JT_Snowman

That was a great mission! One of my favorites to replay and see which way Priego would run. The reason behind why Priego was able to take other escape routes beside leaving from the fortress was that there was a trap door in the room he was holed up in. The door allowed the mission scripters to choose other escapes routes if he was surrounded. The script would "teleport" Priego and his guard to the caves. However, as you said more often than not they would get stuck in the caves and never make to the helicopter waiting for them.

"Master of Chaos" is good, but "Not a Good Day to Die" is without peer in documenting an event in recent military history as well as giving incredible insight into some of the US's most clandestine units (Delta, ST6, Gray Fox). Highlights. Delta Recce Teams and SEAL Team 6 Recon Teams running high risk reconaisance ops into the Shah-e-Kot valley. Some illucidation on the strategy and troop placement of Task Force 11 in tracking down High Value Targets in Afghanistan. Interestingly biased portrayal of SEAL Team 6. According to accounts in the book ST6 were no where near as professional as Delta soldiers. But the climax is the story of a poorly planned and executed assault on the Shah-e-Khot Valley and the attempted rescue of a ST6 member who fell off a helo under intense enemy fire during an aborted and ill conceived insertion. It is probably the best military book i ever read whose detail and revelation of task force code names and troop strength may walk that fine line of violating the security of these low visibility units.

That RSE did not budget a sufficient amount of time nor resources to complete the PC project is no fault of the fans. ← I'm sorry, but it seems you know very little about game development. ← @ sup: And you know so much because? Hey look. So how far off base am I when I'm saying that GR2 PC was a badly planned and sourced project? I like RSE games as just as much as the next fan but its is so plain to me that development support and time for this project was insufficient. Hello?! This is in fact the official line! I believed you probably have some unfound faith that somehow RSE and/or Ubisoft does not make bad decisions in planning (in which case you would be wrong) and that may be the reason for your optimism. But having followed the development of the PC project and well as some probing discussion with the a few devs, I am convined the the scope and strategic planning for the development of GR2 PC was sorely unsound by the standards of previous RSE projects. RSE as much as you may like them made stretegic errors as did their publisher as well. However, it just seems absurd that you don't hold RSE accountable for the PC cancellation given the obvious third class treatment its received over the past year! Now if I'm still so off base sup and you obviously know the industry as well as you posture yourself to. Please enlighten us!

I'm sorry. I totally disagree with you here. I believe that GR2 PC was a victim of bad strategic planning on RSE's part. I am convinced by the fact that as a result of there not being a dedicated PC development team (confirmed by nearly every dev I talked to at E3 '04) until sometime after E3 May '04, GR2 PC suffered from a lack of developmental resources and ultimately a lack of development time as GR3 for next-gen console loomed near which further required RSE to reshuffle resources. I believe the official line is very much in step with this assertion. That RSE did not budget a sufficient amount of time nor resources to complete the PC project is no fault of the fans. I not bitching about not getting GR2 PC (although I'd like to). What I really what to get straight is who is accountable for GR2 PC's cancellation. I personnally believe and can confidently say that its not the fault of the fans.

WK, I can positively confirm that GR2 PC was not in active development at any time near E3 since a particular RSE producer specifically confirmed it with me during the E3 expo (I wont mention his name but can PM you if you're curious). It is my personal belief that the GR2 PC that we were to see did not begin in earnest until post-E3. And I believe that the scope of that PC version was significantly elevated as a direct result of the uproar from fan sites like gr.net.

To clarify, GR2 for PC was in development when they halted production in Sept/Oct of 2004. That is hardly 2 years. It is barely 8 months ago. Please make sure your accurate with your information. ← I believe connie is referring to the unsubstantiated claim that RSE abandoned the side by side development of a GR2 PC at the time GR2 Xbox was started which was about 2 years ago.

The screenshots look great. I love the style of the art. IMO CoD was a great cinemeatic FPS experience. I hope CoD 2 exceeds and builds on that.

