Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

Developer: Splash Damage
Publisher: Activision
Released on: October 2, 2007
System: Windows XP
ESRB Rating: T for Teen
Review based on: Beta 2, that's right a beta, not a demo but a non-representative-of-the-final-game beta. YMMV.
Official Website

The Scoop: It's a beta. Not a demo, or the final game, so grab your bag of salt and dump it all over these First Impressions.

Hitting Start...

• ...oh wait, that didn't work. I'm trying to play offline before go online, but these menus for offline play don't actually do anything. Oh well.


• I go online and the server browser populates VERY quickly giving me tons of servers to join. Not all of them are populated, but there's more than a few with a good amount of people.


• I join a server and start running around like an idiot and BLAM. I'm dead... where did that come from? I have to hit space to enter the respawn queue? Oh sweet, I parachute into my base and get to see the battlefield a bit.


• Too bad my video card sucks.


• Every last person on this server seems to be way better than me, at everything, and there's lots of everything to be better at. Let me try being a rocket whore...


• SPLAT


• Let me try being a sniper....


• SPLAT


• Damn, the same guy just gibbed me twice with a railgun and I have no clue where he is.


• SPLAT


• That's three! *fuming*


• Ok, let's try being regular old rifle infantry and just hide in the base. This time I manage to kill someone thru a window who was in an obviously damaged... flying... thing. Not being a Quake junkie I only know it's some sort of Strog-flying-thing that looks a little bit like Skeram from Warcraft.


• SPLAT


• That same guy just gibbed me thru the window. Let's try getting to a vehicle and just go go go until we die....


• SPLAT into a rock, then a guard rail and then SPLAT, I'm dead from a railgun, again. This time I notice where it came from, so I get a sniper load out next time and try to go hunting. The guy is so far away that he's a single pixel now and getting my reticule on him is impossible.


• Ok, let's try this, let's get rockets again and kill some vehicles since I can get a lock on them. I'm able to down a couple land vehicles and get a double kill on two guys that have been destroying me earlier. That feels pretty good.


• I can see people around me trying to fulfill mission objectives while I flail around trying to understand ANYTHING about this game, but two years of Warcraft will atrophy the FPS skills into oblivion.


• I manage a few more kills with the rifle while watching people fly around with little jetpacks, or in the Skeram-mobile or some sort of ATV dealie that looks like fun to drive...


• SPLAT


• I just got run over by one of those ATVs...

"...and I'm remembering, I'm a noob and it's just a beta!"

Am I impressed? If being a bit freaked out equals being impressed, then yes.
How come? There's enough here for the game at least be interesting and worth perusing when the demo comes out (or if an easily obtained beta ever goes public). The fact that the game does more than try to funnel people into one spot so they can kill each other (*cough*Battlefield*cough*) is pretty cool. You actually have to play your role and execute your tasks while playing a fast paced FPS. That is definitely worth noting and is worth playing this beta of a nearly incomprehensible game.

The learning curve is steep, but it was fun enough the first time around to go try again. However, if this thing where I keep dying and having no clue how I went from just fine to splatted in a blink, then I'm going to move on to something else. This is just a beta though. A beta.