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Fully clickable version here - http://play.game.net/newsletters/18thjuly.htm
GAME.NET News
No major service announcements this week but a few things to mention, starting off with the online qualifiers for the World Cyber Games 2003 UK Finals which we will be organising for Counter-Strike and UT2K3 in the coming month. We are currently putting the finishing touches to the sites for these qualifiers, including firming up the rules we plan to use, an announcement will be made next week with regards to these competitions which will be open to all UK citizens who wish to enter and I'll have further details in next Friday's Newsletter. I should briefly mention that in preparation for this we have updated the UT2K3 mod TTM to the latest version which also includes a special WCG mode which is selectable from the mutator option when booking the server, just in case any of you want to try it out before the competition starts.
Something a bit more tangible is our interview with Gabe Newell, the managing director or Valve, who our very own CJRavey managed to corner for an interview about Half-Life 2. As you will see from the Files & Patches section below the hype machine for Gordon Freeman's new adventures is in full swing with a bunch of movies released this week, the interview covers various aspects of the game including the modding capabilities which will no doubt be used to create many a Counter-Strike clone, read the full thing by clicking here.
New on our servers this week is the Quake 3 mod True Combat, this realism mod a cross between the massively popular Urban Terror and games such as RavenShield and is now available on our Bookables and Clan Servers, if you do want to give it a go you will of course need to download the 78 MB full mod and the tiny add-on patch. The Deathball mod for UT2K3 has also been updated to version 1.8, whilst our Vietcong server have also been updated to version 1.30, details of both patches can be found in the Files & Patches section below.
A quick mention also for the latest weekly event we have added to our calendar, this for the free Enemy Territory game with you having the chance to beat up the GAME staff every Friday lunchtime from 1pm onwards, more details in the What's On section below. As someone who has only been introduced to Enemy Territory in the last week or so I thoroughly recommend you give it a go, at 257 MB the full client download (click here) is a bit heavy but considering it's a completely free game you can't complain, I'd certainly rank it in my Top 5 games of the year so far with plenty of new maps likely to surface in the near future, something which should keep the interest levels up.
What's On
Sunday 20th July 2003
Jedi Knight 2
Time: 15:00 - 17:00
No Force, Saber Only Free for All. Any questions please feel free to contact Damage.
More details
Operation Flashpoint
Time: 17:00 - 19:00
Will is back to host the big Sunday afternoon co-op game, GAME.NET's longest-standing organised game...ah, the smell of napalm in the afternoon...
More details
Counter-Strike
Time: 20:00 - 23:00
Start off playing Popular map/maps then the players request maps new/old (make sure you have previous "Official" maps), Server IP is 213.221.174.6:27015, or you can meet in #game.cs .
More details
Monday 21st July 2003
Elite Force II
Time: 19:00 - 21:00
A chance to try out Elite Force II in a Subscriber environment.
More details
Tuesday 22nd July 2003
Battlefield 1942
Time: 20:30 - 22:30
Tuesday Night Fragathon, usually held on Conquest #1 server however may occasionally feature Road to Rome.
More details
Quake 3 Arena: Urban Terror Mod
Time: 20:30 - 22:30
It’s a fun event and all levels of player are welcome.
More details
Wednesday 23rd July 2003
Battlefield 1942: Desert Combat
Time: 21:00 - 23:00
Weekly game to play the increasingly popular Desert Combat mod for BF1942.
Game details Mod details
Thursday 24th July 2003
Half-Life: Day of Defeat
Time: 20:30 - 22:00
Weekly DoD games, to be held on GAME.NET Server 1!
More details
Quake 3 Arena: Capture The Flag
Time: 21:00 - 22:30
Arguably the strongest mod for Quake 3, the CTF community night has now moved to Thursday evenings in an effort to clash less with the various competitions which run on a Wednesday. Everyone is welcome, whether you are new to online gaming, new to Quake3 or even just a battle hardened veteran looking for a challenge.
More details
Half Life: Team Fortress Classic (TFC)
Time: 21:00 - 23:00
An organised TFC (Team Fortress Classic) game open to all subscribers, this will be a regular weekly event held every Thursday. We can offer a friendly atmosphere, and an adminned game to keep things running smoothly and fairly.
More details
Friday 25th July 2003
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Friday lunchtime game with you having the chance to batter the GAME staff on the Preview server.
