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Fully clickable version here - http://play.game.net/newsletters/5thDecember.htm
GAME.NET News
To start off the newsletter this week I have some really good news for those of you yet to sample the delights of Call of Duty, one of the most popular games to come to the GAME.NET service in recent months. Billed as the best of the WWII FPS games (ahead of games such as BF1942 and MoH) the nice lads at our shop site are offering the game for this weekend only @ £19.99, I would definitely recommend that you take advantage of this to add the game to your collection with the single player aspect worth it alone. Add to that a really popular multiplayer option (join our community here, check out our events further down this newsletter) and you have the ideal gaming way to spend those cold winter nights in front of the warm glow of your PC.
As you might have read we've managed to sell out of all our GAME.NET Clan Servers stock (well over 200 servers) in just over a couple of weeks of sale, with a sizeable waiting list building up already we are doing what we can in order to make more servers available and hopefully we will be able to continue to expand the service over the coming months. If you want to put your name down for a server when one becomes available you can still do so by putting in an order, you will then be contacted when a suitable server opens up.
The one benefit of selling out of Clan Servers is that our server admins have had time to spend on catching up on various mod addition request with three new ones already in place this week and more likely to follow in the coming days. First up we have Action BattleField, as the name suggests this is a mod for BattleField 1942 that takes the base game and changes it in the tradition of "Action" mods to make it more fun (in their opinion) with soldiers being more important and all the vehicles getting an overhaul. This mod has been added to our Bookables & Clan Servers and to play it on our service you will need the latest version of BattleField 1942 along with the 261 MB mod version v1150 and the small v1151 patch. On a related note the DesertCombat mod Desert Combat Extended has also been added to our Bookables & Clan Servers, to play this "fun" add-on for the massively popular DesertCombat you will need the latest DC install and the 49 MB DCX5l.1 file.
Another new mod to be added to our two main server products is for Jedi Academy (aka Jedi Knight 3) with support for Ominmod, this mod improving the admin functionality of the latest in the Jedi Knight series and not requiring any form of client download. We've also updated the server-side MAM / CI files for Medal of Honor v1.4.8.0, this being the only update to existing mods / games carried out this week.
As a prelude to the next section I've been asked to mention by our TFC Head GAME Master Pippa that over the coming month the TFC guys & girls will be running nightly community games on the Preview Server, make sure you drop by #game.hl for a bit of chatter before joining the server located at 213.221.178.81:27015
.
What's On
Sunday 7th December 2003
Operation Flashpoint @ 14:00
Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy @ 15:00
Counter-Strike @ 20:00
Monday 8th December 2003
Elite Force II @ 19:00
*New Event* Call of Duty @ 19:00 *New Event*
Half-Life: Team Fortress Classic @ 21:00
Tuesday 9th December 2003
Battlefield 1942 @ 20:30
Wednesday 10th December 2003
Natural Selection @ 19:00
Battlefield 1942: Desert Combat @ 21:00
Thursday 11th December 2003
*New Event* Call of Duty @ 19:00 *New Event*
Medal of Honor @ 20:00
Half-Life: Day of Defeat @ 20:30
Half Life: Team Fortress Classic (TFC) @ 21:00
Files and Patches
Trailers
I try not to post too much console news in these Newsletters (mainly because I don't have a console myself) but it is hard to resist mentioning this 100 MB trailer for Halo 2 that features a mixture of hi-quality in-game footage and interviews with various people behind the game. Having not had the patience to play through the mindless shoot-em-up of Halo it is nice to see more attention being paid to the storyline in the sequel and perhaps the franchise as a whole does have a brighter future that the PC conversion of a game suggested.
On to real PC based carnage next and a new trailer for Conan, inspired by the books that lead to the Arnie-film this new trailer doesn't show much more than the original one released earlier this year but there is a promise of more to come in future months, it'll have to go some though to beat the gaming-goodness of Prince of Persia which is a title I think it does have to beat to establish itself. I guess Conan will be aiming at more involved character building though and this is also true of RPG / RTS game Joan of Arc, you taking the lead role as the troubled young French lady as she raises her army and leads them into battle. You can get a glimpse of the more hack n slash aspects of the game by downloading this small trailer, not the most awe inspiring but it does give you an idea of the grand scale of some of the battles that will take place.
