December 2003

Sonedecker Interview Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, December 31 2003
This week we were lucky enough to interview John Sonedecker about Combat Elite, the brand new shooter from Battleborne. We took the opportunity to ask about his departure from Red Storm, the Battleborne team and of course all about Combat Elite.

".. there is no other fully 3d real time rendered game that looks as nice as Combat Elite: WWII Paratroopers.... Of course graphics aren't everything. I think we have achieved an almost perfect balance of run-and-gun action and tactical game play as well."

Read the full interview here.

DYNACOMP Posted by Rocky on Monday, December 29 2003
We have the first of two interviews for you this week. Coming very soon, we have an interview with a game developer about their new title, and today we have an interview with Parabellum about DYNACOMP.

DYNACOMP is shaping up to be a Ghost Recon mod like no other, innovation being the name of the game. It's an interesting read, and you can find it right here.

Xmas Party Mod Posted by Rocky on Monday, December 29 2003
Following on from the success of NYR's Rescue Santa mod, SAF have released their XMAS Party MOD 2003! In this multi-player mod you'll find yourself on SAF Xmas Mountain with special Christmas Characters. SAF are running a server for this mod so once you have it installed, join them at 66.250.220.234. For more info read this forum post, or email Biffa here.

Forum Awards! Posted by Rocky on Sunday, December 28 2003
If you like taking part in Polls, it's your lucky day. The Staff now present the Ghost Recon Forum Awards, containing over 50 polls to vote in spread over 3 categories! Each Poll option has been selected through a process of nominations made by fans over the past few weeks. Thanks go out to zjj for all her work on making this possible!

For forum regulars we have the Humorous Categories. These 12 polls name and shame forum regulars in fun polls such as Most Humorous Poster, Best Name, and Poster who needs a life away from here!

There are 19 polls under the General Category. Again these polls are aimed at fans who have used the forums before, either to ask for help, discuss clans or for any other reason. You can vote for the Best Thread, or Most Helpful Tech Support or Most Addicted Poster for example.

For the final Category we turn to the hugely popular subject of Modding! In here you will find 25 polls allowing you the opportunity to vote for the best mods and modders. So if you have ever played a mod and really enjoyed it, here's your chance to say your own thank you to the modders. Across the 25 polls you'll have the chance to vote for the Best Map Modder, Most Influential Modder, and best Weapons Modder amongst others. Note that some Categories have Part A and Part B polls.

So to summarise there are 3 Categories, you don't need to vote in every poll, just browse the three sections and take your pick! If you have enjoyed the forums and Ghost Recon mods over the past year, give a little back and make a few votes now!

Humorous Polls | General Polls | Modding Polls

Postcard Help Posted by Rocky on Sunday, December 28 2003
Not content with just bringing you Walkthroughs for every Ghost Recon mission from the original campaign, and both expansion packs - we are now publishing walkthroughs for the very best modded campaigns!

Crimson has started the ball rolling with walkthroughs for the first two missions in the superb Postcards From Peru Mod by Jack57.

You can find Mission 1 solved here, and Mission 2 here! The remaining mission walkthroughs will be published shortly. The full campiagn can be downloaded here, and our review is here.

SR2004 Posted by Rocky on Saturday, December 27 2003
Alpha Squad's Stealth Recon 2004 Ghost Recon co-op competition already has 40 teams signed up ready to face arguably the toughest most robust series of competitive missions ever. The competition is due to kick off early in 2004, and has a 1st prize of a Hypernia gamer server for one year. There's an interactive SR2004 image on the right so teams and fans can keep track of progress as the competition evolves! 

Combat Elite Posted by Rocky on Thursday, December 25 2003
We have a real scoop for you here, call it a slightly late Christmas present! As you will know from earlier news posts, Battleborne (of Ossetian Woodlands fame) are producing a new shooter to be released by Acclaim on consoles around Q2 2004.

We can reveal that the game is called Combat Elite : WWII Paratrooper and we have acquired some extremely hot footage grabbed from the PS2 version. Download the 5Mb version here, or the 20Mb version here.

