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Tom Clancy’s
Endwar
Endwar made fools of us all. When voice
commands were still achingly cool, Ubi
dished up this strategy game from the
Clancy universe that you could play
entirely vocally. Obviously that was a
recipe for disaster, as frustrated armchair
generals all over the world started
inserting increasingly strong swears into
their orders when the game fudged it all
up. However, underneath all that is a fine
strategy game with some delightfully
well-designed maps to scrap in. Reverting
to pad is a far from ideal solution, but it
means you get to almost enjoy one of the
few RTS titles that actually worked on
console. Y’know, before XCOM: Enemy
Unknown showed up and everyone just
conceded defeat.Tom Clancy’s
The Division
At first, The Division feels like it’s trying
to do a lot of different things and not
quite excelling at any of them. Then the
truth dawns upon you: this is Destiny
with a cover system and beanie caps. The
Division makes so much more sense after
that point, and if you approach it with that
Destiny mindset, you’re bound to have a
good time: for instance, grinding through
missions for loot can be a chore, but not
if you bring along friends and tweak the
difficulty to match your skills. The Dark
Zone is by far The Division’s most unique
aspect, playing like a little PvP-optional
DayZ right in the middle of the map. Gear
balance issues aside, it’s still a uniquely
tense thrill to stumble on another group of
agents and size them up as potential allies
or enemies, knowing they’re doing the
same to you.Tom Clancy’s
Ghost Recon
Shadow Wars
The Nintendo 3DS is not ideally suited to the
strengths of any Tom Clancy series. No fancy
presentation like the best Splinter Cells,
no robust networking features to truly suit
Rainbow Six, and shooters in general have
never felt great on Nintendo’s handhelds.
Ghost Recon Shadow Wars, however, is a
freak in the Tom Clancy pantheon. Rather
than a slow-paced multiplayer shooter,
Shadow Wars is a tactics RPG whose
bite-sized skirmishes place you in taut
standoffs with a handful of specialists. It
handily captures both the succulent tension
of a well-executed plan and the brute
theatricality of full scale Ghost Recon games,
but as a turn-based XCOM-alike. Those
XCOM qualities come to Shadow Wars
honestly too; it was the last game XCOM
creator Julian Gollop turned in for Ubisoft.For Tom
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas
Given the rather niche concept of R6 Vegas, it’s amazing that Ubi squeezed a couple
of games out of it. In fact, it’s rather telling that the first of them was the best. While
the setting provides the glitz and glamour, the fresh gameplay features make this feel
like the first Rainbow Six title truly optimised for console. Regenerating health, a third-
person view for blind-firing, and context sensitive squad commands (on the d-pad) all
make for a shooty-bang-bang experience that’s a little more sympathetic to the less
hardcore player. While this undoubtedly softens the series’ appeal for some, the whole
thing is still tough and military enough to satisfy. Again, though, it was probably a poor
idea to bring the second game back to the city of sin without any real improvements.
Does it hold up today? Well, kinda, but shouldn’t you be playing Siege instead?