The vehicles pack a powerful punch for the most part, but even though they can dish it out, they sure can’t take it. Destroying an enemy jeep or tank with nothing more than your main weapon while on foot isn’t unheard of and happens quite often. If you happen to have an enemy missile lock on you while in any land vehicle, chances are you aren’t going to have the chance to get out and run far enough away in time to avoid a spectacular death. There are some pretty impressive vehicles to be found on both sides of the fight and even though they could be the death of you at any given time, they definitely justify a joyride from time to time.

As you progress through battles, you earn experience points for your efforts. Certain points are given for completing objectives, amount of frags and so on and once you have garnered enough XP points, you will get an upgrade in your rank that will allow you to gain new abilities. Unfortunately, other than a little square picture you are never actually told what the upgrades are and at the end of the round in Stop Watch and Objective Modes, you will lose the upgrades and be restarted at the bottom of the noob pile, although the upgrades will remain constant through the campaign mode until you complete the final map. In campaign mode the upgrades don’t carry over to harder difficulties or to other campaign theatres and there’s really no reason they shouldn’t. You earned them and you should be able to use them for more than just a map or two.

There are many differences between the PC and console versions but that’s not to say the game doesn’t have the same “oomph.” Quake Wars boasts some very impressive graphics considering the large outdoor environments you’ll find yourself in for most of the game. When you aren’t outside fighting under the blistering sun or in a snowy wasteland, you’ll find yourself inside large expansive bunkers that show off equally impressive visuals. The “Mega-Textures” technique that the game utilizes creates one beautiful battleground, no matter terrain you find yourself in. The audio is also spot on although the bot chat voices of your team mates can get a little too annoying at times. Yes we know you’re an engineer, we are all impressed.

Players who are looking for an online shooter will have fun with the game and even though the single player campaign is a short lived experience and the bots you play against and with aren’t exactly the brightest bulbs in the box, it does provide a pleasing amount of entertainment. The online aspect played over Xbox LIVE is what it’s all about and is a blast when you have a good team that knows what to do. Quake Wars takes the team based and goal oriented first person shooter genre and puts it in a whole other category all its own. The game is very ambitious for what it is trying to accomplish and although it may have not reached the goal that it wanted to on the Xbox 360, it’s as close as anyone has gotten so far.

Questions or comments? We'd love to hear from you .