March 2004

Review Committee Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, March 31 2004
A new anti-cheat initiative is just getting off the ground, and it has some big hitters backing it up. You can find more details at the review-committee.com and in this forum post.

Diablo Review Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, March 31 2004
If you have never heard of Operation Diablo, now's your chance to catch up and avoid missing out on this mission pack from =Ghost= and Militia Man. Thanks to Giwex you can read a review of this mod and see what you are missing out on.

"Operation Diablo consists of a 5 mission campaign mainly based off Island Thunder maps. There is also 1 bonus mission on an extra map (MLP castle) created by LowProfile. ... Operation Diablo is not merely several missions put together, but a very well planned setting"

Read the review here.

Tigers Review Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, March 31 2004
Suicide Commando has reviewed Tigers 2.5 by ogre_h.

"... the mod features heavily on various tiger stripe patterns in use by military units throughout the world. These include the U.S., Russia, South East Asia and numerous other regions as well. "

Read the full review here and view images in the forums here.

WOI Movie Posted by Rocky on Tuesday, March 30 2004
Don Miguel is releasing a batch of updated mods and tools in a couple of days, so check back soon for full details on that. In the meantime check out this promo movie produced for the latest version of War of Infamy. Remember to visit warofinfamy.com for details on what's coming up!

Operation Stabilise Posted by Rocky on Monday, March 29 2004
Gordo_Viper has prepared an excellent mod review for Aus_Viper's terrific Operation Stabilise mod. This huge review takes a look at every aspect of the mod, contains links to example images, and I added some fan feedback just to emphasise how great this project is. 

"These missions are detailed and for once the mission briefings are fact filled and don't drivel on with unnecessary data and information. The mission briefings are well done and military terms and units are accurate."

I am really glad Gordo_Viper prepared this review as its omission from our Reviews collection woulds have been a crime. Read the whole thing here.

Stalker's Tips Posted by Rocky on Sunday, March 28 2004
Stalker has put together two valuable help files for modders. The latest one is called the Mission Scripting Resource Center and can be found here. It contains links to various scripting tutorials to be found around the web. Stalker's other resource list can be found here, and is a superb list of Skinning tutorials.

Littlebird Posted by Rocky on Thursday, March 25 2004
Chems is releasing his cracking model of a AH-6 Littlebird to the modding community

You'll find everything you need in this 2Mb package, including a test mission where you can see them in all their glory. You can post your comments and thanks to Chems here.

New Map : WSV Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, March 24 2004
White Skull Valley is shaping up to be one of the greatest custom maps for Ghost Recon ever. It's has been in the works for approximately 8 months and during the past two weeks GR.net Consultant NYR was treated to a hands on tour of the map provided by the map designer |rsi| deleyt.

WSV makes use of no textures at all from the original Ghost Recon, all textures in this map are brand new custom made. These details along, with a whole slew of others (including extras to make custom scripting easier) will make this map a true classic.  One of these fine details is a wood bridge that took about 40 hours of work to complete. The full package that will be released will contain new weapons, skins, missions and game-types. Check out the details, also screenshots of White Skull Town and discussion here.

WMC 2b Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, March 24 2004
The next round of the GhostRecon.net Weapon Modding Championships is now open! This time the weapon of choice is the Steyr AUG A2, as selected by Pyro Monty. Chems has posted full details here, so check it out and get modelling. If you want to keep track on the entries as they come in, bookmark this post.

Forum Upgrade Complete! Posted by Rocky on Tuesday, March 23 2004
In record time the new forums are online!

If you find any problems, or indeed any new features that you like, please post in this area of the forums. A huge vote of thanks goes to Super Bob for handling the whole upgrade with such efficiency!

Forums Upgrade Posted by Rocky on Tuesday, March 23 2004
We will be updating our forums over the next 24 hours, which will include some downtime. I know this will be hard on some of you, but hang in there! There's almost 200Mb of data to move around so it will take some time.