I've heard of a lot of positive buzz about Breed but I've not managed to get my hand on the demo for the game yet, check GAME.NET news for further details of that over the weekend, in the mean time you can check out this small trailer that continues where the last one left off, giving you a bit more of a feel for what backdrop the game is set against but containing very little in the way of in-game footage. That certainly is not the case of the latest Painkiller trailer, you can download the 26 MB trailer here and I definitely recommend that you do, featuring some CGI from the introduction to the game and tons of in-game footage I think this is one of the better trailers I've seen in recent times, it definitely gives you a good feel for what to expect in the final game and also sports some impressive physics / gameplay. If however you like your "blowing stuff up" to be more cartoony then you are in luck this week as we have 6 gloriously tasteless movies from Postal 2: Share the Pain, the upcoming multiplayer add-on for Postal 2. Dr_Gonzo, one of our few remaining newsies, absolutely loves Postal 2 despite the slightly iffy graphics, and you can see if the "game that could" is for you by downloading any of the following snippets:
bandifyaa - 16 MB
catnip - 9 MB
garyattax - 21 MB
grab - 14 MB
ponderous - 22 MB
sewer-highfalls - 10 MB
I'll not spoil the "surprise" by telling you what they include but be warned, they are for over-18's only.
Playable Demos
There have been a few demos released today (Friday) but they are mostly updated versions of previously released demos, I'll pick over the bones of what is there and post about them to the GAME.NET news channel over the weekend but for now I bring you three very different playable previews to enjoy. Starting off gently we have a 2-level preview for rudimentary FPS game Chicken Shoot, the 79 MB demo being Christmas themed and giving you a good feel for what you can get in the full version of this beautifully drawn game. If even shooting chickens is too gruesome for you then how about a nice pedestrian game of building your own Heathrow in the shape of a demo for Airport Tycoon 3? Coming in at 112 MB you can download it here with it giving you the chance to play one full scenario from the game, along with three base levels. Not likely to be available in the UK until 2004 if you are a fan of such "Tycoon" games this will be your only way to get a glimpse of it this side of Christmas unless you import the game, the same being true of Battle Mages, a Russian developed title that has been picked up by a UK publisher but will not be appearing in this country for a few months yet. The trailers for Battle Mages haven't been that great but the RTS / RPG game has a chance to win you over in the shape of the 200 MB demo that features tutorial, single and multiplayer missions to help you get a good feel for what the full game involves.
Game Patches
A healthy selection of patches available this week and I'll start off with a couple that concern games where killing things are the priority, in the case of FireWarrior this being mainly via the use of various futuristic weapons against AI opponents. That might change now though with the latest 21 MB patch, vF00 seeing vastly improved network code and proper GameSpy integration the two main updates to the game which might just start to get a proper following online now. >From the futuristic world of WarHammer 40,000 to the fantasy real of Chaos Legion, not much in the way of detail is available about the game's first patch but it is recommended for anyone who has purchased the game, being only 2 MB in size it will not exactly hurt your bandwidth allocation too much.
Next we have two patches for strategy games although the chances are that most of you will not have a copy of Chicago 1930 with the game not due for release in this country until next year. If you have somehow managed to get your hands on a copy through import then the 13 MB v1.1 update is for you, whilst in a similar strategy vein we have a new patch for Commandos 3: Destination Berlin, a game that significantly more of you are likely to possess. Coming in at 6 MB in size v1.42 includes a variety of tweaks and bug fixes with particular attention paid to improving the multiplayer side of the game.
>From the world of fantasy gaming to games that draw their inspiration from real-life and a patch for Total Club Manager 2004, the Champions Manager rival from EA Sports that seeks to mesh the management side along with actually playing the game should you own a copy of Fifa 2004. This merging of the two hasn't quite worked out as planned but the 17 MB v1.1 update is aimed at sorting that out, along with various other fixes & tweaks to improve this well-received game. Also well received, at least if my copy of PC Gamer is anything to go by, is reality-thriller In Memoriam, this mix of horror and thriller genres seeing real life actors and "fake" real websites used to carry the story along. If you happen to own a copy of this game then the good news is that a tiny v2.1 patch has been released, the bad news being that there are no details on what the patch includes.
