Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers Update

Currently scheduled for release in March, Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers is the sequel to last year's Full Spectrum Warrior, a tactical squad-based action game that was originally developed for the US Army. Like its predecessor, Ten Hammers will put you in command of eight soldiers tasked with completing a variety of realistic missions in war-torn environments. Ten Hammers has plenty that will be familiar to fans of Full Spectrum Warrior, and it also boasts plenty of exciting new features--a number of which we got to see in action in a work-in-progress Xbox version of the game during a recent meeting with representatives from THQ and Pandemic.

Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers takes place some time after the events of the first game, and the subtitle refers to what the Western soldiers call the Tien-Hamir Bridge that links the North and South parts of the fictional Eastern country of Zekistan in which the game is set. Factions from the North and South are at war with one another, and so you've been sent in with soldiers from both the US Army and the Multinational UN Coalition as a peacekeeping force. Ten Hammers' story-driven campaign mode will span some 12 missions divided into four chapters. Intriguingly, Pandemic has chosen to tell the story Pulp Fiction style, which means that you won't be seeing and playing through missions in the same order that they occur chronologically.

The first training mission, for example, takes place after your forces have already captured the Ten Hammers Bridge, but it will be later in the game when you'll get to experience that mission for the bridge firsthand. Another example we were given during our presentation was a mission in which you'll witness the destruction of a monastery before you actually get to play through the mission that tasks you with blowing it up. Perhaps the most intriguing example of Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers' style of storytelling is that a US Army helicopter that you see fall out of the sky during a campaign mission will be featured heavily in one of the all-new versus mode scenarios. The scenario in question, we were told, will task one player or team with evacuating the soldiers that are inside the helicopter, while two other players or teams take command of two of Zekistan's warring factions, each with its own mission objectives. We'll talk more about Ten Hammers' multiplayer content a little later, although it's perhaps worth noting at this point that all 12 of the campaign missions can be played cooperatively.

In Full Spectrum Warrior, it's fair to say that the majority of your time was spent figuring out ways to flank enemies who had taken positions behind cover, or, if that wasn't possible, attempting to flush them out with grenades. Those two tactics will still have a place in Ten Hammers, but as you progress through the new game you'll find yourself in numerous situations where the tactical options that were available to you in Full Spectrum Warrior simply wouldn't get the job done here. It's fortunate, then, that you'll have plenty of new commands at your disposal, some of which make Ten Hammers feel like a very different game from its predecessor.

The ability to split up your two squads of four soldiers into four squads of two, for example, is a significant addition that will let you attack enemies from multiple positions without needing to have all eight of your men operating in the same area. Ten Hammers' new combat effectiveness system--which alters the performance of your soldiers based on the level of support they're getting from colleagues, the quality of their cover, and such--will ensure that there are pros and cons to consider every time you split or combine squads. Precision-firing techniques will be less effective if the soldier attempting to use them isn't being covered by a full complement of three squadmates, for example.

Other new abilities at your disposal will include entering and firing from buildings, issuing orders to one of your squads without having to switch to them, and calling in support from mechanical units such as armored Humvees and Bradley APCs. We got to see a Bradley in action during our presentation, and we were a little surprised to learn that you'll control it in almost exactly the same way as you do your infantry units. The Bradley proved to be very effective against the enemies that were patrolling the city in trucks, and it could be used as mobile cover in areas of the city that were otherwise devoid of good places to take refuge from enemy fire.

The enemies that we saw during our time with Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers were clearly more intelligent than their counterparts from the original game, as evidenced by the occasions on which we saw them fleeing from grenades and attempting to make a run for it when their cover was destroyed. Hideouts that regularly spawn new enemies will also be a feature here, meaning that if you don't take the time to locate and destroy them, there's a good chance that you'll end up getting attacked from behind later in the mission.

At the end of each mission, you'll get to see a breakdown of your performance that takes into account such factors as your tactics, your speed, your attitude toward innocent civilians, and whether or not all of the soldiers under your command made it out alive. That's right, in Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers your soldiers can die, permanently, if you don't save them when they're injured. Don't worry, though, because there will be plenty of other soldiers waiting in the wings to replace them. In addition to percentage scores relating to certain aspects of your performance on each mission, you'll be awarded medals for exceptional performances and ribbons for special achievements. You'll also be reprimanded for killing innocents. Online leaderboards promise to add some replay value to the campaign portion of the game.

We didn't get to see any of Ten Hammers' online features during our time with the game on this occasion, but we were told enough about its multiplayer offerings to get us pretty excited. The Xbox and PC versions of Ten Hammers will support up to eight players online, while the PlayStation 2 game will support up to four. Some of the competitive gameplay modes will be contested by three factions, and while those of you playing as the US Army or UN Coalition can expect a similar gameplay experience to that in the campaign, those of you in command of other factions will be in for something of a surprise. The fighters of Zekistan are far less organized than the peacekeepers of the US and UN, so you might find yourself controlling only a single soldier rather than a squad, for example. Faster movement, less-advanced weapons, and the ability to recruit civilians for your militia will also be trademarks of the factions native to Zekistan.

That's about all we have to report on Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers at this point, save for the fact that Pandemic plans to release at least one multiplayer add-on for the game postrelease. We'll bring you more information on the sequel to Full Spectrum Warrior as soon as it becomes available.