Would You Rather ... One to Rule Them All Edition

This week for Would You Rather we have a question in response to something we experience (and some participate in) everyday, the console war.

With companies merging to create larger studios, hardware manufactuers losing billions of dollars to maintain market awareness by undercutting consoles and exclusive games staying out of some hands because of our system selections where does it end? Are we heading into a one console future? Probably not. Or maybe. Well, it isn't our idea to judge -- it's yours! So this week we wonder, would you prefer a one console future and enjoy all games or do you crave the smell of napalm in the morning in this, the console war? Discuss.

Feel free to share the reasons for your vote in the comments. We'll share the results of the poll during the next edition of Would You Rather ... which hits X3F every Wednesday.

Last week 68% of readers decided they'd rather have XBLA titles from Independent Development teams rather than have the big guys cramp the Arcade's style. Surprising? Maybe. But one thing is sure, anyone who bought Frogger 2 needs to have their gamer card revoked..

Bad Company's Gold Rush

The attack and defend multiplayer Gold Rush mode of Battlefield: Bad Company™ takes much of its inspiration from its beloved online predecessors, but not without an eager willingness to redefine the series' trademark gameplay.


From the rampant and dynamic environmental destruction to the always ferocious action, new squad features and tactics, gorgeous tactical maps, classic vehicle use, and a brand new core game mode, Bad Company is primed to make its multiplayer mark on Xbox 360®.

Gold Rush
Where the previous game's Conquest mode left every base up for grabs for either team, Gold Rush is a more tightly focused affair.

You play either as an Attacker hoping to slip or power your way through enemy lines to shatter the opposing team's hard-earned gold crates, or as a Defender whose sole purpose is to whittle down the attacking team.

Squad Up!
Battlefield: Bad Company supports up to twenty-four simultaneous players with each team made up of twelve combatants. Each team is then divided into three four-player squads, with each squad working amongst themselves to wreak havoc among the enemy.

Unlocked Evolution
Similar to Battlefield 2: Modern Combat™, new weapons and kit-specific features are unlocked the more you play. For every kill, assist, trophy gained, and victory earned, you'll inch closer to your next rank. Earn a new rank and get credits to unlock spiffy new weapons and kit-specific gear, such as the Assault kit's auto-injector, the Demolition kit's anti-tank mine, and the Specialist's remote explosives.

Kit Breakdown
Bad Company thankfully uses much the same setup for its kits as previous games. You can choose between five different kits, every one of which boasts a remarkably unique play style.


Conquest Returns
While Gold Rush is the game's primary multiplayer mode, the good folks at EA and DICE have also announced a return to the vaunted Conquest game mode in the form of a downloadable update shortly after launch. Welcome news for those with tender memories for the series' roots.

Unlike so many games, the Battlefield franchise began as a multiplayer game and it is clearly most at home online on Xbox LIVE®. It's here that the competitive spirit, promotion of teamwork, dynamic destruction, exceptionally focused action, and so much more shine most brightly. Good luck on the Battlefield!

Article by Ryan Treit

This Week in Xbox: June 25-July 2, 2008

New Releases
This week sees the release of Battlefield: Bad Company™. Given the popularity of the free demo on Xbox LIVE®, I'm guessing that a lot of you have already experienced the game. What might surprise you, though, is how good the single-player campaign is for this game. You expect top-quality multiplayer from a Battlefield game, and Bad Company delivers, but I was shocked at how much fun I've been having in the single-player campaign. (In fact, I'm stifling yawns as I write this, thanks to last night's 1 A.M. Bad Company play session.)


What's so much fun? The freeform nature of the missions, for one. You're dropped into the combat area, and you know where your target is, but how you approach the enemy is completely up to you. Do you hop into a Humvee and run in, guns a-blazing? Sneak around behind the target on foot? Or find a good spot on a hill and call in artillery strikes? Speaking of hills, the terrain here is amazing—this is one of the best-looking "outdoor" shooters yet, and hills and obstructions offer real tactical advantages. The writing is hilarious as well, particularly the running commentary from your teammates Sweetwater and Haggard.

Just in time for the movie's release is Wall•E, where you play everyone's soon-to-be-favorite robot. Check out Ryan Treit's preview here on Xbox.com for the scoop on this fun movie adaptation. Also hitting stores this week is Supreme Commander®, a real-time strategy game from the designer of the classic Total Annihilation; Hail to the Chimp™, a funny, politically-themed party game from the guys who brought you Stubbs the Zombie; and Operation Darkness™, a truly original WW2 strategy game where your allied unit includes werewolves fighting against Nazi zombies. Yes, you did just read that. This one I have to check out.



