Project IGI 2 is going to feature multiplayer modes! One of the biggest criticisms aimed at the original game was that it lacked a multiplayer mode. When it failed to materialise in the retail release, fans gagging for a bit of online action were placated when they heard of Innerloop's plan to release a patch at a later date which would include multiplayer functionality. Unfortunately this never arrived. Innerloop is now addressing this issue for the sequel, and at the moment we can confirm that there will be team-based multiplayer in there... [more]

10. Does the game have 'atmospherics' in it? (rain, snow, lightning, etc?)

Jason: Our environments are dripping with gooey atmosphere. Our technology is geared towards making you feel like you are there. So we have rain, snow, some really incredible clouds, great lighting, swaying grass, and all sorts of other cool effects.

One of Ghost Recon's other beauties is its squad control method. You can now order your units around in real-time by simply bringing up a map of the playing area, selecting your squad, and then clicking on an area of the map that you want them to move to. You can also jump into the shoes of any soldier in your team by bringing up your squad list at the press of a key and then selecting a member of your unit with the left mouse button. It's nice and simple and extremely effective.

Take up the rifle of Dmitri Lukin, ex-Spetsnaz, busted to grunt for a stupid mistake. Using all your specialist skills and years of experience, stay alive long enough to redeem yourself in the sight of the USSR.

Q: Will stealth play a big part in terms of gameplay in GR?

A: Stealth is a very vital component to several missions. As always, it is easier to defeat the enemy force if they do not know where you are shooting from. As a result, everyone has the capability to carry a silenced firearm. Also, one of the dedicated skills is stealth to help you sneak up on any enemies that you see first. Your stance and movement speed have a big impact on how far away you can be before and enemy spots you. Crawling prone into a good combat spot is a great tactic in the single player and coop missions.

And the level of detail on everything is incredibly high. While many people thought the foliage in Operation Flashpoint was hot, the trees and bushes and grass effects in Ghost Recon are much more believable. It's a shame that you can't tell just from the screenshots but the way the trees sway in the wind adds a whole new level of credibility to the environments. The buildings, water and sky effects also add a touch of realism.

Bohemia's newest release has bits and pieces of every first-person war simulation to date. You begin as a common infantryman in the modern army, following orders in a small platoon as you traverse hostile territory resembling the Balkan region. Later on, you play the role as a tank commander, controlling all aspects of the powerful M1 Abrams in battle. As the campaign progresses, you even get to hop in an attack helicopter, bringing the fight to the air. There are many other duties players take on throughout the campaign such as mine-laying, special operations, assassination, hostage rescue, and machine gunnery. Operation Flashpoint also lets you commandeer any vehicle you happen upon during the conflict, so you may find yourself behind the wheel of a tractor, a Humvee, or even an Eastern European Trabbi.

What do you think of the SWAT 3 community and what is the general image of the SWAT 3 community within Sierra?

I think the community accurately represents a terrific game. Everyone seems dedicated to making SWAT 3 enjoyable for the longest amount of time possible and they hold the game to a very high level. However, I think because the fans are so dedicated to the game, they tend to be very critical of any bugs or things that are not perfect within the game. Sierra loves the SWAT 3 community; after all, it’s the fans that allow for the great products coming. Lastly, I think the community needs to slow down and let my levels’ Easter eggs last a little longer!

Date: Thursday October 25 2-3 PM PST
Server: irc.gameloft.com
Channel: #GRchat

Taking the role of mercenary Logan, the player is armed with a massive arsenal including knives, pistols, sniper rifles, machine guns, plasma rifles, flame throwers and rocket launchers. Our hero is also given Implants, which can improve character's parameters (like accuracy, health, or speed), and Equipment, which includes flashlights, radar, sonar, med-kits, drugs (stimulators), various explosives & grenades, and other non-firing weapons, which can be used during missions.

Where in the timeline for release do you currently stand on Renegade and will players have the ability to demo the game prior to release?

Renegade will be released February 12, 2002. We are currently looking at the possibility of releasing a demo prior to launch, but we haven’t made any definite decisions.

