Right now, the Quake brand doesn’t have the same juice in the Xbox world as it does in PC circles. After all, Quake 4 was a technically flawed port of a game that was only good-but-not-great to begin with. But we expect the brand’s cache to rocket-jump with the upcoming 360 release of Quake Wars — a largescale multiplayer firstperson shooter that plays like the inter-species lovechild of Quake II and Battlefield 2.

If you’ve spent time with the latter, you’ll understand the basics immediately. With eight players on either side (Global Defense Force humans versus alien Strogg), it’s up to the attacking humans to infiltrate Strogg-controlled areas and complete objectives such as hack or destroy. Each team sports a handful of distinct classes that complement one another (see sidebar), as well as a garage-full of versatile vehicles to aid them in their efforts.

In the “Sewer” territory we saw up and running on the 360 (we were able to go hands-on with the same level only on PC), gorgeous trees and vast landscapes each left an impression as the GDF team made their way north, setting up an EMP disruptor to break the Strogg’s outer defensive shields before making their way into the sewer for a final computer hack.

Impressively, the developers seemed to be hitting their goal of funneling all of the action to single hotspots on the map, as vehicles were always nearby to get you right back into the firefight after you respawned. We saw a helicopter, Humvee, tank, ATV, APC, and boat (just to name a few) as the humans pushed their frontline forward.

Offline play consists of a full single-player campaign spanning all of the included dozen maps, while online battles can accommodate 16 players with bots filling in any human gaps. Furthermore, the 360 version will be among the first post–Halo 2 games to include a party system, making it easier to locate and stick with your crew on Xbox Live.

Perhaps the most confidence-inspiring aspect of Quake Wars is that it’s in capable hands. It’s a port, yes, but while the PS3 version rests in the genre-untested hands of Activision’s Foster City, California, team, the 360 edition is being crafted by Nerve Software, whose Xbox résumé includes the Xbox Live Arcade Doom port and the 2003 multiplayer smash success Wolfenstein: Tides of War. Quake Wars will ship “when it’s done,” just like every id-parented product, and we suspect that’ll be March if it happens to miss this holiday season.

SIDEBAR: Hey, Get a Job!

What will your role be in Quake Wars? The class choices on the human side are:

â–  SOLDIER: Use explosives (like blasting through a wall with dynamite)

â–  ENGINEER: Repair vehicles, use binoculars, set up an anti-personnel turret

â–  COVERT OPS: Field-strip a fallen foe to camoufl age yourself

â–  MEDIC: Heal injured allies and revive fallen friends

â–  FIELD OPS: Call in air strikes and dish out ammo to your buddies The Strogg classes are comparably skilled, but with different names.