You are Captain B.J. Blazkowicz of the U.S. Army Rangers. From the allied base in Libya, you're given orders to accompany a British agent to Egypt to follow up on a lead about a nazi effort to secure an archeological treasure. These first levels represent the exclusive levels for the Xbox version. After that, it's on to Castle Wolfenstein to figure out what's going on and put a stop to it before the tides of war shift to the wrong side.

The cut scenes progressing the story aren't going to make anyone dream longingly of Citizen Kane, but they do contain just the right amount of WWII camp. The story has a slightly silly, Hogan's Hero sort of mood, including Germans speaking in terrible English accents. But it's also got a dark side, reminiscent of Raiders of the Lost Ark, with subject matter concentrating on a nazi attempt to control mystical powers to help win the war.

The graphics serve the game well. While the visual presentation isn't the best to ever grace a video game, it's perfect for Tides of War. The detail of the character models isn't infinite, but it's more than enough to immerse you in the game. Explosions look fantastic and flamethrowers literally bathe a room in a ballet of fire. As far as an interactive environment, many of the secret areas and treasure lie behind breakable walls. Most bottles and barrels lying about can be kicked and shattered, but such efforts are almost always fruitless. You'll find the occasional bottle of wine or hot meal to replenish your health, though. And every once in a while you'll stumble across a can of gasoline, left unattended, just asking to be blown up and take some nazis with it.

The campaign, playable alone or cooperatively with a friend, is fun, long, challenging and varied. Completing it also unlocks the original Wolfenstein 3D. But fighting nazis in the early forties won't appeal to everyone. The multiplayer online components via Xbox Live, however are an absolute blast.

Game types come in three varieties. Checkpoint requires your team to control several areas at once by raising your flag. First team to control all flags at the same time wins, or the team with the most flags when time expires wins. Objective tasks your team with a specific goal to accomplish before time runs out. Stopwatch is similar to Objective, but the clock keeps track of how long it takes your team to accomplish its goal. Then you switch sides and the other team has to match or beat your time. It's a great way to challenge each other and keeps things fresh by switching the teams back and forth.

There are enough huge maps to keep everyone busy for a long time, but two of my personal favorites are Beach Invasion and Trench Toast. Trench Toast is a Checkpoint game with six flags scattered across a battlefield crisscrossed by trenches and bunkers. Beach Invasion starts with the allies in the water and the axis defending a beach wall and bunkers. The objective is to blow a hole in the defenses in at least one of two spots, then infiltrate deep into the bunker to secure and transmit some war documents back to the allies. The hours I've spent playing this map in Stopwatch mode are not easily counted, and it's only going to get worse.

And most of that addictiveness must be due to the level of teamwork inherent in Tides of War. Other games have made strides in making teamwork possible by providing different strengths and weaknesses to different players. Tides of War takes that a step further. Teamwork isn't only possible, it's a necessity. There's no ammo lying around for you to pick up; you can only get it from someone playing a Lieutenant. Ditto for health from a medic. The only way to blow open a wall or door is with the skills of your engineer.

So at the beginning of each match, and usually during, you have to decide what role you want to play. Standard soldiers can carry lots of ammo and have access to the most heavy firepower, like the Panzer rocket launcher, flame thrower and chain gun. Lieutenants have the unique ability to distribute ammo, but they can also call in air strikes and artillery strikes. These are as cool as they sound, and nothing beats the feeling you'll get when you have the flyboys carpet bomb a bunker full of baddies. Medics can hand out health packs and heal fallen teammates. This is an invaluable commodity when you're trying to hold a position and your team's spawn point is a mile away. Each Medic also adds +10 to the health of each team member by his mere existence. Finally, engineers can plant explosives, disarm enemy explosives and fix broken turrets. Not every map makes the same use of the engineer, but TNT is always handy, even if the 30 second fuse requires a bit of luck.

The online games also get other, smaller details right that other Live games don't. From the in-game menu, you can invite a friend into a game and you can find your friends online and join their game. The option to send friend requests to in-game teammates is also there, as well as mute options. These are just examples, but all of these things seem like no-brainers to most of us. They bear mentioning because so many other Live-enabled games leave them out.

The controls are almost infinitely customizable, offering to map any button on the controller to a function in the game. My only complaint is that there isn't a separate button for secondary fire or grenades. It would be nice to throw a grenade or heal someone (or any of the other special abilities of the different classes) without cycling through so many weapons. There is a command for directly selecting your primary weapon, which is handy, but it's obviously not as useful as having dedicated buttons for other attacks or functions.

For those so equipped, Tides of War sounds amazing in surround sound. If you don't have a home theater but know someone who does, this is a case where it's worth it to pack up the Xbox and hook up that bad boy in your friend's place just to hear what you're missing. It's not just about the sound of gunfire from behind you, it's also about the hefty budda-budda-budda of your Thompson sub machine gun as you and the subwoofer work in harmony to turn a nazi into so much hamburger.

Bottom line: The single player game is very good, better than most. The multiplayer online experience of Tides of War, though, is nothing short of spectacular. This game takes full advantage of voice communication and character classes to create the experience some of us have been waiting for a long time. It's as if Xbox Live were made just so we could play Return to Castles Wolfenstein: Tides of War. With any luck, this game will be the first of many to make that claim. Who knows how we'd be spending our free time without the beloved first person shooter. It's probably best not to think about it. But we owe homage to Wolfenstein 3D for opening the door. Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War blows a hole through the wall.