Xbox 360 made a splash at TGS but Japan wasn't the only country that got a taste. Activision held a slick press event where it allowed yours truly to sample Quake IV's single player mode, and I spent a Tuesday afternoon slaughtering Strogg, blowing up robots, and getting acquainted with the Xbox 360 controller. The game's impressive and quite enjoyable, but with about two more months before launch (in theory), developer Raven Software still has some work to do.

Unlike the Xbox version of Doom 3, Quake IV is not a port. The game is being developed from the ground up for both the PC as well as the 360, and all parties involved insist (though no official promises have been made) that each will run ludicrously fast. The PC version speeds along like a vampire bat on crack, though the same cannot be said of the Xbox 360 game. It's certainly playable and the visual quality remains intact, but the frame rate is a bit choppy. Then again, Raven just received final hardware, so there is still much tweaking to do.

Activision allowed me to sample four levels which was quite a nice gesture, yet I'm still disappointed that everything that I played was the same stuff that was shown (in non playable form) at Quakecon 2005, so I don't have any sneaky secrets to unveil to the world. But what I will tell you is the game is a lot of fun. The Xbox 360 controller feels great in the hands and the dual stick set up works extremely well.

Just to give you a background, in Quake IV you play as Mathew Kane, a new recruit who's just entered the war against mankind's greatest enemy, the Strogg. Quake 4 is actually the sequel to Quake 2, so now that the marine from that game killed the Strogg's leader, the Macron, Kane and his new comrades are sent to the aliens' home world to wipe them out. Sadly, things don't go according to plan, and this is displayed in a truly spectacular cut scene that really captures the essence of the game and sets a dark and violent tone.

The game opens with an innocent looking star field, and within seconds a soldier comes in from the left. All you can see of him is his right side, so it appears that he's standing on a star ship staring out a window. However, as the music goes from dramatic to chilling, his body begins to tilt, and not only is he missing an eyeball, but all of the skin on the left side of his face. Then the rest of his body comes into frame and he's actually missing his lower half and his stomach and intestines are exposed. In short, he's dead. His lifeless torso floats away, and then pieces of a blown up ship as well as other body parts sail across the screen as the credits roll, which are first displayed in the Strogg language and then flash in English, the reason being that you'll get to fight on both sides.

After the floating space grave yard the cut scene transitions to a drop ship that contains Kane and the other marines. There's some light banter about Kane and the fact that he's a new recruit, and then a commander enters the compartment, announces that the Macron's been killed, and then BOOM! Rockets slam into the ship's side. The pilot attempts to perform evasive maneuvers but his efforts are in vain. The ship's hit again and it plunges towards the planets surface.

When Kane comes to he's still inside of the ship which isn't exactly in one piece. There's death all around him, and a giant hole in the hull exposes the carnage. Bodies lay strewn about, humongous spider-like creatures (robots really) are punching holes in anything that moves, and multiple bullets are cutting through the air. Someone comes over to help Mathew and is immediately killed, and once he gets his bearings Kane (armed with a pistol) leaves the destroyed ship and meets up with other soldiers, this event marking one of Quake 4's unique features, that being the ability to battle alongside other marines.

Unlike in Doom 3, where you're pretty much a one man army throughout the entire adventure, Quake 4 literally takes place in a war zone, and with that being said you'll run into your fellow soldiers quite often and they'll accompany you on numerous missions, though the game isn't like Rainbow Six. You won't actually be able to plan your attack, coordinate with your allies, and issue commands. Like in the Halo series, they're merely along for the ride, and while they're definitely capable of killing Strogg it may take a while for their bullets to find the mark, so you're the only one who can truly advance the story.

In previous id titles it takes a little while before the player locates some cool guns, but not so in Quake 4. After just 4-5 minutes of play, Kane happens upon the assault rifle and the party officially begins, though it's not exactly full of stopping power. I was able to cap the weaker Strogg but the bigger ones just barreled through the gunfire en route to my head. Thankfully, the rifle comes equipped with a zoom lens that enables the player to fire individual rounds, serving its dual purpose of being a weak sniper rifle.

