"Ten Hammers" is a terrible sequel and a complete disaster.
In order to explain why this game sucks so miserably, I have to explain what made the first game special. The foundation of the game was a simple process of "use cover, engage enemies, flank, and kill." You couldn't hit anybody behind cover, but you couldn't be hit behind cover either. By suppressing enemies, you could then move to another spot behind cover and kill him. It was simple and somewhat repetitive, but it worked. The pacing of the game was pretty slow, and you could always take time to plan your next move. It was a great way to experience urban combat tactics without having to rely on shooter twitch skills.
Ten Hammers completely destroys this game mechanic. It has so many problems, I don't know where to begin.
The first problem is a simple one. Covering fire no longer works. Enemies often freely run into and out of your covering fire areas without getting shot. They often do this to flank you. In the first game, when you engaged an enemy, it tied him down. In this game, it does -- nothing. Often, enemies will run out from behind cover and then run around behind you and kill you while your helpless, retarded squad sits there and does nothing. Who's the idiot that thought of this gameplay "iimprovement"? It completely makes the game impossible. Time after time, while playing this game, my squad would be engaging an enemy behind cover, and that enemy would run out of cover, flank me, and shoot all of my guys while they stood there helpless, and I sat there irritated.
But wait, it gets better! Not only can enemies freely run into and out of cover without you killing them, but cover no longer works for you. Yes, you read that right. Cover does not keep you safe anymore. Once, I ran to a corner and my team leader poked his head out -- he got shot immediately by a guy at the end of the street he was looking down (this never happened in the first game). Another time, I positoned my squad behind a garbage dumpster in a square formation to fire at a guy who was behind cover straight ahead of me. The enemy proceeded to pick off two of my guys (this also never happened in the first game). This happened time after time after time. Apparently, Middle Eastern terrorists are elite snipers and American soliders shoot like Stevie Wonder.
But wait, it gets better! Not only can enemies kill you behind cover, and not only can they leave cover to run up right next to you, but they also run out on your exposed flanks at scripted times and shoot at you while you're moving between cover points. Yes, enemies are very mobile. Time after time, you'll be moving down a clear street to a cover point, and an enemy will jump out (according to a script) from behind a building and kill two of your squad mates immediately.
Enemies also respawn infinitely at certain points in the game where the developers wanted to force you down a certain path. You can kill enemies with your team leader’s sharpshooting ability, but if Pandemic wanted you to kill them by flanking them, then new enemies will spawn in their place. If you cleverly kill a guy with a grenade, another guy might spawn to take his place because you didn't do it the "right" way. This happens time and time again in the game. I can't tell you how many times I killed a guy, and then got killed by his replacement as I advanced on the position. Apparently, terrorists also have secret cloning machines that magically get turned off when you approach enemy positions from a certain direction.
But wait, it gets even better! This game also uses a checkpoint save system. This wouldn't be bad by itself, but since the game is so poorly designed, sadistic, punishing, and frustrating, the checkpoint save system makes it unplayable. Time after time, your squad gets killed by some guy who runs past your clueless soldiers and shoots all of them from behind, causing you to replay the last fifteen minutes.
The game gives you a "danger" indicator at the bottom of the screen, but it's competely worthless. By the time it turns red, it's too late. It's impossible to react to anything quickly in this game, because the control scheme is made for slow-paced, tactical advances. It takes over five seconds to issue any meaningful order. If you want guys to move, you have to right click, rotate the camera around until you find the spot you want, and then position the icons on the screen to find the right place. It works well for a strategy game, but it's horrible for a more action-oriented game, which is what it seems like Ten Hammers is trying to be. If a guy runs in on your flank while you're moving or positioned somewhere, you might as well reload your saved game right there. By the time you give them another move order to a safe cover point, he has already killed three of your guys.
Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers is riddled with some of the worst design decisions that I have ever encountered. Pandemic filled the game with enemies who move around the area like flies but forgot to give you any friendly AI or controls to counter them. Your troops are basically unintelligent monkeys who won't return fire at a guy who is five feet away from them, nor will they run for cover if a guy appears out of nowhere. A single guy pops up on your flank and your game is over, and there are no tools to prevent this from happening. Pandemic tried to turn this game into a more action-oriented one, and it fails miserably. This game was obviously not play tested. A single play test would have exposed how the game doesn't work.
Graphics-wise, Ten Hammers looks like a typical X-Box port. Which is to say that it basically looks like crap. This is a very mediocre-looking game with ugly, low detail, low res texture environments and nowhere near the quality of the look of a game like Half-Life 2 or Oblivion. The game has the ugly menu screens that characterize console ports too. The only redeeming quality of the graphics is that your squad-mates look pretty good, and they have a lot of great motion-captured animations.
After enjoying the first game, I can't overemphasize how bad this sequel is. Pandemic completely ruined Ten Hammers with a bucketload of terrible design decisions. The game is no longer a clever urban warfare tactical simulation. It's a frustrating exercise in watching your dumb, helpless squad get picked off by sharp-shooting terrorists no matter what tactics you take. You can't rely on cover, you can't fix enemies by engaging them, and you can't react quickly to what your enemies do. Ten Hammers is an action game with the control scheme of a tactical one. The result is a complete disaster. I encourage you to read some of my other reviews on Gamespot to see that I almost never give scores this low. I can't get my money back, but hopefully, I can make up for it by convincing you not to buy the game.