HomeLAN - What can you tell us about the single player missions of Black Thorn? Is there an overall story arc to the game?

Patrick Naud - Team Rainbow will be faced with what seems to be recreation of historical terrorist acts but further along the campaign, we’ll discover who is the mastermind behind all these re-enactments and his motivation for recreating all of this.

Like the previous games in the Tom Clancy series, Ghost Recon focuses on modern-day squad-based tactics, but it features large open environments in addition to smaller interior areas. It also features improved animation and graphics, along with a number of new gameplay features such as character development and the ability to take control of any of the characters on the squad.

The "switch to any character" feature seems to be similar to the Rainbow Six games. Do you plan to build missions that *require* you to switch between characters, or would it be possible to just play using one character?

Sometimes you’ll be required to use a character’s special ability, but the possibility of switching to an arbitrary soldier was implemented mainly for getting different game experiences for each character.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - October 23 2001: Ubi Soft Entertainment is delighted to announce that the title Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon has reached Gold Master Status.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon has been developed by Red Storm Entertainment, the studio behind the multi-award winning 'Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six' franchise.

Set in the year 2008, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon is a squad based tactical combat game that follows the exploits of a fictional US Special Forces team. Russia has fallen under the control of ultra-nationalistic leaders intent on rebuilding the Iron Curtain. This leads to conflict with NATO as Russia attempts to reclaim the breakaway republic of Georgia, and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. As the war escalates, casualties mount, hostages are taken and the Ghosts are sent in.

The player takes command of the Ghosts through a series of missions that range from demolitions, to search and rescue, to all-out firefights for survival.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon ships on PC CD ROM on November 13th 2001. MSRP $49.99

You get your mission briefing at the start of each level and can choose to stick with the AI soldiers, heading for the same control points as they do. These will always be interesting areas that have to be taken out. Or you can choose to go your own way, even though you don't know what you'll stumble upon. It could be a minefield or another machine gun in the bushes."

Everything in Operation Flashpoint is so thorough it’s amazing, and this extends (most of the time) to the AI. The AI can be set from “target practice” to “retry the level” (not really, but you get the idea). The AI will, on occasion, pick you off with ease. And it’s hard to get away from the crossfire, since the damage modeling is accurate in nature, meaning one or two shots and you are watching a death cut scene. It’s a tense situation, as there are many ways of dying (including getting run over by a tank: don’t ask). All told, Operation Flashpoint delivers the goods in the most realistic war action shooter present in our gaming realm in quite a while.

* controls are now more intuitive, we use the roll bar, you simply point to an object and a list of actions you can perform is displayed.

* story - there is a great background story in the game, everything you do makes sense

* graphics - very much improved - shadow maps, realtime shadows, single mesh characters, more than 150.000 faces per mission. Anyway, its better to look at the screenshots attached

* animations - we bought our own motion capture studio, so we can recapture any movement we are not satisfied with whenever we want, for no extra cost

* engine is totally new, we use the same engine for Mafia and other games within Illusion Softworks. It’s being developed by four extra people and it’s tweaked to a maximum. We don´t know about any other engine which is so good for both indoor and outdoor, and runs also on Playstation2 and will run on X-Box

* code - there are 5 programmers working on the game (apart from engine programmers - they are extra) and they have enough time to polish their code. As for the AI, one person is doing just the AI full-time

* music is now composed by Czech musicians and played by a live orchestra

So if you wanted to be cruel you would stick this game in a similar category to the likes of 'Delta Force' and 'Rainbow Six', but being fair to OPF even it is not THAT similar to those games. For OPF happily sits in the middle of the two genres, taking the best features of each, and losing some of their more unattractive qualities in the process. And to be honest, it pulls it off nicely!

As fun as the game is, it is devilishly hard. The computer AI is mixed, but generally very intelligent. AI troops will attempt to flank your position, hide and even call in reinforcements to get rid of you; I can?t count the number of times I was picked off by some Russian super shot! As the game tries to recreate an accurate depiction of war, it?s only going to take one or two shots to kill you.

