Full Spectrum Warrior

"The best war game on the Xbox, though it is quite short."

Full Spectrum Warrior (2004/Xbox)

Set in the fictional country of Zekistan, a small eastern nation apparently. You take on the roll of two separate teams, simply called Alpha team and Bravo team. The game bares a lot of similarities to the Black Hawk Down film.

Graphics 8/10

What can I say? This game is superb when it comes to graphics. Every thing looks as it should in a war torn Middle East country. From the destroyed buildings, to the Mass-grave site's you encounter early on, which gives this game its high age rating.
The people that inhabit the games vast landscape mainly consist of soldiers and terrorists. From time to time you will encounter a few civilians, but most they will be either running or dead. As I said before, your playable characters are split in to two teams, Alpha and Bravo. Each team is identical every way. It just helps the tactics having such a large number of people in urban warfare. Each team member has a very unique appearance, though in the hectic combat you don't have much time to look at their faces.
I took the time after finishing the game to look around and check the just how wonderful the graphics are. First, I checked out the dead enemies, each one looked similar, but there were slight variations in the appearance, but when you first play through the game, the appearance of your dead enemy will be the last thing on your mind. By that time you'll be looking for the next enemy. Second I checked out the design of the levels. Though big, they all seemed very linear. For example, you have a goal to take out a machine gunner. Well you can either blow him up with a Grenade or go around the back and shoot him. And then you just repeat this through the whole game. Also I saw a lot of side passage's which where covered in that most hated of things, an invisible barrier.
When it comes to level size though, this game is pretty damn big. Though I think I know why this game is so big, it's because there are so few enemies at one time. The most enemies I ever fought were four at once and when a tank comes on screen, more of the enemies disappear. I always thought when you get armour support; it's a good idea to stick around and us it to your advantage. Finally, the weapons and explosions. They're good, no they're great. Every weapon looks like they're meant to and are instantly recognisable in the field, at least for a gun nut like me. There is the American classic, the M16. As well as the terrorist weapon of choice, at least according to every action movie I've seen and the weapon that has killed more people than the atomic bomb, the AK-47. As for the explosions, they also look as they should; I suppose that's what you get from playing a game that based its self on a training aid from the U.S army.

Sound 9/10

To fully experience this game and its realistic sounds of war, you must own the highest quality of sound systems. As for me, I only have my basic TV, though even with that the game has great sound. Everything makes a distinct noise, from walking on the different surfaces to the shouting of swear words by your men in the field.
Though this is also a down side, without a multi channel sound system, some sound is cut out when a lot of activity is happening on the screen. Mainly it's speech from your team, and you'll only notice this if you have the subtitles on.
Otherwise, I can't find a problem with the sound in this game.

Game play 8/10

This game may look like a simple third person shooter, but in fact it's more like Commandos on the PC. And for anyone that has not played that game, this is because instead of switching between players and moving them one at a time with joystick, you move them in one go by moving the cursor to a new location. Though don't let this put you off, it is quite an excellent system. The only thing that should put you off is the 45 minute tutorials at the beginning. And though this is annoying, you would be royally screwed without it in the field. This game has a lot to master, from tactics to team work. You will learn early on, that it's not a good idea to stand out in the open. Because if you get caught there, you can consider that your grave. You'll find your self hugging your well armed self to every piece of cover you can find, in order to keep your teams alive.
As for enemy, they do the same; very rarely will you get an enemy firing at you in open ground, but it does happen. They will hide behind walls, sandbags, and car and even use a machine gun nest if you kill the first gunner. Each battle at first is hard to predict, because your enemies will adapt to their surrounding. But as you progress through this short game, you will be able to predict tactics. My only major complaint with the enemies is the fact that they can't see out of the corner of their own eyes. Think about, in the middle of a war zone, you don't just casually stroll past a street entrance with out looking down it. Because the amount of times I've watched an opponents walk by me, is unbelievable.
This game has also done something to incur my wrath of dislike, inverted controls for up and down is set as standard. Which may not annoy some people, but I personally hate it. I ended up in inverting the controls and having to adjust to using the GPS with reverse controls. The rest of the controller relies a lot on pressure on the buttons, for example to simply shoot the enemy you quickly press A and to fire suppressing fire, you hold down A. This is used a lot in the controller set up and is quite useful.
Finally, the length of the game. Simply put its short, really short, in fact the whole game takes place over one day, strangely the same amount of time it took me finish it. Though I suppose that makes it more realistic in a way. I think this is because the game has very repetitive nature and its main source of enjoyment comes from using it on Xbox Live.

Story 4/10

Pah! The story in this game is a joke. You've gone in to stop a terrorist leader, wow… This most recycled war story of them all and that's including World War II stories.
The only reason this story did not get a lower rating is because you end up caring for team members. Each one has an interesting back story, which is wasted, because you only see it on screen for about 3 seconds in the opening credits.

Replay 7/10

Like I said before this game is short. I managed to finish it in less than 8 hours on the lowest difficultly. I never bothered with the higher settings, because to do that you have to redo the training mission at the start. Really the only difference I see would be you would die faster on the higher levels. The main replay of this game is off Xbox Live though and opportunity it brings fight against other people on-line. Though one great feature of this game is the ability to play co-op over Live, which has people work together to complete the mission. This can add a lot value to the game.

Overall 8/10

In conclusion, this is probably the best war game I've ever played on the Xbox. It has great realism, mixed with tactical game play elements which make this game great. Though unfortunately because of its shortness and lack of variations during the missions, this is not a recommend buy for anyone with out Xbox Live. Though for those people with out Xbox Live, they may want to consider renting the game for one night to see what it's like and if it's really worth getting.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/29/04