Note that this is early development game footage, and may not be indicative of the final product - it's certainly intriguing footage though. The movie shows off various aspects of the game that raise some interesting gameplay questions, questions we hope to have the answers to shortly. In the meantime, enjoy the movie and feel free to discuss it in our PC Games forum.

Rescue Santa! Posted by Rocky on Thursday, December 25 2003
Thanks to Team [GRNET] member NYR_32 we have an important mission, rescue Santa!

So what are you waiting for, download this small mission, and find Santa, and take him to the extract. He shouldn't be hard to recognise, he has a red suit on and will great you with a "Ho Ho Ho"!

Merry Christmas Posted by Rocky on Thursday, December 25 2003
It's that time of year again, so on behalf of all the Staff here at Ghost Recon.net I'd like to wish all our visitors a Merry Christmas and also the very best for the coming year.

It's been a great year for Ghost Recon, with some truly outstanding mods released by some hard working hardcore Ghost Recon fans, who deserve a large round of applause for their efforts, take a bow - you know who you are!

The coming year is also looking good for some great Ghost Recon mods, as our recent round up proved. Of course we are all waiting with increasing tension for news of a sequel for Ghost Recon, let's hope we found out soon what those bright guys and gals at Red Storm are working on early in the new year. Of course we are tracking the whole next generation of Tactical Shooters in our PC Games forum here.

We will have news on what an ex Red Storm employee is up to though. John Sonedecker has granted us a series of interviews from his new home at Battleborne. Expect to see exactly what this talented and exciting game developer is working on revealed right here in a day or two.

We have quite alot of updates to make early next year too. The Staff have been working with some forum regulars to bring you brand new mission walkthroughs, including some for popular mods, and also alot of updates for the Arms section. Expect to see those in January 2004. Our Ghost Recon dedicated game server will be opened up to the public shortly too, so watch out for details on that and join us in some coop games soon!

I have also commissioned a short movie to celebrate the continuing success and popularity of Ghost Recon.net, it's called Mad World and should be ready for viewing in January 2004.

TG3 Posted by Rocky on Monday, December 22 2003
Tactical Gamer v3.0 was released recently to members of Tacticalgamer.com, and now that it's on general release we've put of copy at Fileplanet for your gaming pleasure! For the 55Mb download you get over 30 missions, of which eight are brand new missions to the TacticalGamer series. What's peeked our interest is that some of these missions are on the fantastic Frostbite maps. You'll need Frostbite, Desert Siege and Island Thunder to play.

Visit Tactical Gamer's forums here for the very latest on this mod.

Arms Update Posted by Rocky on Saturday, December 20 2003
Chems has updated the Arms section with two new reports. The MH-60K Blackhawk can be found here, and details of the BMP-3 Infantry Fighting Vehicle can be found here.

Easy Patch Posted by Rocky on Friday, December 19 2003
No Easy Day has been patched to version 1.2 to fix a few errors. There are full new downloads at DTD, or a small patch to download. Please check the DTD site for instructions on correctly applying this patch.

Xbox Live DLC Levels for GR:IT Posted by Xian_Saint on Thursday, December 18 2003
Even though a majority of the Ghost Recon players here prefer to play it on the PC, you just can't help being slightly envious of those who get to "download" add-on levels via Xbox Live. The official Ghost Recon site has just posted some video clips of three upcoming levels for the Xbox version of Ghost Recon: Island Thunder, only available on Xbox Live. Check out the full article here or go straight to the download page here.

No Easy Day Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, December 17 2003
DTD released No Easy Day today! Featuring an immersive 6 mission campaign this mod also includes the usual high quality weapons from DTD - except this time there are over 120 of them!

As to be expected, this is a highly polished mod with plenty of eye candy and clever surprises. Broadband users download the full 190Mb file here, narrowband users try this 85Mb file and this 112Mb file.

Need more info? Check out this review from Suicide Commando! More forum discussion and No Easy Day history here.

Forum Awards!!! Posted by zjj on Tuesday, December 16 2003
It's that time of the year!  Where we sit around and watch the endless parade of awards being shown on TV and wonder who voted for them?!  Often saying to yourself, "No one asked my opinion."