IMHO, The long and short of it is the PC gamers are being shafted and lied to. GR2 PC is NOT being pulled to make a better GR3 PC. The ugly reality is that Red Storm developers are being pulled from the PC development back to console development where their new priorities lay. Let stop fooling ourselves. The PC will never receive the development priorities it needs to make the game we all are hoping for. This is all nothing new really. I think its just time we realize that the PC will be getting the short end of the stick for the foreseable future from Red Storm and UBI.

More Suggestions: Depth of Field. Objects at great distances should look slighly blurry. This will be a boon to players who are savvy at concealing their profiles against the environment. Mk 46 Inaccuracy. The barrel on the Mk 46 SAW should be much shorter. Currently it is modelled with the barrel length of its big brother variant the Mk 48. Also the canvas magazine on the currently modelled Mk 46 should hold only 100 rounds not 200 rounds. Grenadier Ammo Loads. Grenadiers (Derrick Parker and David Foster) and are modelled with harnesses that hold 16 40mm grenades. Allow 16 40mm grenades instead of the six. IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) at Night. The flag emblems and square patches on the sleeves of the Ghosts should fuction as IFF (as it does in real life) by reflectiving and glowing at night when viewed through night vision goggles. This should be at an additional and novel way to identify friendlies in Campaign Mode and Online. Thanks RSE

The rest of Alicia Diaz's gear as best I can identify them. Correct me if I'm wrong: Headgear: Eagle Industries Logo Cap Eyewear: Oakley M Frames with Amber Strike Lens Commo Gear: Tactical Command Industries TASC-II Headset Clothing: US Army Standard BDU with Custom Modified Sleeve Pockets and Velcro Backing. Tactical Vest: Eagle Industries TAC-V10 Holster: Safariland 6004 SLS Tactical Holster Footwear: Altama Black US Military Spec Combat Boot Knee Protection: Alta Industries Olive Drab Knee Pads Gloves: Blackhawk Industries Hellstorm Aviator Nomex Gloves

Great interview! Solid answers by Serellan. It's easy to see why he has risen the ranks at RSE so quickly to take the helm of their top franchise!

For the second question. You can pickup and switch your primary weapon only. Say you want to pick up an AK-47 you walk up to the dropped weapon and hit a button and pick that up and drop your M8/M4/M16. Things like rocket launchers, pistols, and grenades weren't dropped in the Xbox demo. Don't know the answer to the smoke grenade question.

Not sure if anyone's mentioned this before, but there is a command map in the E3 demo. You brought it up with the "X" (Blue) Button. At the time of E3, a completed overhead map wasn't implemented, so you only saw a garble graphic background. But you could see that grid coordinates were finally implemented!

EBgames just confused Red Storm's internal name for Ghost Recon 2 for a new project. From what I've read, its SOP at Red Storm to name their project's after famous historical general's of past wars like Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. For example, the [Ghost Recon] was internally named EISENHOWER. Here's the article:

Just wanted to update this thread with some more info I got after attending the third day of E3. You may have heard of some but I'll try to add some more detail to them. You can now pick up OPFOR (opposing forces) weapons by depressing the analog direction stick when near a dropped weapon. You'll play the entire campaign as just one character. You will not be able to switch to say Nick Salvatore the gunner, but you will be able to change your weapon loadout to use different weapons. M4 and M16 will return as selectable weapons. They be modeled with ACOG, M68 Aimpoints, and other attachments. You will NOT be able to customize the attachemts. The Lead Designer added that he'll likely add the M14 to the arsenal as a marksman weapon! The M249 SAW is now replaced by the Mk46 (lighter and no 30 round mag well) Allied soldiers will include troops from France, Germany, and Australia. Metal surfaces like containers will feature reflective specular surfaces. Now to the bad news: Looks like the PC will indeed take a back seat to the XBox. There is no dedicated PC team this time around. The Xbox team will develop for both platforms. To this date there doesn't seem to be much decided yet as to the direction of the PC version! The consistent response was that there is no concrete direction yet for the PC version. All indications point to a similar experience to the Xbox albeit with some concessions for the fans of the original (ie the hard-core simulation types). PS: I'll edit my earlier post a littel later with some more details of the Characters and there loadouts for anyone whose interested (ie geardos). CORRECTION I'll make a NEW post so its not so confusing what's new and whats not.