Travel is the theme for our final three patches with a variety of transportation methods covered, starting off with the slowest and a third update to Cruise Ship Tycoon that comes in at just over 1 MB and therefore probably doesn't include any significant changes to this ship-owning sim. Slightly more mobile is Street Legal Racing Redline, a less well known version of Need for Speed Underground this Hungarian-developed racing game has been updated to v2.1.8 with the last 2 MB patch apparently improving the handling in the game and fixing ROC issues (whatever they are). Going to the skies with our final patch and it is definitely worth a grab if you own a copy of IL-2 Sturmovik: The Forgotten Battles, the 116 MB v1.21 includes 5 new airplanes, 6 new maps, various new ground models and a whole host of other stuff that really does show other game developers the way to go with their future patches.
Mods
A pretty quiet week on the mod updating front but one that does merit a mention is the release of Unreal Tournament 2003 mod ChaosUT2 PR2. You can download the 82 MB full install here, the new version of the chaotic mod including 8 ye olde style melee weapons for their new melee mode that brings an extra dimension to this pretty polished mod. I'm not sure if the term "polished" can be applied to the popular yet slightly buggy DesertCombat mod for BattleField 1942 but our FTP admins have picked out a couple of maps for the mod in the shape of Iraqi Invasion and Baghdad Airport, both recommended and between 20 and 40 MB in size.
Special Offers
Whilst we still have a load of Christmas offerings on the go I thought it might be useful to highlight some of the more interesting PC titles that have hit the shelves in the last week just in case you are a looking for a present just for yourself. One such title is Neverwinter Night's latest expansion pack Hordes of the Underdark, this one kind of crept up on me due to the lack of online publicity but if you liked the original NWN it does come recommended. From a similar fantasy realm but taking an RTS approach is The Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring, the game itself looking lovely and hopefully a pretty decent jaunt into the genre that isn't spoilt by too much reliance on the films rather than the gameplay. Sporting what it claims to be a more story-driven approach to gaming is Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon, there has been a lot of promotion for this game on TV recently and this coincides with some very positive reviews that suggest it is one of the better "adventure" games to come out this year.
Regards,
Dave "BigFoot" Angus
GAME.NET Community Liaison
If you need any help or have any questions, we have a page set up to help you.
Please don't reply to this e-mail - we have all the support you need ready for you elsewhere.
http://www.game.net/
http://www.game.uk.com/
To Unsubscribe from this Community Newsletter simply go to this page, Logon and click the Unsubscribe button.
GAME.NET News
To start off the newsletter this week I have some really good news for those of you yet to sample the delights of Call of Duty, one of the most popular games to come to the GAME.NET service in recent months. Billed as the best of the WWII FPS games (ahead of games such as BF1942 and MoH) the nice lads at our shop site are offering the game for this weekend only @ £19.99, I would definitely recommend that you take advantage of this to add the game to your collection with the single player aspect worth it alone. Add to that a really popular multiplayer option (join our community here, check out our events further down this newsletter) and you have the ideal gaming way to spend those cold winter nights in front of the warm glow of your PC.
As you might have read we've managed to sell out of all our GAME.NET Clan Servers stock (well over 200 servers) in just over a couple of weeks of sale, with a sizeable waiting list building up already we are doing what we can in order to make more servers available and hopefully we will be able to continue to expand the service over the coming months. If you want to put your name down for a server when one becomes available you can still do so by putting in an order, you will then be contacted when a suitable server opens up.
The one benefit of selling out of Clan Servers is that our server admins have had time to spend on catching up on various mod addition request with three new ones already in place this week and more likely to follow in the coming days. First up we have Action BattleField, as the name suggests this is a mod for BattleField 1942 that takes the base game and changes it in the tradition of "Action" mods to make it more fun (in their opinion) with soldiers being more important and all the vehicles getting an overhaul. This mod has been added to our Bookables & Clan Servers and to play it on our service you will need the latest version of BattleField 1942 along with the 261 MB mod version v1150 and the small v1151 patch. On a related note the DesertCombat mod Desert Combat Extended has also been added to our Bookables & Clan Servers, to play this "fun" add-on for the massively popular DesertCombat you will need the latest DC install and the 49 MB DCX5l.1 file.
Another new mod to be added to our two main server products is for Jedi Academy (aka Jedi Knight 3) with support for Ominmod, this mod improving the admin functionality of the latest in the Jedi Knight series and not requiring any form of client download. We've also updated the server-side MAM / CI files for Medal of Honor v1.4.8.0, this being the only update to existing mods / games carried out this week.
