Bad Company 2 Vietnam, New Vegas DLC fire up XBL

Leading the pack today is the Vietnam expansion (1,200 MS points, or $15) for Battlefield: Bad Company 2. The multiplayer pack will allow players of the contemporary military shooter to take a trip back in time to the Vietnam War, which raged from the mid-1960s to early 1970s. It will consist of four maps, including the rice fields of the Phu Bai Valley and the napalm-kissed wasteland of Hill 137. The Vietnam expansion will also pack in a number of period-specific weapons, including the Navy SEAL XM22 machine gun.

The expansion will also feature all-new dialogue based on actual Vietnam War radio chatter, as well as eight radio channels with nearly 50 tracks. The selection of songs will range from Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son" to Richard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries."

Another digital ware out today is Fallout New Vegas' first batch of add-on content, Dead Money (800 MS points, or $10). The downloadable content will see players captured by an unnamed party and dispatched along with three other wasteland wanderers to recover the fabled treasure of the Sierra Madre casino. Though no other plot details were given out, its central quest references the classic 1948 film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, in which four treasure hunters who uncover a cache of gold in rugged terrain slowly turn on each other.

Switching to the Xbox Live Arcade, the first title in Microsoft's Games for the Holidays promotion, A World of Keflings (800 MS points, or $10), is due out on Wednesday. A follow-up to 2008's well-regarded A Kingdom for Keflings, the latest effort from developer Ninja Bee will let players use their Xbox avatars to help build a world for the game's titular residents.

Arriving on the Games on Demand hub today was Rockstar's critically adored Western Red Dead Redemption and Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. The former is a product of Rockstar San Diego and follows John Marston across western badlands, and the latter tracks the prince's exploits during the seven-year timeline gap between 2003's The Sands of Time and 2004's Warrior Within.

Microsoft also today kicked off its Xbox Live Countdown to New Year's Eve promotion with hefty discounts on Red Dead Redemption downloadable content. For more on the promotion, check out Major Nelson's blog.