The best approach for this game is stealth, enemy react to noises and commotion, the lower your profile the higher the chance of succeeding. This is not a game where you try and clear the level of enemies, be a coward, run and hide until the coast is clear. You’re best buddy is the zoom function on the weapons, spotting and listening out for enemies while crouching in a river or behind a bush will give you the upper hand, especially with the sniper rifle primed and ready for action.

The demo includes:
- full multiplayer functionality including the new Lone Wolf multiplayer mode
- one new map
- New weapons including the P90, in suppressed and unsuppressed versions

Be sure to look for Black Thorn’s 9 new single player maps, 6 new multiplayer maps and 14 new weapons on store shelves on November 1!

AI will also be getting substantial attention. From what we saw, the AI is a bit hard to quantify due to the nature of the brief flares of intense action, but what we can say the spawn points from the original are going to be removed completely. This outing will instead rely on preset amounts of characters carefully placed in missions. And once dead, these characters are dead. None of that "phone booking" to death a rat only to find twelve more scurry from a hole crap.

Today we are happy to confirm that reports of Ghost Recon's exclusivity have been greatly exaggerated. A brief statement from UbiSoft reveals that "there is no exclusivity partnership between Ubi Soft and Microsoft for Ghost Recon on the Xbox, therefore Ghost Recon may be developed on some other systems in the future". Which seems to suggest it may even be released on other next-gen consoles at some point. Even better news though is that the original PC version of the game is now due out in the UK on November 22nd, two weeks earlier than expected.

So what of the NPC’s which attend you throughout your missions? Well the artificial intelligence they are imbued with was a pleasant surprise, and the way you can select you and your sidekicks character, ammo and armory, added a greater strategic requirement based on each mission. Each character available to choose had a variety of individual talents, such as Sniper and Reconnaissance skills, etc. with different mission requirements demanding different abilities.

The introductory mission is known as Operation Lafayette. Five miles northwest of Outreau is a chateau that is used as headquarters for Hauptmann Emil Strauss, a military intelligence officer with German HQ in Calais. Strauss is at the chateau and he is carrying a briefcase full of important documents. The mission is rather simple: Pick a detail of four soldiers, trek across the countryside undetected (or reasonably so), enter the chateau, kill Strauss, steal the briefcase and transmit the information back to the allies, then get to the exit zone.

ROGUE SPEAR BLACK THORN(tm) GOES GOLD, IN STORE NOVEMBER 1ST 2001 WITH EXCLUSIVE BONUS CD

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - October 15, 2001 - Ubi Soft Entertainment is proud to announce that Tom Clancy's Rogue Spear Black Thorn has gone gold. The mission pack for the popular franchise will be in stores on November 1st priced $29.99

Rogue Spear Black Thorn contains nine new single-player missions, six new dedicated multi-player maps, 14 new weapons, and an all-new Lone Wolf multi-player mode.

Rogue Spear Black Thorn will also contain an additional bonus CD 'The Making of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon' which will give consumers an exclusive behind the scenes look at one of the most anticipated PC games of 2001 - Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon. The CD features development interviews, gameplay videos, design art and gameplay tips from the team.

The most amazing thing that struck me about the game was all the tactics we used, and the way the missions were lined out, it was exactly like it was in the Army. This game is the closest thing to being in the real military as you can get, short of signing the line.

The squad will fight in realistic environments featuring tall grass, bushes, trees, demolished buildings, water, and smoke. Weather effects such as fog, rain and snow will also be on hand, although the real dangers will be authentic hazards such as minefields, barbed wire, and beach obstacles encountered during D-Day.

The Random Scenario Generator is a lot like an RTS game. We use our terrain generator and generate a land map and populate it with buildings, trucks, barrels, crates, enemies, light poles and other environmental goodness. You choose the enemy set, time of day, weather, mission goals, etc. and it generates the map and objectives for you. It's like a nearly-infinite single player campaign.

