Online Multiplayer Is Good

By J.N. Cobb

Full Spectrum Warrior™ features intense cooperative gameplay exclusively on Xbox Live™. Playing co-op presents a completely new set of challenges, but it also provides a new kind of fun. You can play through the entire series of single-player missions cooperatively online, or you can share a saved game file with a teammate via XboxLive, allowing both of you to jump into the action no matter how far you’ve gone on your own.

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The mechanism for sharing saved co-op games in Full Spectrum Warrior is unique, but that doesn’t mean it’s overly complicated. First and foremost, you need a saved game to share. During play, all you need to do is keep your team alive and healthy enough to reach one of the save points. Called Situation Report or Sit-Rep points, these areas represent places on the map where it’s safe enough to radio in to headquarters. You can find Sit-Rep points by using your Global Positioning System (GPS) or by keeping an eye out for the Sit-Rep symbol. Just move to the symbol and the game automatically saves your progress. Sharing treats saved games from single-player and co-op the same way, so it doesn’t matter which game mode you use.

Once you have made contact with a fellow soldier looking to play a co-op game, go to My Live and highlight the Trade option. This will allow you to send a sit-rep save to your partner over the Internet the same way you’d send a game invite or a voice mail message. Once you both share the same Sit-Rep, return to the main menu, click Play, and choose the correct saved game file.

The gang’s all here.

Are Two Heads Better Than One?
Playing Co-op requires even the best Full Spectrum Warrior veteran to change their thinking. Because each human player controls one of the two fire teams, both Alpha and Bravo teams can move independently—no more stashing Bravo team safely behind as cover, while you send Alpha out for reconnaissance. Coordination is the key to a successful co-op mission, so you’ll want to stay in constant contact via the Xbox Live Communicator headset. It won’t do for both teams to be moving toward different objectives at the same time, unless both team leaders have agreed to it beforehand.

Some tactics will carry over from single-player to co-op, provided you remember to clear what you’re doing with your fellow team leader. Moving one team while the other team covers, flanking maneuvers, and effective use of suppressing fire all play the same in both modes, but with co-op, you need to make sure that everybody giving the orders understands the plan before the bullets and shrapnel start flying. The harsh reality of the battlefield is that you will need to carefully synchronize moving, covering, and laying down fire to succeed, but if you prefer to hang back and your teammate is more aggressive, you can always work it so you’re each playing to your strengths. Coordination can be difficult (especially if you’re playing with a compass-challenged player who can’t tell north from northeast), but it pays to be patient as well as alert. It’s also a good idea to agree on terminology before you start, so that if you yell “Fire in the hole!” after tossing a grenade, your teammate isn’t left wondering, “What does that mean?” just before the frag goes off in his face.

Co-op combat.

Full Spectrum Warrior sharpens your nerves as well as your skills with each new game. Playing with another person takes this already hyper-realistic combat simulation even farther into the realm of the real world, where officers and enlisted men have to rely on entirely separate and independent units as much as they rely on their own squad members.

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