Happy Train Friends
I have to admit I wasn't familiar with the Happy Tree Friends franchise, so I was a bit surprised to see the "Rated M for Mature" on Happy Tree Friends False Alarm™. This is definitely not one for the kids—this cute, blood-drenched game gives new meaning to "cartoon violence." If you've ever wanted to see a teddy bear napalmed, this is the game for you. Check out the demo on Xbox LIVE Arcade.


Also new this week is Ticket to Ride™, based on the board game of the same name. The gameplay is simple—build train routes before your friends can—but there's a lot of strategy involved in figuring out which routes to attempt, and how to block your opponents. If you enjoyed Catan and Carcassonne, be sure to check this one out.


Wrapping Up
Stop by the This Week in Xbox feedback topic and let us know what you're playing, or what you'd like to see us cover in future episodes of Insider Moves.

Article by Denny Atkin

Going Solo in Bad Company

While EA and DICE's Battlefield franchise has long been associated with its award-winning online multiplayer, the single-player mode of Battlefield: Bad Company™ is not about to play second fiddle to its Xbox LIVE® counterpart.

Complete with tongue-in-cheek story, well-rounded and often hilarious characters, a touch of greed, hyper-realistic combat scenarios and all the multi-faceted gameplay and destruction you've come to expect from the franchise, Bad Company is a solo experience set to shock and awe veterans of the series.

Misfits Unite

We begin of course with the titular Bad Company, a dumping ground for the Army's disenfranchised, misfit, and even criminal soldiers. Not ready to send these fighting men home or off to rot in the stockade, the Army tosses these mischievous malcontents together in the hopes that they may stumble headfirst into victory or at the very least perform admirably as the always useful but ignominious "cannon fodder."

You play as Preston Marlowe, Bad Company's latest recruit and resident punching bag for your new squadmates, Sweetwater, Haggard, and Sergeant Redford. Sgt. Redford and his two slightly addled comrades aren't faceless soldiers, though. They'll fight alongside you for the duration of the game, but more importantly, their constant chatter, personality quirks, and sometimes indefensibly rash decisions turn what you might otherwise consider meat shields into living, breathing soldiers you care about, laugh at, laugh with, and want to protect.

The war effort takes a turn for the profitable when your squad stumbles into a platoon of hired-gun mercenaries paid entirely in gold and their gold-laden payroll truck. Alas, the truck crosses over into neutral territory, but when Haggard charges off in pursuit of everlasting riches, our less than scrupulous squad is only too happy to follow suit. Shenanigans ensue.

Every Class in One

Where the game's multiplayer mode requires you to pick among five different classes, the single-player campaign is eager for you to experience every facet of the game with a single character.

Whether it's unloading the full complement of a mortar strike on an enemy stronghold, repairing your smoldering tank, decimating enemy weapons and vehicles with C4, or plying a grenade launcher to bust open walls, you'll get to play with toys from each of the Assault, Recon, Demolition, Specialist, and Support classes. Likewise, you'll settle behind the wheel of tanks, jeeps, armored personnel carriers, helicopters, suicide trucks filled with exploding barrels, and in one memorable case, a golf cart.

Vast and Varied

Your time in Bad Company will be spent in a wide variety of ways. This is no simple run-and-gun game whose only objective is to eliminate every enemy on the map. Rather, you'll need to destroy key enemy installations and weapons, escort friendlies, defend broken down vehicles and a great deal more besides. Each level is broken up into several distinct objectives, creating unique bite-sized challenges that help keep the action fresh.

Knock it Down

Of course, Bad Company's much vaunted environmental destruction can be found and used just as much in the single-player campaign as on Xbox LIVE. Marlowe doesn't need an open door when he can simply create his own entrance with a grenade launcher, cannon shot, mortar strike, C4, or an RPG. Walls crumble, trees fall, sheds shatter, and roofs collapse. There are few things more satisfying in Bad Company than taking in the utter annihilation of a once pristine village square at the battle's end.