Yes, I can confirm first hand you can PEEK, CROUCH, and go PRONE in the E3 Xbox demo. On the Xbox controller you use the digital control pad (the one that looks like an addition sign). LELT, and RIGHT on the pad makes the character peek. UP and DOWN changes the character posture from STANDING, CROUCHING, AND PRONE.

Sorry to be the bearer of all this bad news for the tact and realism fans (me included). But keep in mind the RSE programmer, David Hamm, mentioned way back when Island Thunder was released that the PC team and the Console team were headed in two different directions. Loot: It looks like the artists have gone for a different look for the snipers, which they now call marksmen. No guillie suits. The one marksman that was playable was Alicia Diaz. She was kitted out in woodland BDUs, body armor, olive drab Camelbak hydration system, baseball cap, and Oakley wraparounds. You've already seen Mike Kim, the other marksman, in similar dress but with a boonie hat with scrim. 1)He looked completely healed to me. I didn't notice a limp of any kind. 2)Yes, this particular map seems confined in some spots. Most of the playable area was within the airfield confines. No access to the surrounding area outside the fences 3)Kits were defined by the soldier you chose in pre-mission (Markman/Sniper, Rifleman, Gunner, Grenadier?); usually four weapons: a primary weapon, a secondary, AT-4, and grenades. Although in the demo there was a lot of functionality missing. For instance only the rifleman character and his weapons were playable. Kits were assigned to soldier class as mentioned above. I haven't seen BiA system yet, but what you did was hold down the "Y" buttton and choose one of four directions on a sliced-pie menu (like Raven Shield). 4 players all in one fireteam. Soldier selection functionality wasn't implemented yet from what I could tell.

The demo build was limited to one avatar character, the rifleman. For instance I tried to select sniper or gunner pre-mssion, but as the mission started it defaulted to the rifleman. I overheard from Travis Getz that although it wasn't implemented at the moment, you should be able to point and click for a teammate to take out a tank or helicopter in the final build. Btw, everyone has an AT4 now ( ) so you dont need to switch to take out a tank/helo. I did not see true first person view in action (I didn't see it, but it doesn't mean it isn't in the game). You went first person only when zoomed on your scope.

It was my impression that Xbox was the focus for now. That's now to say something special isn't in-store for the PC. Take what he said and what I heard with a grain of salt I guess. It was just a quick question. Some more about the game: Cont'd Graphics and Physics: Game Engine is Red Storm proprietary (in-house) with Havoc physics engine. Confirmed by Travis Getz Textures depart from photo-realistic to more like how textures look in Unreal (at least to my eyes) Ghost characters were extremely detailed, more polys. Radios and individual pouches were modeled. Body armor and Camelbak hydrationa system is now modeled with more volume When zoomed in. Vision is blurred for near objects. at least the ront of the scope was blurred Havoc engine: small objects like boxes and fier extinguisher could be moved by gun fire. You could ingite a gas storage tank with an AT-4 and cause the adjacent flight contrpol tower to collapse!! I witnessed a grenade kill a tango and his body instead of falling to the ground was strewn over a hood of a car! Trees look like trees from all angles. No more paper cutouts. Cinematics use the in-game engine from what I could tell. Black bars faded into the screen at mission start and end. I saw motion blur and heat blur as Black Hawk swooped in the extraction cinematics. Real impressive! AI: Team AI - they used cover a lot, lots of new point and click commands like: suppress, move, and regroup Enemy AI - they were supposed to be impoved but I witnessed more than once N. Korean soldiers run right up to my teammates and "buttheads" for several second before my avatar character killed him. Command selectin screens looked like Raven Shield were you bring up a transparant "sliced-pie" menu NPCs like the SAS will give direction mid-mission like you flank left. Harder to TK your teammates. Reticle will change to an "X" to indicate friendlies That's it for now. If you have questions I'll try and answer them. I'll be offline till this evening. All in all GR2 was awesome eye candy. I'll let you guys be the judge of the new features.

