Yet again Tom Clancy "brings war" upon us, this time in a future not so distant. The year is 2020 and World War III is fought by U.S. Joint Strike Force, European Enforcers Corps and Russian Spetsnaz Guards Brigade. Who will prevail?

If you had the chance to view the next-gen console version of the game, you'd probably know what the game is all about. While, the action is basically the same, we could say that EndWar for PSP is totally another game.

World War III escalades between the three powers of the world: United States, Europe and Russia, with epic battles on each of their fronts. You can start the single-player campaign with either the United State's Joint Strike Force or the European Federation Enforces Corps. Depending on which campaign you start, there are difficulty levels for each; easy for European campaign, medium for United States and hard difficulty for Russia which will unlock when either of the previous campaign is completed.

The story is almost the same for each campaign, you start being a rookie, fresh out of the academy and put on command of the battle console. The only thing that changes is the faction you play with, as the battle locations remain the same. To master the use of the battle console you need to train in three prologue missions that will teach you every fact of the game to achieve victory.

The first prologue mission teaches you how to move units, attack opponents and use Jamming and Blocking maneuvers. The second prologue mission will teach you about new unit types. You will find out how to get an overview of the terrain and units in a mission, and how to repair units inside buildings. Finally, in the last prologue mission, you learn how units improve their performance through experience points, how to produce new units, how to conquer buildings and how to use transport vehicles.

The campaign takes the player to real-world places where landmarks like the Eifel Tower from Paris or London Bridge can be found. Each map is build with a lot of details from motels, sky-scrappers, destroyed buildings, trees, roads to the famous landmarks mentioned earlier. The action of the game is composed by two phases. The first phase is represented by Movement Phase and at that time you can move your troops, ships, vehicles or aircrafts in the desired location and prepare them for the Action Phase. Each troop has different stats that will allow it to move a number of squares. When all your troops are in position hit "End Phase" and the Action Phase will pop-up. Here is where you order your troops who to attack and in which order.

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The order of the attacks is very important, as it can't be undone, and it might cost your troops. Making good use of Jamming and Blocking maneuvers will also count a great deal, because having one troop near another allied force will give bonus to attacks. Killing troops will add one experience point and killing the whole squad will add two points. A full five star veteran will do more damage on the battlefield and will not go down easily.

Aside ground troops (light and heavy infantry), you can also make use of tanks, scout vehicles, AA Guns, Transport and Combat Helicopters, Battleships, Submarines and more. While you start with a number of troops (ground, air or sea) securing victories will earn you resources to build new units from your Headquarters. Here in the Headquarters you can also repair damaged units from the battlefield. In almost 100 missions, the AI will make intelligent moves to prevent you from achieving your goals. Each of the missions will have a primary objective and secondary objectives. If you manage to complete one or more of the secondary objectives like destroy the enemy heavy infantry before the end of cycle 3 or don't let more than once ship take damage, just to name a few, you will earn medals that will look good on your suit soldier.

The missions will start from a low difficulty and increase to become more challenging, your tactical skills being required for the sake of humanity. If these maps are not too challenging for you, or simply have a map in mind you would like to play, EndWar offers you that possibility. You now have at your disposal a Map Editor which allows you to create the maps you want and share it with your friends or foes.

Although the game is not as good looking as the big brother next-gen version of the game, it still looks pretty decent. The maps are nice with nice details here and there, but besides the in-game cinematics there isn't much to brag about. Maybe Ubisoft tried to keep it simple, making the player concentrate on the action. If that is the case, they certainly succeeded.

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I'm sure a lot a lot of strategy fans will give this title a shot and why not, it offers a huge number of missions, over 20 units and vehicles per faction including ground, air and naval units; competitive AI, the ability to create your own maps, and your chest filled with medals.

Gameplay: 79

Commanding unit squads has always been intriguing and when the World War III is upon us, this tactical game will give veterans of the genre a chance to show off but it still is catchy enough to attract newcomers.

Graphics: 70

Not the most impressive look even for the PSP power, but EndWar somehow manages to caption the view with detailed maps, famous landmarks and nicely made cut-scenes.

Sound: 65

Aside the sounds that are a little above average and voice acting that is not convincing at all, each campaign has only one soundtrack that loops again and again, and again...

Multiplayer: 82

Like every strategy game, EndWar is best if played with a human opponent. Two players get head-to-head on AdHoc connectivity (no online features) and has the ability to play custom made maps.

Hardware: 85

Fast loading times and smooth frame-rate all the way.