Up to You

While each level provides a clear beginning and end, how you approach each objective within the mission is largely up to you. Want to rain down mortar strikes from afar? No problem. Want to run down enemies in an APC, slowly clear the streets with careful sniper fire from a hilltop, or shatter every building from a distance with a tank in order to reveal enemy locations? Sounds like a plan. It's your battlefield.

Auto Injector

While the duck-and-cover approach to healing has worked so well in games like Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare™ and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six® Vegas 2, Bad Company takes a slightly different approach with its use of the Auto Injector.

Rather than automate healing whenever you're not being hit, Bad Company requires you to switch out your weapon for the Auto Injector, and then trigger its use manually. This slightly more tactical approach requires forethought and a shade of twitch-reflexes to pull off in the heat of battle. Because it instantly replenishes your health, you can even use it mid-run while charging an enemy encampment.

Good Things Come to Those Who Search

Once the smoke clears and the dust settles, it's time to take stock of your surroundings and search for hidden items. Scattered throughout each level are a number of briefcases containing your squad's gold bar retirement fund. Perhaps more important for those hoping to play multiplayer are the hidden guns. Find all five of a certain gun type, and you unlock its use for online play on Xbox LIVE. Look for these secret weapons lying on top of shiny new gun cases.

In the end, Battlefield: Bad Company proves that this shining example of FPS multiplayer gaming can hold its own offline. Now go get that gold!

Article by Ryan Treit

Gorgeous and at High Speed

From the makers of acclaimed rally-racer DiRT™ comes Race Driver: GRID™ for Xbox 360®. This super-slick racing game has something for everyone. Whether you're looking for a particular car or race type, chances are you'll find it in GRID.

From classic lap races to drift tournaments, harrowing one-on-one Touge competitions on mountainsides, hardcore Endurance races and even a no-holds-barred Demolition Derby mode, the variety of racing is exceptional.

WALL•E Cleans Up on Xbox 360

Earth at last has been reduced to little more than a planet-sized trash heap. After a last ditch effort to tidy up and save the planet by way of an army of Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth class (WALL•E) robots, humanity abandons Earth in a mass exodus in hopes of finding cleaner intergalactic pastures.

When all are gone and Earth is but a charming filth-ridden rock, only one WALL•E remains active. Oblivious to his solitary plight, our plucky trash-compacting hero goes about his business, one loose pile of trash at a time.

From the rust-colored, trash-filled vistas of Earth to the clean, sterilized environments of EVE's ship, Pixar's magic is brought to stunning life on Xbox 360.

That is, until the sleek and lovely EVE—a survey robot sent to find Earth's last remaining plant—swoops onto the scene and steals WALL•E's heart. Such is the setup for the Disney-Pixar movie and the WALL•E game for Xbox 360®.

On the one hand, your time alone with WALL•E is spent at a relaxed pace, solving puzzles and navigating platform challenges. These challenges have plenty of charm and ingenuity as a large chunk of them play off WALL•E's rather humorous trash management skills.

Different piles of debris offer different properties. For example, cubed up chunks of heavy rock and steel can be used to tip a scale, consequently raising a bridge, lowering a ramp, or even activating a large hammer that sends poor WALL•E hurtling off to parts unknown. Likewise, the bits of trash still pulsing from some long-living power source can breathe life back into dormant machines and even buildings.

It's this clever use of cause and effect gameplay that gives life and challenge to the world without ever being frustrating. Every part of the puzzle is laid before your eyes. It's just up to you to put the pieces together.

EVE Time
Where WALL•E's escapades are largely played at your own pace, your time alone with EVE zings along at a slightly more frantic level. First off, she flies, so where WALL•E rolls about, EVE zooms along, racing through hazardous environments at top speed and using a laser attack to bust open objects and destroy enemies.

It's through EVE's smooth sailing flight too that you can really appreciate the artistry and detail on display here. It's clear the developers have taken full advantage of their close relationship with the Pixar filmmakers. From the rust-colored, trash-filled vistas of Earth to the clean, sterilized environments of EVE's ship, Pixar's magic is brought to stunning life on Xbox 360.

Together At last
Of course, a good deal of your time will be spent with both characters working in tandem. Here you can take advantage of cooperative moves such as the Stork Jump, where EVE grabs hold of her admiring WALL•E mid-leap to help him float across large chasms. Likewise, EVE can devastate enemies and obstacles with her laser while WALL•E busies himself with trash cubes to solve nearby puzzles.

