At the recent Ubisoft press event, I got a chance to try out the Ubisoft Shanghai-developed Tom Clancy's EndWar, that voice command-enabled, real-world RTS for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

At its core, EndWar is fairly simple. You command tanks, infantry, helicopters and artillery, all arranged in small unit groupings a la World in Conflict. You capture points. You call in reinforcements. You say things like "task force one, attack hostile three." You feel kind of cool, and a little ashamed at the same time.

The voice recognition works surprisingly well, picking up my words on a noisy show floor without much trouble. In fact, the only bothersome aspect of the whole thing was remembering to hold down the right trigger before talking, and to let it go afterward. Unfortunately, the game does not recognize wanton cursing.

A few minutes into my demo, I had most of the basic voice commands down. The thing is, I'm not sure it actually saved me much time, as the controller works pretty well for basic commands. Often I ended up using a combination of the two, selecting a unit with the controller and ordering it to attack a hostile with voice.

The pace of the game quickens significantly once two forces meet. From then on, it's a rock-paper-scissors affair, with choppers blasting away at tanks, tanks taking out troop transports, and infantry holing up in buildings. Air strikes can be called in, and experienced units can utilize secondary fire abilities. When one unit dies, you bring in another from your reserves, continuing this replacement until your stockpile runs out. Though mildly fun, it was nothing I hadn't seen before. Registered users can use the HD Stream.

But while EndWar doesn't seem a radically original game on the surface, I only got my hands on a small, relatively basic mission. With the added complexity of diversified units that carry over between levels, a group of friends to play with cooperatively, and the MMO metagame, I can see it becoming a worthwhile experience.

Speaking of that MMO metagame, I had a chance to talk with Ubisoft Shanghai representative Julian Gerighty about the portion of the game that wasn't on display. We went over online play, the World War 3-themed single player campaign, and other development-related topics--including a strange Mario Kart twist.

Shack: Can you tell me a little about the MMO portion of the game?

Julian Gerighty: The online mode is actually the most ambitious Ubisoft's ever tried, on PC or on console. It's that much work, and we're doing two beta tests on it--one very limited one that's gonna kick off next month, one wider one a couple of months after that, which will open up into a demo. These things will help us iron out any bugs, but also balance the game. So we're really squeezing that to test the networks, stuff like that.

The MMO aspect is, it's kind of simple. You pick your faction--say, Russia--and you defend or attack alongside all your comrades. Let's say 100,000 people are playing--let's say you are all attacking Paris, you've won the conquest of Paris, you manage to win a majority of games on Paris that day, the next day, the map will be updated not only in the game but online, on the companion site, with the new battlefront, the new front line. And every day that will happen. There are 40 territories around the world, and it plays out like a RISK game between the three factions. You're basically playing the matches, but there's the overall RISK metagame on top of that.

Shack: And I assume the metagame will roll over at some point?

Julian Gerighty: We're anticipating every three weeks having a new world war. And we've got a community developer who's going to be creating events also. So maybe you'll turn on your console one day and you'll see a call to arms to dominate an oil refinery that's gonna give your mechanized units a boost, or an air strip that's gonna give your air units some increases too. So different territories have different strategic importance too.

Shack: How is multiplayer set up as far as matchmaking and group play?

Julian Gerighty: [The game will have] play groups on PS3--which are a huge pain in the ass to develop by the way--and you've got the clan kind of thing too. It's four people per side maximum in co-op, so four vs. four, eight people total. Or you can play one vs. one, two vs. two.

Cooperative works really well, and we think it's going to be a big deal for people to specialize in certain types of units. So you going to have the best tank brigade around, and your friend who's gonna have the best gunships and specialize in gunships with all of the upgrades will join with you, and you'll have this kind of force. And of course if you survive battles you get experience and money and you can upgrade. We've got about 100 upgrades per faction.

Shack: So you start with a basic set of units, and you specialize from there. And so will your forces be wiped every 3 weeks as well?

Julian Gerighty: Yeah.

Shack: Will there be a way to manage your troops?

Julian Gerighty: There's a barracks. Our main inspiration: Need for Speed, the garage in Need for Speed. You add the upgrades and see them pop onto your helicopters, your tanks, stuff like that. The barracks is where you track the skills, the upgrades, even the camo patches that you've got on your troops.

Turn the page for Gerighty's comments on voice commands, the single player campaign, and Mario Kart.