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New Crimson Skies Content Goes Live

By Danny Chihdo

After teasing Xbox Live™ gamers with the first spectacular pack of free downloadable content—the slick little Fury plane and the dangerous Caverns map—Microsoft® unleashes an even bigger bundle. The new content adds three new rides to the available Crimson Skies®: High Road to Revenge™ fleet and a pair of combat arenas derived from particularly rugged single-player levels. Check out our zep-load of screens from our team flight test. See sweet shots of the Vampire, Hellhound, and Firebrand as they fly over, under, and through the Lost Plateau and the Badlands.

The Badlands
This map is a multiplayer-enabled version of the second part of the main Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge story line—you know, right after Sea Haven, when Nathan and the death-defying crew of the zeppelin Pandora must find a secret Titanium mine and fight off the Los Muertos sky pirates. As a multiplayer map, the Badlands offers tight canyon walls that provide perfect ambush points and reward skillful, maneuverable flyers.

High and low altitudes couldn’t be more different on the Badlands map.

The Lost Plateau
This map is a multiplayer take on the penultimate chapter in the Crimson Skies story line. Better yet, it takes place at photogenic nighttime. It would give away too much of the Skies story line to say what you’re doing here, so you’ll just have to play it to find out. Lost Plateau plays like a combination of the Windy City map and good-old Sea Haven, with a few secret passages and tunnels thrown in for good measure. This is the map to show your Xbox Live-enabled pals if they don’t have Crimson Skies … yet.

The Lost Plateau by moonlight—romantic and deadly.

The Firebrand
Agility: 8
Speed: 4
Firepower: 5

The Firebrand looks like a jet bomber, but it actually carries a pair of rear-mounted “pushers” in the rear as well as a different weapon (fireball missiles or machine guns) on each side of the cockpit, mounted on a flying-wing fuselage.

The Firebrand.

The Hellhound
Agility: 4
Speed: 8
Firepower: 5

This diabolical puppy is the fastest plane of the new batch and can outrun almost any opponent. Light armor, however, means this plane is not for cavern- or tunnel-filled maps that require tight turn unless you have the nerves for it.

The Hellhound.

The Vampire
Agility: 6
Speed: 5
Firepower: 6

The Vampire.

The Vampire is a reliable alternative to the venerable Devastator, with similar stats. Its secondary weapon looks like a heavy projectile version of the Pirahna’s deadly electro-blast gun, with similar effects. Far be it from me to declare a favorite new plane, but this is by far my favorite new plane.

New Game Types
What, new planes and maps aren’t enough for you? All right, how about two original new game types for Xbox Live play?

First up is Gunheist, which forces you out of the air to capture and control strategically placed AA guns. It’s tense, unpredictable, and a nice change of pace from the ongoing war in the air (the cannons also give you one-shot kills!). If one side comes out early and overpowers the other, a game might end in as few as 60 seconds, but if two teams are more evenly matched, a game of Gunheist might go down to the wire and be decided on points.

The second new game type is called Chicken Pox, an ever-changing, dogfight-happy team game that pits the chicken carriers against the “uninfected” pilots without chickens (carrying the chicken gives you all kinds of speed and weapon boosts). Make sure you’re flying something sturdy and that you don’t hold grudges—your archenemy right now could become your ally within seconds.

As more Crimson Skies news becomes available, you’ll see it here. Take back the Skies!