I’ve seen on the Xbox this year. There are two reasons for this: the controls and the atmosphere. The game is incredibly easy to control. Even the most complex commands only require two button-presses.

Band of Brothers

Your soldiers will automatically seek cover, if you're too slow to find it for them.

The best aspect of the game is its atmosphere. You will always move with your team, with the in-game camera hovering just above their heads. When they move, it will bob from side to side, giving you the impression of running. You won’t be able to leave your teams and move around freely at any point in the game though.

This means that you are always close to your soldiers, making the consequences of your actions very obvious indeed. Full Spectrum Warrior is thus a very intense experience, because you can always hear the bullets flying past you. When things get hot, you can feel the adrenaline pumping in the veins of your troops.

Another detail that brings life to the game is the comments your soldiers make. They all seem very real, and they are also quiet varied. Either that, or I’ve been watching Black Hawk Down one too many times.

Weak story, strong gameplay

You will look around many corners in this game.

You follow the same soldiers all the way through the game, so you will get to know them well. They all have distinct personalities, and you will really feel with them when they’re under pressure. The game fuses cut scenes and gameplay in many places and that works quite well.

The thin storyline won’t really hook you, but the gameplay will. Full Spectrum Warrior is one sleek package. The animations flow seamlessly into each other and everything looks very true to life. If you forget your objectives, you can read them on your GPS unit. But you can also press the white button, which will make your communications officer sit down and call HQ for details, while the game will still progress, like in the real world. There are many sweet details like these, and that’s what makes the game really special.

We leave nobody behind

Save your soldiers by bringing them to a medic. If they don't bleed to death first, that is.

The game stays true to the US Army code of never leaving anyone behind, no matter if they’re dead or alive. This means that it’s game over if two of your soldiers get shot. If one man goes down, you must get him to safety before he bleeds to death. Then you must get him to a medic, so he can get patched up and go back into the fray.

You can’t save when you want to. Instead, you are contacted by radio and get the opportunity to issue a SITREP (Situation Report) at certain points in the game. A SITREP allows you to save your progress and they occur every time you’ve beaten an obstacle, so saving is not really frustrating after all.

Training tool for clan matches

Great, now I have to hump this guy all the way to the hospital. No, really, that IS real war lingo!

Full Spectrum Warrior is meant to be realistic and it is. If you ask your soldiers to move to a new location, and they have nearly emptied a magazine, they will tell you that they must reload before they can go. When they have done that, they will move automatically.

Your soldiers will also take turns firing at targets, so they don’t run out of ammo all at once. This is a great lesson to learn for everybody playing team-based online shooters. Clans will definitely benefit from using Full Spectrum Warrior strategies in their matches. Especially those playing America’s Army, seeing that it has the same weapons and squad formations.

AI too competent?

I hate it when I don't get a seat in the Hummer...

The game’s difficulty level may be on the easy side for some. The game has two difficulty settings and we advise you to go for the hard one at once. Because it is so easy to control your troops, the easy mode becomes a cinch, not least because of the helpful AI. If you position your troops badly, they will tell you so, and if they come under fire, they won’t wait for you to issue commands before they run to safety or return fire. In situations like these, you will get some quite entertaining comments on your lack of leadership from your soldiers.

There are more enemies on the hard setting and you must quickly save comrades who have been hit, seeing as they will die a lot quicker in this mode.

Try the real M4

The graphics of the "original" game are quite good, actually.

Luckily, there is a solution at hand. As some of you may know, Full Spectrum Warrior is based on a training simulation from the US Army and the real McCoy is also to be found you your Xbox. Normally, we don’t put cheat codes into our reviews, but this one is a bit different. To play the authentic game, create a new profile and enter the following code: HA2P1PY9TUR5TLE.

This will load the original game. At first glance, it looks like the new one, but the controls are slightly different. However, it has a lot of settings that can make it more difficult and realistic, according to your wishes.

You can add civilians, whom you must not hit, for instance, and you can choose if they should be hostile towards you. There is a multitude of settings like what we know from games like Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six. The new version of Full Spectrum Warrior could really have benefited from similar options, especially in co-op mode.

War! This is what it’s good for

Everything can be used for cover.

Yes, this game has a real co-op mode. No split screen business here, no sir. This is done over Xbox Live, with players controlling a team each. That way, you can play the entire single-player campaign through in co-op, with a full screen. Wahey!

A deathmatch mode against human opponents would have been excellent too. We’d also have liked to see Xbox Live support for the original game. But they probably needed to save some goodies for the sequel…

Until then, we have to settle for this entertaining release, which proves that developers can still come up with cool, innovative games. Full Spectrum Warrior is a game that may look boring until you try it. Afterwards, you may find it hard to let go.

Source: Boomtown Denmark
English version by: Jonatan A. Allin (neonwolf)