The Colombia level shows off several of Soldier of Fortune II's more appealing aspects, including the Quake III engine's ability to render massive outdoor environments. Some of the early screenshots showed off this level's gorgeous jungle environments, and the vegetation you'll find here is even more impressive in motion. Unlike other games that use sprites for grass, all the undergrowth in Soldier of Fortune II is procedurally drawn, so it looks and acts realistically. But as good as it looks, this technique isn't just for show, as the grass can be used by you and your enemies for cover. Specifically, one of the new features in the game will be the ability for you to lie in a prone position, which provides excellent cover against enemies on patrol.

Deadly Dozen is the story of a team of twelve misfits unable to conform to the standards imposed by the United States armed forces. These deadly dozen utilize authentic WWII weapons and vehicles in taking on ten impossible missions (some the recreation of famous battles) across France, Libya, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Germany, and North Africa at the height of World War II.

The sound of the game draws you in quite well. Some of the voice acting is a bit strained, but overall it is great. The constant radio chatter among your squad helps to diminish the chaos of combat a bit, yet makes the game ever more exciting. It contrasts very nicely with missions when you are alone, and the silence is very disquieting, emphasizing the fact that you have no one to turn to. The effects are well done as well, and the stereo implementation makes it fairly easy to locate an enemy from the sound of their gunfire.

While we expect the single player experience to be fun, the multiplayer action is where this series has always thrived. In Ghost Recon you will be allowed to respawn depending on variables set by the server administrator. Each game can have 36 players on the server (4 teams of 9) but you are going to need a good computer/connection to run that many players regardless of what game you are playing. There are four multiplayer modes: last man standing, deathmatch, search and rescue and king of the hill. The king of the hill will be the most exciting, where you fight for certain points on the map and try to hold them. What makes this awesome is that you can set up players to guard certain areas, maybe in an alley behind the hold point or a sniper with his gun sweeping the objective. Tactics will play a large roll in your success or failure.

12th of October is date of the availablity the game in UK. US version will include 3 languages support and will be finished next week by us. The exact date of publishing will be anounced in a week.

To survive you will have to try to always keep cover or concealment between you and your target, concealment being bushes, vegetation and certain trees. It only takes one bullet to kill, two if your lucky…or unlucky, depending who’s side your on. If you don’t have cover or concealment then stay on the move. Moving targets are hard targets. Though I would suggest to keep on the move in either case, moving from one concealment to another, pausing only long enough to nail a few Tangos . You’ll be up against some seriously tough AI. One solider might not cause that much fuss, but once others are aware they are a force to be reckoned with. For example the AI never runs in a straight path, they move unpredictably, making them awfully hard targets.

Some of the weapons were rather disappointing as well. The sniper rifle was very satisfying to use, picking off enemy troops in the distance with a neat zoom function, but by contrast the flamethrower was utterly useless. Not only did it look incredibly ugly in action, firing a stream of pixellated sprites at your enemies, but it also seemed to cause very little damage against even the softest of targets and apparently couldn't set people on fire either.

What is it all about the "Ballistics System"?

Well basically BD has developed a very sophisticated system to track the power that each bullet has while it is in the air. As each bullet strikes a material, then the system calculates if the bullet will penetrate and with how much force. This calculation is performed on each surface the bullet strikes until it can not penetrate. So you can shoot through walls and even through a wall and a object including people. SO a 9mm handgun might not go through a wall, but a .308 rifle round will.

Red Storm Entertainment's newest tactical shooter had a brutally simple beginning. "We were," lead designer Brian Upton sighs, "sick of rescuing hostages." Despite the commercial and critical success of the Rainbow Six games, Upton and the other designers at the Raleigh, North Carolina-based developer wanted to try something a bit different. Something more visceral, with less detailed planning and more on-the-fly decision-making. Something that keeps the real-world grounding of Rogue Spear but in a setting more conducive to straightforward mayhem.

