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More Like an Expansion

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: June 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers for the Xbox and Playstation 2 is a sequel to Full Spectrum Warrior, which was based on a training simulation in use by the United States Army. In all honesty, though, it's less of a sequel and more of an expansion pack.

The game takes place in the fictional country of Zekistan, which is awash in terrorists, insurgents, and Taliban loyalists. In the first game, the country's dictator, Al-Afad, was captured, along with many of his officers. In Ten Hammers, only one province remains to be secured: the Tien Hamir area, where Mullah Qari Ra'id is attempting to hold off the coalition forces. Even more, Al-Afad's remaining loyalists have also infiltrated the region and are trying to stage their own rebellion. Opposing these forces are the Zekistan militia, which is being trained as a peacekeeping force, the United States, and Great Britain.

Players of the first game will be familiar with the controls; there are two fire teams of four soldiers (a team leader, an automatic rifleman, a grenadier, and a rifleman). Cover plays an important part, and straying out of a defensive position usually results in death fairly quickly. Strategies like flanking, using smoke grenades, and suppressing fire will help your soldiers live longer and achieve their objective.

In addition to these classic elements, new features have also been implemented. Fire teams can now split up into 2 2-man buddy teams for extra flexibility. Mechanized units such as Bradley Fighting Vehicles will occasionally join up as a third squad, and so will units of British soldiers and American special forces. Some two-story buildings can be entered to provide both cover and a higher angle against enemies with cover. A new special ability has been added for team leaders and riflemen, allowing them to take precision shots at enemies partially behind cover (though the process of aiming puts them at risk). Air strikes can be called in via a laser designator . New commands for movement allow for shooting on the run or moving stealthily.

A new multiplayer mode has been added, with a variety of scenarios and locations. Some pit elite insurgent snipers against US infantry, some have fights between Al-Afad's loyalists and the Al-Ra'id, and one even has a four-way battle between Al-Afad, Al-Ra'id, the Zekistan militia, and British mercenaries. The Zekistan forces operate differently than the British and American forces; instead of moving in squads, they move and are commanded as individuals.

One minor annoyance that I have with this game is that there seems to be less development on the part of the soldiers. Only one team (Alpha) is carried over from the first FSW; the Bravo team in this game consists of new recruits. While the official Ten Hammers website does have short 1-to-2 sentence descriptions of Bravo team, there are no biographies of them in the manual or in-game.Character development in cinematics seems lessened, as well. In the first game, you were made to care about your soldiers, whereas in this one they seem less like real people.

Another annoyance are several bugs that make the game unbeatable and require a level restart; one such bug is located in the second level, where you must bring an injured enemy officer back to a CASEVAC. If you have an injured soldier being carried in the same squad as the enemy officer, neither casualty will be able to be taken care of, and the two carriers will mill awkwardly around the medical truck. Some have reported bugs of friendly soldiers just freezing and not being able to continue the mission.

The graphics and sound seem approximately of the same quality as the first game, thus furthering the idea of this being an expansion pack-type game. Certainly this is a good game, with plenty of solid additions and of course new missions, but it just doesn't feel like a sequel.

Better than prequal

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is like the original but you have a whole new team, you still have Mendez but now there is a new sgt. There are a few add ons. You can have your rifleman and TL sharpshoot to hit an enemy behind cover. With your m4/203 you can aim it by selecting him and holding R. And with your SAW you an hold R and lay down suppression on a certain enemy with just that one man. What else is nice too is you can split your team into "buddy teams" or teams of two, you can take one squad adn make the G and R go together and have your TL and SAW go together. This is a nice addon for flanking and getting close for a frag. You can also control Bradleys which is nice because you can use it for cover and taking out enemy cover. You can also use the cannon and the MG to supress enemies or take out technicals. What else is nice is that you can have two members of your sqauds taken out and still play on unlike the original where only one can be taken out. Overall I say get this if you have beat the old one and really liked it b/c this one is only $25.

horrendous

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 4
Date: June 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I ordered this game with excitement. I had read several reviews and all were positive. What no one tells you is that you have total control and zero fun. This is a descent simulation game if you do not want to actually fire your weapon yourself. If you are in the mood to boss around eight men with poor graphics then this is the game for you.

After an hour of training you realize that this will be terribly boring and you will be repeating levels time and time again. This is not a shooter as advertised, this is a game that you play when you absolutely have to waste as much time as you can in the slowest way possible. I would recommend Conflict Desert Storm or any of the games in the Conflict series. Those games are actual shooters where you lead a team and you may even enjoy it, unlike this game.

I love shooter games and this should be in the role playing department. And with that said, rent this game or buy it cheap here so you can get your money back at a local used game shop. For some reason it does hold a good resale value so it was not a total loss for me. Do not buy this game if you like to enjoy your free time.

Outstanding!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I miss some of the things that were in the original such as the GPS. It's not easy to split up the fire teams but I like it. Last con, I liked the characterization in the original better.

This is superior to all the Ghost Recon flavors that came after Island Thunder. It's realistic and not just a shooter, you actually have to think and I like stimulating my brain.

When's the next one coming?

Highly under-rated and misunderstood game...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 10, 2008
Author: Amazon User

... first off, it is not a shooter game. For all intents and purposes it is a real-time-strategy game, but only because of the control-schematic (it doesn't have any resource-gathering or civilization-building; you can't even increase the size of your teams, which are usually two teams of 4 soldiers per team). The first "Full Spectrum Warrior" was one of the most exciting and satisfying games I had ever played on the XBox; "Ten Hammers" was even better. It deserves recognition for the sheer ambiance - the entrancing combination of environments and musical score make it a game worth coming back to just to re-experience the locations and situations.
The game-play is by no means easy - if one of your soldiers gets shot even once, they are out of play, unless you can get them to a Medic (this is true even on the easiest difficulty setting). The game-play demands genuine and serious tactics and strategy - there are absolutely no sections of the game where you can come out blasting like Yosemite Sam, all guns blazing, and expect to survive (more often than not, even a moment of exposure to possible enemy fire will get your teams killed).
Rather, you have 2 teams, usually of 4 soldiers each; in Ten Hammers you can also divide each team of 4 into 2 smaller teams of 2 men. With these teams, you must make strategic use of your environment in order to avoid getting shot, while out-witting and flanking your enemy in order to neutralize their threat. Ten Hammers has the added element of allowing you to sharp-shoot an enemy under certain conditions, but doing so requires a moment in which you're taking aim and exposing yourself to increasing risk of getting shot.
How can I stress the extent to which I enjoyed this game? Well, having finished the XBox version on the easiest difficulty, I'm working through it again at medium difficulty, and seriously considering obtaining the PC version in order to take advantage of the (presumably) quicker control offered via mouse/keyboard.
Do I have any criticisms? Only one that I can think of: on occasion, graphics/glitches will bounce your grenades (whether thrown or launched) off surfaces you didn't anticipate (like when you were certain you were aiming past a corner, but find you were actually aiming at the corner). If one of these grenades lands anywhere near your team, they're dead. All the more reason for cautious strategy :)
If you're intrigued whatsoever by the idea of a game focusing on modern military strategy, and one that is based on training-software developed by the U.S. Army, then definitely check out the Full Spectrum Warrior series - and especially check out Ten Hammers.

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