Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers Xbox Review

The screens may have suggested that Full Spectrum Warrior was a rather ordinary third person military action title to the uninitiated, but the reality was very different and the origins of the game was actually that of a training simulator for US soldiers. It was unusual in the way that you didn’t get to fire a single bullet and movement was like that of a point-and-click adventure.

Like its predecessor Ten Hammers eschews direct action and forces the player to think before they act. This sequel is a welcome one, and is a more refined game than the original, thanks to control tweaks as well as some pleasing new additions. You Would be mistaken to think of it as anything more then a tidied up sequel though.

The control scheme was already a pretty successful setup, but this sequel affords even more control to the player. Like before, you are in charge of controlling two four-man fire teams for the majority of the game, but now you can split teams up into duos and even instruct another team without having to suffer the inconvenience of having to switch to it first.

Those who were disgruntled at not being given the chance to actually shoot anything in the original game should have looked elsewhere for their gaming fix, nevertheless these folk will find some solace in this sequel. If your men are blowing holes in everything but your targets then switching to the new precision aim is a regular solution to this problem. This precision aiming is a risky business as it leaves one of your men in the open whilst you frantically and carefully line your shot up, but it can pay off greatly if you manage to catch an enemy with one of your bullets when his body is out in the open.

You can now also enter buildings and earn yourself a vertical and tactical advantage over your enemies by climbing the stairs and raining bullets down on them from above. It certainly gives you the feeling that you have the upper hand as your enemies shrink behind their cover, but we have still got to wonder why it was never an option in the original game.

Vehicles make their debut, and we feel that instructing these metallic hulks to blow things up will be a guilty pleasure for many. Controlling the vehicles opposed to the usual flesh and bone troops, makes you feel almost like an indestructible god such is their robustness to enemy gunfire.

This sequel stays faithful to the original in the way that it’s more a less the same game with few tweaks and additions. It’s nothing radically different, which was common sense on the development teams part, given the fact that the original Warrior formula was already quite brilliant. This means that suppressing and flanking enemies is still very much encouraged and taking cover remains an absolute must if you want to avoid seeing your soldiers face down in the dirt courtesy of some nasty wounds.

Ten Hammers single player mode is also accompanied by multiplayer options via Xbox Live or System Link. Like the original game, missions from the campaign can be played in cooperative, the Adversarial mode is meanwhile a brand new option for up to 8 players to get involved with. You take control of the US coalition or Zeki insurgent soldiers with each one proving very different from the other. The US soldiers boast superior weapons and are able to heal downed buddies, whilst the insurgent troops move as individuals and can earn additional help by recruiting NPC’s from the streets. All in all these options wrap up a very worthy and welcome sequel.

8/10