After crawling from the burning wreckage I met several people, the most important being the medic. He immediately healed me up and told me to go talk to the dude standing at the entrance to some Strogg facility. Running into him, he just told me to proceed inside. Upon entering the complex I was almost immediately attacked, but right away the game showcases its squad-based combat. Some slime ball aliens attempted to make a ruckus, but they were immediately put down by the guy next to me. However, from there I was on my own for a bit, and being that I was playing on one of the more difficult settings, my Quake experience was quite hairy. All of the same events transpire as they do on the lesser settings (aliens pop through pipes, up through floors, and burst through doors), but they're just a bitch to kill. I really had to pop off a few shots, duck behind a corner, wait for them to react, and then squeeze off a few more rounds. However, this is not a smart strategy for all of the creatures. There are these frightful looking Strogg that just run at Kane full bore and deliver crushing attacks. To take them down, I really had to run backwards and empty a clip and a half onto them. Then there's the dude that chases after me and when he's within range, drives his arm into the ground, unleashing electrical currents that don't do nice things to the body. Like those other kamikaze Strogg, ducking behind a box didn't do me any good.

What's especially crazy is, after getting through a troublesome section of the game that killed me more than eight times, I ran into a team of soldiers with one wounded. They didn't have a medic and ordered me to go and grab the guy I met in the very beginning of the game, so in order to reach him I had to go through that bad spot, and in typical videogame fashion it was populated by a fresh set of enemies.

After completing that task, someone at the event came over and took me to another section of the game. That was the catch at this event. We could sample a handful of the levels, but whenever we completed one, we had to raise our hands, whereupon which a representative would immediately boot us out of that level so we didn't see anything that we shouldn't have.

Because Quake IV is running on a modified version of the DOOM 3 engine at times it looks very much like that game despite the next generation technology. With that being said, it's the vehicles that truly separate this game from Doom and Raven's done a nice job implementing them. The hover tank, for example, is just a joy to use. It turns like a bus, but once I got going, zipping along over the planet's surface and through hangars, I had a blast. You can run over Strogg (that's always satisfying), as well as fire rockets at anything that moves. You don't necessarily need that sort of firepower to take down the foot soldiers, but the other enemies definitely require that extra punch to send them straight to hell. Flying vehicles will assault you from all sides but they're pretty easy to destroy. A few well-placed rockets will cause them to spiral to their doom. Then there are the pods that are dropped from the sky, and like some unholy flower they bloom and unleash these gun turrets that can be taken out quickly. I'm actually fond of the enemies that roll around. They're these giant balls that zip across the battlefield and when you hit them they fly straight into the air and explode. There's just a lot of action on the battlefield. The crap really hits the fan and you have to make it out alive, and unlike the on foot segment that I played, there was no one helping me.

After terrorizing Strogg in my hover craft (and after raising my hand), I strapped myself into a battle mech, this huge walker that fires an unlimited amount of machine gun rounds as well as six rockets at a time. Basically, you have unlimited rockets, but you can only unleash six before the unit needs to recharge, so this creates a nice balance. Plus, the vehicle comes equipped with a shield that allowed me to make some huge mistakes, take some damage, and still come out on top.

The battle mech is actually pretty friggin' sweet. Not only does it take thunderous footsteps that sound wonderful, but it's fairly easy to maneuver and it allows the player to cause a satisfying amount of damage. However, even with its shields it's far from being indestructible. Facing off against this humongous spider-like creature/vehicle, it squashed me flat more times than I'd like to admit, as in people who had finished their play sessions were watching me.

Color me cynical, but there's something about Quake IV that just doesn't look next-gen to me. Its visuals are impressive, especially when you consider that a lot of this game takes place outdoors, yet it doesn't wow me like Doom 3 did. I suppose that's to be expected since it's running on a supped up version of that engine, but when placed next to other Xbox 360 titles I think it comes up a bit short. It's still going to make you feel good about that HDTV purchase, but it's not as striking as I'd like it to be.

Graphical debates aside, Quake IV plays fantastically and it's therefore a must have. Unfortunately, Activision won't confirm it as a launch title and said that it may turn out to be released during the launch window. That would be unfortunate, especially since other publishers have also informed me that Xbox 360 games might miss the launch date, leaving me to wonder whether the console will arrive with any games at all. As for Quake, expect even tastier coverage in the near future.