Publisher: Activision
Developer: id Software
System: Xbox 360
Genre: First-person Shooter
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ryan Asher

The Strogg have finally reached Earth, and the nomadic aliens are hell bent on totally ruining our sweet planet (before we do that ourselves with our Hummers, overpopulation and sexually suggestive song lyrics). It’s a plotline that I wish I could describe further, but the opening cut scene of Strogg ships approaching Earth is the only semblance of storytelling in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. It’s a shame, really, as the clichéd, ominous-sounding narrator and the menacing spaceships descending upon Earth really had me yearning to see what other plot devices the developers would employ.

As it turns out, the run-of-the-mill introduction to Quake Wars is only foreshadowing for the gimped game within. I’ve played my fair share of barebones games before, and the cupboards are nearly bare here. Like most games of its ilk, Quake Wars lets players choose from two sides: in this case, the GDF, the humans who are ensuring our way of life (which consists of listening to Big ‘N Rich for most of us); and the Strogg, the dudes who want to take that away.

When you’ve decided whose side you’re on, you’re thrown into an open multiplayer battlefield with 15 other people who may or may not be trying to kill you. It’s a recipe for success, right? You’d think so, but once you scratch the surface of Quake Wars; you’ve pretty much scratched it all. There’s a single-player mode, but trust me, you don’t want to bother, since it’s basically the same as the online mode, only without other players telling you how worthless you are. Where’s the fun in that?

Unfortunately, you’ll find that there really isn’t much in this portion of the game, either. Game modes include campaign, objective and stopwatch. You’ll be hard pressed to figure out the difference between any of them, because they’re all essentially the same. In objective, one team defends objectives, while the other tries to hold the “x” button next to them. In campaign, you do the same thing, only three consecutive times. In stopwatch, you repeat twice, but after the first round the roles are reversed and you must beat the other team’s time.