When they are back up you should notice they look basically the same, but with some nice new features for you to play around with. Your existing accounts should not be affected, everything will be brought forward.

If you get really bad withdrawal symptoms, you could do worse than use our other forums at Aggression!

Ghost Recon Complete Posted by Rocky on Monday, March 22 2004
Although I can't find it at Amazon, European gamers might like to check their computer stores as I did find Ghost Recon Complete for sale at Game at the weekend, you can also find it in PC World. Ghost Recon Complete contains the original game and both expansion packs, retailing for well under the price of a new game. That's alot of gameplay for not alot of Euro - especially considering it'll open up a wealth of IT-Required mods!

Africa Burning Posted by Rocky on Monday, March 22 2004
Here's a new 9 mission campaign from Mig that should work well offline, or on your dedicated server. Please check the readme prior to playing! Requires Desert Siege and Island Thunder, download here. Remember to leave Mig some feedback in our forums!

Alpha Squad Server Posted by Rocky on Saturday, March 20 2004
Alpha Squad are changing things around at the moment, and asked us to let regular server users know that Alpha 2 server is now at IP 66.250.220.245.

GR N-Gage *updated* Posted by Rocky on Friday, March 19 2004
The first screenshot of the handheld N-Gage version has been posted at N-Gage France. The shot is from an early version and will be slightly different in the finished version, however you can see right away that this is different from most handheld conversion in that the 3-D environment has not been sacrificed for a flat 2-D one. We'll be keeping an eye on this one!

*update* IGN have more new images, check them out here.

VOA Updated Posted by Rocky on Thursday, March 18 2004
As promised here's the updated VOA mod mentioned on Monday, requires Island Thunder, contains 20 coop missions and is 55Mb, grab it here. Delete the old version.

Scared Posted by Rocky on Thursday, March 18 2004
Recently we posted Tim Leary's VOA mod, shortly we'll have a new version available that fixes an issue with the env files, so you can all enjoy the 20 coop missions without any problems.

Until then, why not try his 7 mission coop pack Scared v1.0. Download here (needs Island Thunder). Visit his website for alternative downloads and also the Mac versions.

SOTO Interview Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, March 17 2004
Phoenix has interviewed GR.net staff member SOTO Mac regarding the anti-cheat initiative KidBuster.

"Here's a simple way to state what it does. We have the game, in it's pristine state. As the program goes through successive levels of coding and editing, some files are found to be known cheats. These files, or cheats, are then coded into Kid Buster’s database. Each time a player logs into Kid Buster, the activex applet checks the users files against the known cheats in the database. "

Read the full interview here.

USMC **UPDATED** Posted by Rocky on Monday, March 15 2004
USMC Force Recons 1.0 by Sixpence is now available for download at rainbowsix.org.

"The Skinmod shows the USMC Force Recons, equipped for Deep Recon, all Characters skinned with US Marines. The Marines wear Boonie Hats and Backpacks, extended Weaponry is inside, also new Reticules. DS & IT compatible."

The download is painfully slow at r6.org, I'll have a faster mirror up shortly.

**UPDATE**

As requested and promised, here's the FP mirror, download here.

VOA v1.0 *updated* Posted by Rocky on Monday, March 15 2004
Volunteers of America is a brand new 20 mission campaign from Tim Leary. It's 54Mb and you can download it here. This is a multiplayer co-op mission pack, that requires Island Thunder. If you enjoy these missions, check back later this week when I'll be posting another mission pack by the same author. Mac version will be available shortly too.

*update* A report in from Red Sector Incorporated indicates there may be an issue with this mod and ATi cards due to the environment files included with the mod - we will update as we know more, if you have problems running this mod online please let us know and we will pass it along to the author.

CV 9040C Posted by Rocky on Sunday, March 14 2004
I recently posted some sweet eye candy in the form of Chem's cracking rigid raider, now here's something equally impressive and a whole lot more imposing, the CV 9040C modelled by Snowfella.

