The story is surprisingly straightforward for a Tom Clancy game. A near future energy crisis combined with a global anti-missile defense network leads to the creation of three major superpowers. Russia rises becomes the most powerful nation in the world thanks to its large wealth of oil reserves. Western Europe, with the exception of the United Kingdom, combines into a single unified economic power called the European Federation. Meanwhile, the United States sits tightly in third place, but still manages to gather enough funds to construct an orbital military platform that will upset the balance of power. Sprinkle in a little political intrigue, tensions rise, and World War III erupts - a.k.a. the EndWar. EndWar's story has a great setup, but doesn't develop after the initial introduction and the "Prelude to War" tutorial. Instead, the game degenerates into a series of loosely linked skirmishes once the war actually starts. Additionally, certain perpetrators are somehow revealed to have provoked the conflict between Europe and the US, but the two powers decide to fight out a costly war anyway.

Generally speaking, EndWar provides shallow, simplistic gameplay in comparison to other PC RTS games like World in Conflict, Empire: Total War and Red Alert 3 - all of which had new releases closely following EndWar's PC debut. Players call in and control a limited number of units on the battlefield. These units cannot be healed or repaired in battle, only replaced using a limited supply of reinforcements. They also use a rock-paper-scissors balance design that is clearly mapped out both in the game and manual. Even so, things start to get a little suspicious when a squadron of attack choppers has trouble mowing down a group of riflemen despite the obvious armor and firepower differences. Factions differ from each other superficially in appearance and technologies, but units all three nations mirror each other and their units serve the same purposes. Since the unit balancing is identical, and no faction has anything specialized or unique, none stand out from one another. Skirmish types include capturing the majority of control points and annihilation, where players destroy the enemy's army until its supply of reinforcements is exhausted. There's also a siege scenario, where attackers must take and hold a critical control point, that's included in the 3-part conquest of capital cities. If it weren't for the some of the AI and camera issues (which we'll go into further detail on) the game would be a breeze. In fact, we won our annihilation missions by simply fortifying a position and waiting for the computer to throw all its forces at us. However, the game's main feature isn't in its actual gameplay, but its approach using voice command technology.

Using voice commands can be a liberating experience. For one thing, EndWar is an RTS that can be literally played single-handedly. Saying commands helps greatly with multitasking and immerses players into the commander role, but there's a significant downside. Using the voice command technology requires a fairly decent microphone, but even then the voice system can be a bit finicky. The system is less likely to recognize commands that aren't spoken in a calm, well-pronounced, voice. Shouting, as we were often prone to do, messes things up. Furthermore, barking orders is a nice gimmick, but it doesn't compare to the speed and control of traditional mouse and keyboard controls. Fortunately, voice commands can be supplemented with using the mouse and keyboard, which greatly improves the game's pace, but artificial intelligence issues get in the way. On more than a few occasions, units would acknowledge an order then sit around and do nothing. Units will sometimes get in each others' way and will not take into consideration very obvious road blocks when commanded to move to a position. Infantry, if left unattended, will stand around get shot up instead of running for nearby cover.