More details
Files and Patches
Another weird week for files this one with very little on the playable demo front but a ton of trailers to keep you occupied, along with a whole bunch of patches / additional content and a host of mods for UT2K3, of which more later.
Starting with the trailers then and the hype machine for Half-Life 2 continues to roll on with the release of three in-game videos. Using the Bink technology these are meant to be effectively what you would see in the actual game and, well, they are mighty impressive even though there really isn't a great deal on show. The first is some miscellaneous character footage and features the legendary G-man from the first game (not the overrated one from So Solid Crew), the 70 MB movie (get it he re) shows off the incredible level facial detail which we can expect to see in the characters, whilst the second movie comes in at under 48 MB (get it here) and gives you a brief look at a Docks section of the game, the attention to detail quite staggering. This is continued in the third movie which is set in a temporary lab environment and features some character interaction, pc-breaking and our first brief look at some proper weapon animations, get the 82 MB movie here and continue to drool.
If, like the developers at id software, you've stuck your fingers in your eyes and pretended the last section didn't exist then you might be tempted by the latest XIII trailer (get it here), that game being just as impressive as Half-Life 2 in graphical terms but perhaps for different reasons given its "comic" style. If you do download that trailer you'll probably recognise the voice-over as it is none other than Fox Mulder himself David Duchovny, he will be joined in the finished game by the original Batman aka Adam West in what really is shaping up to be a potential Doom 3 ass-kicker given its strong sense of style.
It is actually shaping up to be bumper second-half of the year for sequels with Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 just a couple of the "follow-ups" scheduled for release. Another is the long awaited Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, most of you are probably too young to remember the original Prince of Persia games but they were stand-out titles in the early years of proper PC gaming and this latest chapter in the series set tongues wagging at E3, there are four small tasters of in-game footage which cover fighting, blocking, movement and area exploration, all look exceptionally good and a far cry from the old 2D games where the series began. Equally as lush in the graphical department is Etherlords 2, a 25 MB trailer for which can be downloaded here and features plenty of in-game footage from this adventure-RPG title due out later this year.
Yet another sequel due out later in the year is the next chapter in the console series of Medal of Honor games, the intro sequence of which is available now to download here and with a title like "Rising Sun" you can probably guess that it features a certain Harbour that gets bombed. Still on the sequel trail there is an 18 MB movie out for Dungeon Siege 2 (not be confused with this piece of film excellence), the trailer showing off the usual gorgeous cinematics and there is some in-game footage amongst it, grab it here if RPG's are your thing although you will have to wait until 2004 for the full game. The final sequel to give a shout to is NBA Live 2004, this yearly update for the definitive Basketball game on the PC is due out in October and a small 4 MB trailer (get it here) gives you a quick look at what is in store if you choose to add it to your collection.
Along with sequels the second-half of the year promises to bring us plenty of wallet-emptying Expansion packs, as such it is no surprise that we are starting to see plenty of trailers for these and two movies for the RavenShield expansion pack Athena Sword were released this week (get the 26 MB one here and the 45 MB one here), personally I think they should be giving the pack away free given the obscenely short nature of the original game but perhaps there will be enough there to justify the price tag which comes with the final release. I also though that C&C Generals was pretty short so it is no surprise that an expansion pack for that game is due out in the coming months, Zero Hour is its name and you can download an interview with one of the key members of the team behind it by clicking here, at 68 MB it is probably one for fans of the game only. The final expansion pack to mention is for Combat Flight Simulator 3, subtitled "Firepower" it is due out later this year and features over 50 missions and 12 new aircraft, including the B-17 Flying Fortress, a 21 MB mini-documentary has been released and features in-game footage along with interviews with real life pilots (as opposed to pretend ones), grab it here.
Would you believe it - there were actually a couple of trailers for original games released this week! Only the two worth mentioning though with the lengthy 60 MB trailer (get it here) for next year's Stalker: Oblivion Lost hitting the FTPs, this FPS / RPG game seeing you thrust into the role of someone who earns their living from braving the embers of the Chernobyl disaster zone (I'm not making this up) and, on the basis of the demo, looks to offer an incredible level of interactivity with the world around you, throwing in all sorts of weird and wonderful things which the radioactivity / mutation aspect allows. From modern-day to the realms of fantasy for the other trailer of note, this for next year's likely mega hit on the MMORPG front Dragon Empires with the 1 MB movie (get it here) showcasing part of the introduction sequence for a game which already has hundreds of thousands of testers signed up for it.
