The entire EndWar demo was in Japanese and considering that it is a fairly complex concept, major features were bypassed during my playtime. Nevertheless, I had a full 20 minutes with the game and explored its depths as much as I could. The basic premise of the game is that Oil will run out in 2016 or so and a decade or so later nuclear war erupts. The game is set in the backdrop of these events (though exactly what it’s hard to tell) and the player controls the forces of the United States of Europe.
The gameplay is interesting and not dissimilar to the Xbox game Shattered Union. The player controls forces separated into between 3 and 8 groups. Each group only has one type of unit in it, ranging from infantry to missiles to helicopters. Each group can then be ordered about to move or engage with the enemy. The graphics are pretty and everything flows and looks very slick. When units die, they can be re-made at a mobile base after a brief waiting period. Small bases can be controlled too and additional units can be built. I don’t know exactly what my objective was supposed to be, but I killed all of my opponent’s troops and buildings and that seemed to do the job.
The Japanese language barrier prevented me from delving into this title any more than I did, but for so far so good for Ubisoft. It does get me thinking though, when are they going to exhaust the Tom Clancy franchise? Or are they just going to keep going until there are no military-sounding words left?