I asked Travis Getz, Content Manager, this and he replied it may look similar to the Xbox screens. Didn't sound like he knew for sure. He added that the PS2 version is being developed by a dedicated PS2 team with exclusive content.

The Weapons and Vehicles New rifle XM8 (dubbed M8 ingame) with and without nade launcher Pistol is the venerable Beretta M9 M249 SAW now is updated with camoflauged canvas ammo box SPR sniper rifle now has the bipod retracted Body armor was a mix, Gunner had the US issue SPEAR, rifleman had Paraclete RAV, Markman had Blackhawk Ind. DOAV Vest*, Grenadier had either Blackhawk Indy's DOAV STRIKE* Two F-35* Joint Strike Fighters made a fly over in the demo mission A North Korean Kasatka helicopter was present in the demo mission, you can shoot it down with a AAA stationary gun 2 and 1/2 ton utility trucks transporting N. Korean troops that you could blow up with tires flying off The Demo Mission Location North Korean Airfield Objective follow up and secure the airfield after Aerial Bombardment of the area =) Insertion cinematic: Camera pans from sky to ground and you see a shadow of a Blackhawk as you begin but not the model of the helo. NPC support: the Britsh SAS (Boonie Hats, Bergens, Enfields*)!!! They arrive from the west to conduct a joint operation with the Ghosts! You get extracted by Two MH-60K Blackhawks (minus the fuel tanks)* after the mission is over. The cinematic widscreen bars are back and the cinematics are sweet. On par with PS2 cinematics. MEDIC ability. This is big. No dedicated Medic but each soldier has ability to heal superficial wounds and bleeding with Medic Command. Soldier writhes in pain while a fellow soldier comes over to apply first aid. Then voila soldier is healed (You be the judge)

Hi all. I had a chance this morning to experience E3 for the first time. I only had a limited time to spend there today so I went straight to the Ubisoft area in the South Hall. Let me just cut to the chase and give a summary of what I saw. Ghost Recon 2 Booth: Large Ghost Recon 2 logo displayed over a Humvee with Producer Robbie Edwards in the turret 3 plasma screens connected to Xbox's, with Producer Heather Chandler and VP Steve Reid manning the playable demos. Clancy Content Manager Travis Getz and Producer Stuart White manning the other demos in the Microsoft Xbox Area* GR2 Lead Designer Christian Allen* was kitted up in full combat gear (SPEAR armor, M4, the works) The Playable Demo: Only Xbox demo was present to my knowledge Splashscreen was GR2 Logo over an animated background of a wide shot of the Earth from space. 3rd Person over the shoulder view* was showcased, similar to SOCOM but slightly closer NEW sniper/marksman, Alicia Diaz (female) kitted out in baseball cap and oakley wrap-arounds with a yellow visor* Rifle reticle looks similar to logo with a solid half crescent on top half, reticle blooms similar to GR1 Pistol reticle is the exact same and GR1, ie four dashes * indicates edited text

Just clarifying so there's no confusion. The images you linked to are from the US edition of Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) not CGW.

How many players will Ghost Recon 2 host in Mulitplayer? Will the Specialists return? Any new ones? Will cinematic insertions return or will we just magically appear at the IZ again?

Ell, lets us know when the pics from EGM are live on your site. Griz were there any new pics in the preview? And did EGM interview the same devs?