The only playable demo worth highlighting this week is for racing game Midnight Club II, this 168 MB trial version allowing you to play 3 of the vehicles on the LA level of the map, featuring various game mode support and also including the ability to play against up to 8 players online. Get it here if broom brooms are your thing.
The most significant patch for GAME.NET service news this week is the official release of version 1.30 for Vietcong, the 32 MB update (get it here) fixes various server & client issues along with various anti-cheat bits and bobs introduced, improved netcode and the usual graphic tweaks. Also updated is Deathball, the popular UT2K3 sports-mod is now on version 1.80 with mainly bug fixes in this release, grab the full 79 MB install here and as mentioned earlier our servers are now running this version. Other games to be patched include the recently released Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne expansion pack, you can get the small 1.11 update for that game here and a similar update for the original Warcraft 3 game can be downloaded here, whilst souped-up Quake 1 mod Tenebrae also has a bit of a facelift with version 1.4 (get it here) released.
Further downloads of note include a pair of maps for BattleField 1942, the Battle for Britain map weighs in at over 48 MB but is a must have if you play the game online as it features a new aircraft and a new radar facility, plus bringing the multiplayer combat to the UK for the first time in the game's history. Whilst the Battle of Britain was a key point in World War 2 it looked like the clash between Iraq and the Allied Forces at Baghdad International Airport could have been a key moment in the recent Gulf conflict when "unconventional attacks" were promised by Comical Ali, it turned out to be a bit less eventful than that but somewhat predictably a map for the BF1942 mod DesertCombat featuring the Airport has made its way onto the net, get it here although I make no promises about its geographical accuracy. If you would rather chance your arm at making your own maps then you should grab the 15 MB editor for Enemy Territory (available here), I've been spending a bit of time playing this game over the past few days and it clearly does have a lot of promise if a steady supply of decent maps can be added to the melting pot.
These days mods for games can be big business, be it developing them into fully fledged commercial packages (Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat and Tac Ops prime examples), taking the concept and including it in future versions of games themselves (QW TF > TFC) or even hiring the team behind free mods to develop commercial software (the Splashdamage team a good example with the aforementioned Enemy Territory). With most FPS games released these days the potential is obviously there and the skills exist in the online community to make the most of the tools they are given, the $1,000,000 Make Something Unreal contest for UT2K3 taking it up a notch with a massive amount of prizes on offer for competing modders, including the chance to own a commercial Unreal licence which could be the basis for a future game release. The contest runs until next year and is spread over three phases, the first of which concluded a few days ago and to correspond with this we have seen a tidal wave of UT2K3 mods hitting the FTPs, some of which will eventually make their way onto the servers, others that will fall by the wayside and be consigned to dustbin along with copies of Gary Barlow's Greatest Hits.
Our FTP admins have just about been coping with the deluge of new files but are still plugging through to keep everything updated, in the mean time I have put together a list of some of the main ones we have managed to have a look at, they are as follows:
Jungle Warfare - Modern Day "realism" war type mod, with player classes and variety of weapons. Current version is Beta 1.2 so you will need the 294 MB Beta 1.0, then the smaller Beta 1.1 and Beta 1.2 patches.
Conquest Marines - Futuristic class-based warfare with vehicles also included. Current version is the 31 MB Beta 2.
Face Off - Modern-day weapons but in a slightly unrealistic setting. Current version is the 70 MB Alpha 1.
Unreal Speed - Driving based mod with armoured vehicles & plenty of weapons. Current version is the 51 MB Beta 1.5.
Global Warzone - Post-Apocolyptic mod with different corporations (classes) competing for resources across various worldly settings. Current version is Alpha 3.85 but you will need to get the 113 MB Alpha 3.80, then the much smaller Alphas 3.82, 3.83 and 3.85, patching in order.
Dawn of Destiny - Star Wars. For UT2K3. Nuff Said. Current version is the 146 MB demo.
Jupiter Effect - Robot style combat. Current version is the 50 MB Beta 2.
More details about exactly which mods we will be supporting will be in next week's Newsletter.