The largest incomplete task is the artificial intelligence, Vochoka said, quipping, “It’s the last 20 percent of the project, which is 80 percent of the game, as all developers say and we know is true.” The HD2 team will have to finish the AI and the road to Alpha without Lead Designer Tomas Pluharik, who Illusions recently let go due to creative differences. Vochozka praised Pluharik’s depth of knowledge about HD1 as well as World War II, but admitted Pluharik’s ambitions were greater than what could be accomplished in a single game. Stepping into Pluharik’s shoes are designers Radek Havlicek and Juraj Bocinec, who have been working with Illusion for over a year. Veteran developers Peter Kubek and Martin Benes, who have been with Illusion since HD1 and have contributed to the graphics and design for the sequel, will also shoulder some of the burden, Vochozka said.

In campaign mode, for the most part, you take on the role of David Armstrong and see events unfold through his eyes. You start off as a lowly grunt taking orders from your commanders, as you progress you’ll start gaining rank and get to command your own platoon. Unless you’re into multiplayer, this is where you’ll be spending most of your time. Oh yeah, almost forgot you have two difficulty settings: Cadet and Veteran... whereby you can customize what aspects of the game you wish to make harder!

Is there any chance of a multiplayer addon being released prior to the game hitting shelves?

Multiplayer remains the one big decision that has yet to be made for Soldier of Fortune 2. Because we're in an Alpha state and working towards Beta, we need to make a decision soon whether or not to include multiplayer and if we do decide to include it, we have to decide WHEN to include it. Some options we're considering include releasing multiplayer with the original game when it ships, releasing multiplayer as a patch, releasing multiplayer as part of a Gold edition of the game or building an expansion pack around multiplayer with more single player stuff thrown in. All things considered, we really want to include multiplayer in Soldier 2. Raven staffing and time considerations are the only things holding up the final decision. We'll keep you posted.

HomeLAN - How did the 7fx team come up with the idea for Team Factor?

Pavel Sinagl - We simply wanted something more than the current FPS offered to us as a players, so we made a list of features we want to see in such game, as well as a list of features which we found cool in others existing FPS and put them all together.

Will the game feature any element of team-based combat, as I imagine this might enhance the sense of a 'real' war still further.

In the single player mode, there is some element of cooperative game play in that you can enlist the help of some NPC for support. There will be certain parts of the game where reinforcements arrive with the specific intent of helping Havoc complete a mission. Other times, Havoc can be made to ask an NPC to come with him on his mission.

Global Operations is looking great. We are about a week from Beta and everything is really falling together. After we hit alpha everyone on the team was focused on polishing everything up, so every new build we get just looks and feels so much better then the last one. Today's build has all new gun sounds and they just sound so SWEET! Also, you will see in the screenshots there is a new HUD and a new look to the front end. Single player is now fully playable and super fun. The bots kick my ass, but what are you going to do. You can tell when someone in the office is playing single player from the screams! 8-)

Replacing the pre-game setup system of the Rainbow Six titles, where you planned your mission in advance with waypoints for each individual soldier, Ghost Recon's command mode is an in-game system that allows you to issue routes and orders to your teams on the fly, making them advance or lay down suppressing fire, for instance. It also enables you to jump between individual soldiers on the teams.

Ghost Recon is a part of the Rainbow Six legacy, but isn't exactly a part of the series. It's a hyper-intensive squad-based tactical action game that takes place almost entirely in outdoor areas... The old planning interface, used in Rainbow Six, has been replaced by a more immediate and intuitive command screen within the game itself. There are also some characteristic elements that have been added in order to provide clearer distinction between the members of your squad. Many AI improvements, novelties in mission design and an impressive improvement in graphics will also set the title ahead of its predecessors.

GR Ops: Does Ghost Recon have a similar command system as Rogue Spear?

Gerben: No, all you can do in GR is give command on the fly. You can set the rules of engagement: Recon, Assualt or Supress. The first two will be quit clear. The third is really awesome if you ask me: soldiers will now shoot at everything which they think is a threat! They will not fire a few bullets at the "target" but they will fire almost whole magazines at it, thus providing covering fire. It's awesome to see! Furthermore you can tel your team to Advance, Advance at All Costs, or Hold. On a small map you can give your teams order to move to a specific point on the map and cover a specific direction.