The detailing is quite superb, as is the texturing, make sure you check this thread for more close up images. This is only one of the brand new models you will find in SWEBAT 2005 when it gets released. This mod has been underway since before last summer, and is shaping up to be something rather special. The modding team of Tollen, Snowfella, Thumper1518, Lancer and Mamon are doing a terrific job, and we can't wait to get our hands on the final version.

GR : JS nGage Posted by Rocky on Saturday, March 13 2004
The Gameloft dev team behind Ghost Recon Jungle Storm for the nGage dropped some interesting news into us today. It's only a couple of weeks away before the Nokia PR machine goes into overdrive and starts advertising what the game developers are calling "the best mobile game yet", here's some more...

"Forget anything you ever thought you knew about Mobile Games. GR:JS on the nGage is looking to raise the bar for what people expect in 'large scale' mobile gaming productions"

PD Weapons v3.0 Posted by Rocky on Friday, March 12 2004
Pyscho Dad has come through with the goods yet again with the latest incarnation of his Weapons mod.

"All the 2.0 guns are still there (including chicken launcher), but have been improved on greatly. There are also some sweet new toys including a special PD original called the shredder (basically the USAS modified into a GAU type weapon). "

You can download the 4Mb mod here and read or leave feedback here. Here's some feedback already left, from ghostrecon50...

"All I can say is great Job once again. I also love the new rets. I am not sure what is my favorite, but time will tell. Also killer sounds."

SAM Posted by Rocky on Friday, March 12 2004
The Arms section has been updated with details on the tracked SAM vehicle from Desert Siege. The report was compiled by Captain Maxwell and can be read here.

Rigid Raider Posted by Rocky on Tuesday, March 9 2004
It's about time we had some new eye candy to drool over, and thanks to Chem's that's exactly what we have here - check it out.

This is the Rigid Raider from Chems' upcoming British Infantry Mod. You can read more about that and check out more images of this very nice example of modelling right here in the forums.

Alpha Squad Posted by Rocky on Monday, March 8 2004
As some of you have already noticed, Alpha Squad are having technical problems with their website right now. Teams playing in SR2004 should take note of this advise from Iceman.

"This will not affect any matches because they are on our Hypernia Server. Also, the only affect it will have on scheduling for Map 2 is that they may have to wait abit before it's posted on the scheduling page."

Latest details at the end of this discussion.

GR2 for XMAS? Posted by Rocky on Sunday, March 7 2004
Eurogamer are guessing that Ghost Recon 2 will be out for Christmas, not much substance to the guess (apart from the financial report mention we exposed here months ago), but it keeps it in the mainstream headlines! We'll be publishing our own thoughts about what will be happening this year with Ghost Recon in a special report very soon!

M1 Abrams Posted by Rocky on Tuesday, March 2 2004
Thanks to some research by Sartillies we now have the M1 Abrams in the Arms section.

"The M1 Abram is the current main battle tank for the United States Army. Originally developed in 1976 as the XM1, and still made today by "General Dynamics Land Systems", the Abram was named after Creighton Abrams, and was set out to replace the older M60 tanks"

More details and full specs nd 3 photos in the full report!

IGOR Tutorial Posted by Rocky on Tuesday, March 2 2004
NYR has prepared a neat tutorial to help anyone looking to start using IGOR to create their own Ghost Recon missions. This is a very basic introduction that can lead to the black art of mission scripting, so beginners start here!

As well as learning how to create a team of enemy actors and set them on a patrol path, the tutorial includes 3 small movies showing exactly how it's done in IGOR. We hope this new tutorial encourages some new modding talent to take the plunge and produce some new Ghost Recon missions.

If this gives you a taste for modding using IGOR, Tactical Gamer's H-Hour has an IGOR workshop this Wednesday, full details about that can be found here in the forums.