As a prelude to the next section I've been asked to mention by our TFC Head GAME Master Pippa that over the coming month the TFC guys & girls will be running nightly community games on the Preview Server, make sure you drop by #game.hl for a bit of chatter before joining the server located at 213.221.178.81:27015
. What's On
Sunday 7th December 2003
Operation Flashpoint @ 14:00
Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy @ 15:00
Counter-Strike @ 20:00
Monday 8th December 2003
Elite Force II @ 19:00
*New Event* Call of Duty @ 19:00 *New Event*
Half-Life: Team Fortress Classic @ 21:00
Tuesday 9th December 2003
Battlefield 1942 @ 20:30
Wednesday 10th December 2003
Natural Selection @ 19:00
Battlefield 1942: Desert Combat @ 21:00
Thursday 11th December 2003
*New Event* Call of Duty @ 19:00 *New Event*
Medal of Honor @ 20:00
Half-Life: Day of Defeat @ 20:30
Half Life: Team Fortress Classic (TFC) @ 21:00
Files and Patches
Trailers
I try not to post too much console news in these Newsletters (mainly because I don't have a console myself) but it is hard to resist mentioning this 100 MB trailer for Halo 2 that features a mixture of hi-quality in-game footage and interviews with various people behind the game. Having not had the patience to play through the mindless shoot-em-up of Halo it is nice to see more attention being paid to the storyline in the sequel and perhaps the franchise as a whole does have a brighter future that the PC conversion of a game suggested.
On to real PC based carnage next and a new trailer for Conan, inspired by the books that lead to the Arnie-film this new trailer doesn't show much more than the original one released earlier this year but there is a promise of more to come in future months, it'll have to go some though to beat the gaming-goodness of Prince of Persia which is a title I think it does have to beat to establish itself. I guess Conan will be aiming at more involved character building though and this is also true of RPG / RTS game Joan of Arc, you taking the lead role as the troubled young French lady as she raises her army and leads them into battle. You can get a glimpse of the more hack n slash aspects of the game by downloading this small trailer, not the most awe inspiring but it does give you an idea of the grand scale of some of the battles that will take place.
I've heard of a lot of positive buzz about Breed but I've not managed to get my hand on the demo for the game yet, check GAME.NET news for further details of that over the weekend, in the mean time you can check out this small trailer that continues where the last one left off, giving you a bit more of a feel for what backdrop the game is set against but containing very little in the way of in-game footage. That certainly is not the case of the latest Painkiller trailer, you can download the 26 MB trailer here and I definitely recommend that you do, featuring some CGI from the introduction to the game and tons of in-game footage I think this is one of the better trailers I've seen in recent times, it definitely gives you a good feel for what to expect in the final game and also sports some impressive physics / gameplay. If however you like your "blowing stuff up" to be more cartoony then you are in luck this week as we have 6 gloriously tasteless movies from Postal 2: Share the Pain, the upcoming multiplayer add-on for Postal 2. Dr_Gonzo, one of our few remaining newsies, absolutely loves Postal 2 despite the slightly iffy graphics, and you can see if the "game that could" is for you by downloading any of the following snippets:
bandifyaa - 16 MB
catnip - 9 MB
garyattax - 21 MB
grab - 14 MB
ponderous - 22 MB
sewer-highfalls - 10 MB
I'll not spoil the "surprise" by telling you what they include but be warned, they are for over-18's only.
Playable Demos
There have been a few demos released today (Friday) but they are mostly updated versions of previously released demos, I'll pick over the bones of what is there and post about them to the GAME.NET news channel over the weekend but for now I bring you three very different playable previews to enjoy. Starting off gently we have a 2-level preview for rudimentary FPS game Chicken Shoot, the 79 MB demo being Christmas themed and giving you a good feel for what you can get in the full version of this beautifully drawn game. If even shooting chickens is too gruesome for you then how about a nice pedestrian game of building your own Heathrow in the shape of a demo for Airport Tycoon 3? Coming in at 112 MB you can download it here with it giving you the chance to play one full scenario from the game, along with three base levels. Not likely to be available in the UK until 2004 if you are a fan of such "Tycoon" games this will be your only way to get a glimpse of it this side of Christmas unless you import the game, the same being true of Battle Mages, a Russian developed title that has been picked up by a UK publisher but will not be appearing in this country for a few months yet. The trailers for Battle Mages haven't been that great but the RTS / RPG game has a chance to win you over in the shape of the 200 MB demo that features tutorial, single and multiplayer missions to help you get a good feel for what the full game involves.
