Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers is a 2006 Real-Time Strategy game made by Pandemic Studios and published by THQ. They're published for the Xbox, Microsoft Windows and the PlayStation 2. It serves as the sequel to Full Spectrum Warrior.
The games takes place six months a coalition of nations invade Zekistan to depose of Al-Afad's government, a pro-democratic Zekistani government was installed with backing from the United Nations and friendly countries. However, Zekistan is entering into a sectarian war, comprising of pro-Al-Afad groups including Mujahideen Al-Zeki, against Anser Al-Ra'id, an ethnic militia group from the north trying to seek independence for the province of Tien Hamir. While American and British-led multinational troops engage Al-Zeki and later on, Al-Ra'id, Sergeant Eric Daniels is later involved in the campaign to halt the civil war while trying to make things right from his past mistakes...
This game contains examples of:
- A-Team Firing: The rifleman (or team leader when he doesn't call airstrikes) can do precise rifle fire, a single highly-accurate shot that takes out an enemy (unless the bullet strikes cover that's blocking). While aiming, this causes the soldier to be treated as out-of-cover, and vulnerable to attack. It only misses if you fire too early, or if the enemy ducks behind cover rather than popping out.
- Countrystan: The game takes place in Zekistan once again. Although the events of the game has some shades of what happened in Iraq during the civil war from 2003 to 2011, and Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021.
- Gameplay Grading: The end of the stage shows a performance in a percent rating, as well as accolades during the mission.
- Fake Difficulty: While the first game occasionally fell into this, it's much more common here as Squad AI seems to have somehow regressed and you can no longer prone if caught without cover, you'll encounter enemies being far more mobile and clearly not held to the same clunky movement as you and enemies will sometimes blatantly spawn in infront of you and level design occasionally forces you into extremely unfair situations.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Ten Hammers has this as the ultimate fate of Sgt. Eric Daniels, who was found dead after calling for backup in Chapter 1. At the end of Chapter 4, he killed an insurgent with an RPG from taking down the evac chopper filled with wounded soldiers and ordered it to leave without him while other insurgents are overrunning him.
- How We Got Here: Ten Hammers has Sgt. Eric Daniels found dead in the first chapter, with the remaining three chapters following up on how he got involved in the first place.
- Market-Based Title: The game is known in Japan as Full Spectrum Warrior 2: Ten Hammers.
- Mission-Pack Sequel: Ten Hammers mostly share the same engine and gameplay as the original game, with a few additions such as the ability to split fireteams, control vehicles, and improved multiplayer modes.
- Multinational Team: The coalition force is made up of American and British-led forces into Zekistan, similar to the Coaltion makeups of multinational forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
- Permadeath: Unlike the first game, anyone who gets shot down is evacuated when brought to a medevac, instead you're given a limited amount of replacement troops per level to replace anyone who gets shot down with dialogue in cutscenes being slightly different to account for this.
- Save Point: There are auto-save points before some dangerous areas, provided "authentic" difficulty isn't used.
- Slow-Motion Fall: When a soldier is downed, the game focuses on the hit soldier and slows down the action. In case of a display refresh rate higher than 60Hz, it also freezes the gameplay, requiring a reload from a previous save.
- Sudden Name Change: Some of the teammates' first names from the original game were changed in Ten Hammers, with Sgt. Chago Mendez to Santiago, Cpl. Andre Devereux to Andrew, and Pfc. Alexander Silverman shortened to Alex.
- The Medic: Ten Hammers has the medic drag incapacitated teammates from the field, and has a replacement arrive. There's a limited number of replacements, if too many are lost, you need to wait until the end of the level to get more.
- Title Drop: Ten Hammers is an allusion to the chapter title The Tien Hamir Bridge.