We are asking for your opinion.  GhostRecon.net would like to recognize people from our own forums for various awards; however, we need nominations from you. Tell us who you think is the most influential modder, or which mods you think are the best ever made, or the most recognized clan, or .... The categories seem endless, but see for your self. You can see the complete list of categories and submit your nominations here.

Ubi Soft in Court Posted by Rocky on Monday, December 15 2003
Ghost Recon and Raven Shield publisher Ubi Soft slipped under our radar when they fired an injunction in the direction of Electronic Arts back in September this year. The recent result of the court case did not escape us however, as Ubi Soft have won their case in a surprising result that has disappointed many in the games industry.

As explained at Game Industry.biz back in September...

"Ubisoft has applied for an injunction to prevent key staff who worked on the Splinter Cell project from taking new jobs with Electronic Arts, a move which it claims breaks a clause in their contracts"

This move by Ubi Soft was prompted by the defection of 5 developers to Electronic Arts, a move that Ubi Soft maintained broke a clause in their conditions of employment, even though they left Ubi Soft months before.

According to this weblog, Ubi Soft's case was upheld recently in a judgement at the Québec Court of Appeal when they found in favour of the company.

Quite why so many of the development team were so keen to leave Ubi Soft is not known. Another high profile developer to leave this year of course was John Sonedecker, who is now employed as Creative Director with relative newcomers Battleborne. Ghost Recon fans will of course remember Battleborne for their excellent Ghost Recon mod released back in May 2002, and they are now working on a new console game!

Mod Updates Posted by Rocky on Sunday, December 14 2003
Chems has been working hard on his two mods at the moment to get them closer to completion. The British Infantry mod is all finished up except for missions which are been worked on currently. The LAW shown below will appear in this mod.

Chems has also finished off the last two major models for Starship Troopers. The flying Bug and the Jeep can be seen above.

Mission Competition Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, December 10 2003
Tactical Gamer's Ghost Recon mission competition has 3 weeks to run, so it's not too late to fire up Igor and script your entry! Full details of the competition can be found here and they have even provided a tutorial on how to use Groups in Igor, you can find that here. Good luck!

3d Glasses - ATi Posted by Rocky on Monday, December 8 2003
A while back I published a review for eDimernsional's 3d glasses running on a Nvidia system. We now have another review, this time for ATi card owners.

"I may seem a bit excited here, but this effect is one you just have to see to believe. It cannot be duplicated in a 2D world. I also tried out a few weapon mods. It's incredible how much effort these modders put into their work, and in this 3D world, it really shows!"

Read Dark Ranger's full review here. [Note that eDimensional are running a shipping-free offer in the run up to Christmas]

GR2 Editorial Posted by Rocky on Saturday, December 6 2003
CR6 has posted an editorial on the current speculation about Ghost Recon 2, clearing up some of the myths and explaining the XBox connection, read it here.

Mod Recon Posted by Rocky on Thursday, December 4 2003
Pyro Monty has put together our third Mods Round Up report detailing upcoming mods that are on the horizon and due for a release in the not too distant future.

In this selection we have 4 very nice looking mods, including Tears of The Sun, Dynacomp, British Infantry Mod and American Civil War. Each of these mods has top rated Ghost Recon modders on the team and every one of them looks promising. Check them out in the report and also in our forums and start looking forward to a very happy new year!

HX5 : day 30 Posted by Rocky on Thursday, December 4 2003
Harntrox has posted a 30 day review of HX5 : Red Sun, read it here. In one month this mod has been downloaded around 40,000 times, quite an achievement! It's an interesting read and explores some of the innovative features you may have missed, so check it out and also remember to visit Drag Mods here too. 

Sun Maps Posted by Rocky on Monday, December 1 2003
DGSE_Valdez from Clan DGSE has released his Sun Maps Ghost Recon mod. Primarily a mod featuring 25 retextured levels, Sun Maps also boasts a new 24 restriction kit , which allows selection of the kit you prefer for your AI backup in multiplayer games. Also included are a new Firefight game and a new Recon game. For some screenshots and fan feedback check this discussion. Download the 90Mb mod here.