Game Patches
A healthy selection of patches available this week and I'll start off with a couple that concern games where killing things are the priority, in the case of FireWarrior this being mainly via the use of various futuristic weapons against AI opponents. That might change now though with the latest 21 MB patch, vF00 seeing vastly improved network code and proper GameSpy integration the two main updates to the game which might just start to get a proper following online now. >From the futuristic world of WarHammer 40,000 to the fantasy real of Chaos Legion, not much in the way of detail is available about the game's first patch but it is recommended for anyone who has purchased the game, being only 2 MB in size it will not exactly hurt your bandwidth allocation too much.
Next we have two patches for strategy games although the chances are that most of you will not have a copy of Chicago 1930 with the game not due for release in this country until next year. If you have somehow managed to get your hands on a copy through import then the 13 MB v1.1 update is for you, whilst in a similar strategy vein we have a new patch for Commandos 3: Destination Berlin, a game that significantly more of you are likely to possess. Coming in at 6 MB in size v1.42 includes a variety of tweaks and bug fixes with particular attention paid to improving the multiplayer side of the game.
>From the world of fantasy gaming to games that draw their inspiration from real-life and a patch for Total Club Manager 2004, the Champions Manager rival from EA Sports that seeks to mesh the management side along with actually playing the game should you own a copy of Fifa 2004. This merging of the two hasn't quite worked out as planned but the 17 MB v1.1 update is aimed at sorting that out, along with various other fixes & tweaks to improve this well-received game. Also well received, at least if my copy of PC Gamer is anything to go by, is reality-thriller In Memoriam, this mix of horror and thriller genres seeing real life actors and "fake" real websites used to carry the story along. If you happen to own a copy of this game then the good news is that a tiny v2.1 patch has been released, the bad news being that there are no details on what the patch includes.
Travel is the theme for our final three patches with a variety of transportation methods covered, starting off with the slowest and a third update to Cruise Ship Tycoon that comes in at just over 1 MB and therefore probably doesn't include any significant changes to this ship-owning sim. Slightly more mobile is Street Legal Racing Redline, a less well known version of Need for Speed Underground this Hungarian-developed racing game has been updated to v2.1.8 with the last 2 MB patch apparently improving the handling in the game and fixing ROC issues (whatever they are). Going to the skies with our final patch and it is definitely worth a grab if you own a copy of IL-2 Sturmovik: The Forgotten Battles, the 116 MB v1.21 includes 5 new airplanes, 6 new maps, various new ground models and a whole host of other stuff that really does show other game developers the way to go with their future patches.
Mods
A pretty quiet week on the mod updating front but one that does merit a mention is the release of Unreal Tournament 2003 mod ChaosUT2 PR2. You can download the 82 MB full install here, the new version of the chaotic mod including 8 ye olde style melee weapons for their new melee mode that brings an extra dimension to this pretty polished mod. I'm not sure if the term "polished" can be applied to the popular yet slightly buggy DesertCombat mod for BattleField 1942 but our FTP admins have picked out a couple of maps for the mod in the shape of Iraqi Invasion and Baghdad Airport, both recommended and between 20 and 40 MB in size.
Special Offers
Whilst we still have a load of Christmas offerings on the go I thought it might be useful to highlight some of the more interesting PC titles that have hit the shelves in the last week just in case you are a looking for a present just for yourself. One such title is Neverwinter Night's latest expansion pack Hordes of the Underdark, this one kind of crept up on me due to the lack of online publicity but if you liked the original NWN it does come recommended. From a similar fantasy realm but taking an RTS approach is The Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring, the game itself looking lovely and hopefully a pretty decent jaunt into the genre that isn't spoilt by too much reliance on the films rather than the gameplay. Sporting what it claims to be a more story-driven approach to gaming is Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon, there has been a lot of promotion for this game on TV recently and this coincides with some very positive reviews that suggest it is one of the better "adventure" games to come out this year.
Regards,
Dave "BigFoot" Angus
GAME.NET Community Liaison
If you need any help or have any questions, we have a page set up to help you.
Please don't reply to this e-mail - we have all the support you need ready for you elsewhere.
http://www.game.net/
http://www.game.uk.com/
To Unsubscribe from this Community Newsletter simply go to this page, Logon and click the Unsubscribe button.