These sequences create a delicate but not too difficult balancing act as you utilize nearly every facet of gameplay at once, and they represent some of the game's most intense and satisfying sections.

Unlockables A'Plenty
If you prize games that constantly reward diligent exploration, WALL•E has got you covered with a world chock full of secrets and unlockables from start to finish. Whether it's collecting Wallop coins or simply finishing levels to unlock concept art and cinematics (including the movie trailer), or tracking down souvenirs and even costumes for our heroes, WALL•E rewards you at every turn.

What's more, uncovering these extra prizes is handled with care. They're not dropped in arbitrary corners, but rather they require extra bouts of satisfying problem solving in order to gain access to their hidden or out-of-the-way locations.

WALL•E the game can stand proudly on its own next to its cinematic sibling. Its world is rich and beautiful, the gameplay thoughtful, fun and never frustrating, and Pixar's trademark humor and charm is found throughout. Enjoy your time with everyone's favorite Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth class robot!

Blood on the Sand: the Burnout of shooters

In an interview with Xbox World 360 magazine (as reported by OXM UK), the producer of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, Julian Waddows, stated that he hopes Fiddy's new game will do for shooters what Burnout did for the racing genre. He adds further that he wants the game to do, "What Diablo did for RPGs. We wanted to take all that makes the genre fun and exaggerate it." An over-the-top, exaggerated shooter? Oh no, that's never been done before. Seriously though, we kid Blood on the Sand. After all, we certainly wouldn't wish any game to be bad. In theory, there's nothing wrong with Waddows hopes. We just hope that his hopes come to fruition. Otherwise, we'll probably just lose hope altogether.

Editor's note: Since we're on the subject, let's get someone started on porting Diablo II to XBLA, mkay?

Square Enix: "No Plans" for Star Ocean on PS3

Since announcing Star Ocean: The Last Hope for the Xbox 360 earlier this week Square Enix has been playing coy on the subject of exclusivity. When speaking with Yahoo Japan's financial site, Square Enix took side stepping to a new level by stating there are "no plans" to release the fourth installment of Star Ocean on the PS3.

Of course the careful wording of "no plans" could mean the title may see life on other platforms. As we've mentioned before, the initial announcement of the title was made via a Sony branded device ages ago (the first Star Ocean 4 trailer was on PSP) and based on the history between Sony and Square Enix a PS3 version is a possibility. Either way, Microsoft fans are in store for one of the most well known and respected Japanese role-playing franchises from developer tri-Ace. As it stands, Star Ocean: The Last Hope will launch on the Xbox 360 exclusively in 2009 ... for now.

via Wired

Halo Wars will ship "when it's ready"

The aptly named Halo Wars Addict website recently interviewed Ensemble Studios' Graham Somers regarding the company's upcoming RTS title, Halo Wars (you know, the one based on Halo). While the interview covers a broad range of topics, such as how Ensemble plans to please Halo fans and newcomers alike, we quickly zeroed in on the end of the interview. When asked whether Halo Wars would release in 2008 or 2009, Somers responded, "We're going to ship Halo Wars when it's ready." After missing Microsoft's Spring Showcase, we wondered whether or not Halo Wars would make its projected 2008 release. Now you can color us officially worried.

Halo Wars will be shown at E3 this year. Here's hoping someone comes clean on a release date come convention time.

Play Halo 3 with Billy Howerdel of ASHES dIVIDE

Guitarist Billy Howerdel of ASHES dIVIDE will take a break from his touring schedule while appearing at The Fillmore Detroit to take on Xbox LIVE® members in Halo® 3 on June 3, 2008.


Billy Howerdel.

If you're an Xbox LIVE Gold member, and you want a chance to play with Billy Howerdel, send a friend request to the following Gamertag and be online half an hour before (12:30 P.M. ET) the Game with Fame session starts at 1:00 P.M. ET on Tuesday, June 3:

GWF ASHES Billy

Formerly the songwriter, guitarist, and producer for the band A Perfect Circle, Howerdel's new project has culminated in the recently-released album Keep Telling Myself It's Alright. The eleven tracks on the album all display Howerdel's unique and intense emotional style. If you want to find out more about ASHES dIVIDE, make sure to check out the Emerging Artist feature we did on Howerdel back in April.

If you get a chance to play with Billy Howerdel, we want to hear about it! Send us an e-mail with the subject: "GWF – ASHES dIVIDE." Be sure to include your Gamertag and home town.

:xbox.com