SWAT 3 Tactical Game of the Year Edition is a first-person tactical police simulation described as "...a must-have tactical simulation" by Computer Gaming World. This demo features single-player, deathmatch and cooperative online play. In the demo mission, your LAPD SWAT element must protect dignitaries gathered at the Chang's Chinese Theater. Attempt the mission with nine AI-driven officers or go online for ten person cooperative play.

The SWAT 3 Tactical GOTY demo features all the weapons and multiplayer features found in the full version. Gameplay is limited to the Chang's Chinese Theater mission.

Q- How long did it take to build the engine?
A- About 2 years

Q- What are the maximum size of the textures
A- It depend on used graphic card. Usualy 1024x1024 pixels.

The aim is to make the game feel as realistic as possible in that you won’t feel like you are a lone agent, but a part of a much wider conflict. This approach is challenging for the developers, but the reward will be a much more immersive experience.

Finally a new entry into the field of intelligent shooter games, this game brings new hope that FPS games aren’t only aim and shoot. Operation Flashpoint requires much, much more, than simple aiming skills. You have to keep track of your surroundings, enemies, and anything else that could be a tactical benefit to you and those under your command. Now just to explain the current situation, the game has been out in Europe since June, but has since only been released in the US late September. The reason being added work on parts of the game such as graphics, and control, even a few vehicle additions, and simply magnificent work on the netcode. One wouldn’t expect a game surrounding the map sizes and detail on them such as this one to run as well as it does, but I’ve been there, and all I can say is the online play so far is smooth as silk.

You're not alone on your quest for justice, but instead you get to select a team-mate from a crack squad of soldiers, each with his own attributes and specialities - sniper, demolition, so on and so forth. Alas, there isn't one that specialises in ladder climbing - pity really. You enter each mission as a squad of two, your buddy and cohort covering your back. He's controllable via a series of simple (very simple) commands. You can control his stance (standing, kneeling, or prone - he copies you), his attack rating (free fire, hold fire), and movement (hold, cover me). You can also switch between the team-mates whenever you desire, but to be honest, the best thing you may want to do is let him get on with it, because when it comes down to it, he's one hell of a shot.

Apparently, some new intel has determined that a small garrison of German forces are occupying one of our main invasion landing zones in the port town of Arzew. With the artillery they have hidden within Arzew, our landing craft will be pulverized on entry once they're spotted. This is where the Rangers come into play. Your squad will conduct a behind the lines incursion to eliminate any artillery focused on the beach, stationed just out of sight in the port town.

August 31 - The game is almost done and I am very busy with making sure the levels are the best they can be.

I have been reading Black Hawk Down again. It is a great read on what it is like to be in the middle of an actual military operation. Every time I read stories like this I feel lucky that I have never had to go through an experience like that. I have the utmost respect for those that have.

Q: Do the missions involve stealth tactics, all-out assaults, or a combination of both?

ST: Medal of Honor Allied Assault runs the gamut of disguise levels that involve stealth, missions where the player needs to cooperate with a squad to achieve its goals, sniper duels in an occupied French town, and all-out combat on a grand scale between the Allies and the Germans. It's everything in the previous games and a lot, lot more.

The spectrum of the jobs is enough; from impacts on various bridges and shelters up to fighter missions on the mobile "Scud" launching pads. The campaign is divided into 4 paragraphs: Part 1: The invasion in Kuwait, part of 2: Special-in-corrode in the hinterland of the Iraqis, part of 3: Operation Desert current and to the termination goes it in the last paragraph directly to Bagdad, into the hell of the lion. Whether one (fictitious) an impact on Saddam Hussein to execute here may not is well-known unfortunately yet.

The missions themselves will be playable in several manners in order to keep things interesting. If you are the type of player who wants to try 'shoot first and ask questions later' then you will be free to try that method. If you would prefer to think about the situation and try sneak through the mission with as little bloodshed as possible, then you can do it that way as well.