Special Offers
There are not many better examples of flogging a franchise to death than The Sims series with its multitude of expansion packs and a proper sequel on the way soon, there is no denying though that the addictive nature of the games mean that the expansion packs do add a lot of welcome content to the games and as they sell in bucket loads they obviously have an audience out there. If you are a Sims fan but have held off diving into the wealth of new content that is out there then now is the perfect opportunity with our special 3 for 2 offer on six of the packs, for more details visit this site.
More expansion pack bargains come in the shape of additional games added to our 2 for £30 range, the most pimp-worthy being the fact you can now get Elder Scrolls III and the BloodMoon expansion pack, or Warcraft 3 and the Frozen Throne expansion pack, for just £30. Excellent value even if you hate most RTS / RPG games like I do
.
Also worthy of a mention is next Thursday which is "Internet Shopping Day 2003". You can read more about this extravaganza here, on the other hand if you cannot be bothered to click the link then it can best be summed up as a day when you will find bargains aplenty across the various participating sites. For us this means that every hour, starting from midnight on the Wednesday / Thursday, you will see a new game that has been vastly reduced in price with only limited stock available, the offer expiring when the stock is sold or the hour runs out. This will run all day and as time goes on the price of the game on offer each hour will also drop by £1, so that in the last few hours we will be selling various games for less than a fiver. The offer will span all formats so there should be something for everyone's taste, more details available on the shop site over the course of next week.
Regards,
Dave "BigFoot" Angus
GAME.NET Community Liaison
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GAME.NET News
No major service announcements this week but a few things to mention, starting off with the online qualifiers for the World Cyber Games 2003 UK Finals which we will be organising for Counter-Strike and UT2K3 in the coming month. We are currently putting the finishing touches to the sites for these qualifiers, including firming up the rules we plan to use, an announcement will be made next week with regards to these competitions which will be open to all UK citizens who wish to enter and I'll have further details in next Friday's Newsletter. I should briefly mention that in preparation for this we have updated the UT2K3 mod TTM to the latest version which also includes a special WCG mode which is selectable from the mutator option when booking the server, just in case any of you want to try it out before the competition starts.
Something a bit more tangible is our interview with Gabe Newell, the managing director or Valve, who our very own CJRavey managed to corner for an interview about Half-Life 2. As you will see from the Files & Patches section below the hype machine for Gordon Freeman's new adventures is in full swing with a bunch of movies released this week, the interview covers various aspects of the game including the modding capabilities which will no doubt be used to create many a Counter-Strike clone, read the full thing by clicking here.
New on our servers this week is the Quake 3 mod True Combat, this realism mod a cross between the massively popular Urban Terror and games such as RavenShield and is now available on our Bookables and Clan Servers, if you do want to give it a go you will of course need to download the 78 MB full mod and the tiny add-on patch. The Deathball mod for UT2K3 has also been updated to version 1.8, whilst our Vietcong server have also been updated to version 1.30, details of both patches can be found in the Files & Patches section below.
A quick mention also for the latest weekly event we have added to our calendar, this for the free Enemy Territory game with you having the chance to beat up the GAME staff every Friday lunchtime from 1pm onwards, more details in the What's On section below. As someone who has only been introduced to Enemy Territory in the last week or so I thoroughly recommend you give it a go, at 257 MB the full client download (click here) is a bit heavy but considering it's a completely free game you can't complain, I'd certainly rank it in my Top 5 games of the year so far with plenty of new maps likely to surface in the near future, something which should keep the interest levels up.
What's On
Sunday 20th July 2003
Jedi Knight 2
Time: 15:00 - 17:00
No Force, Saber Only Free for All. Any questions please feel free to contact Damage.
More details
Operation Flashpoint
Time: 17:00 - 19:00
Will is back to host the big Sunday afternoon co-op game, GAME.NET's longest-standing organised game...ah, the smell of napalm in the afternoon...
More details
Counter-Strike
Time: 20:00 - 23:00
Start off playing Popular map/maps then the players request maps new/old (make sure you have previous "Official" maps), Server IP is 213.221.174.6:27015, or you can meet in #game.cs .
More details
Monday 21st July 2003
Elite Force II
Time: 19:00 - 21:00
A chance to try out Elite Force II in a Subscriber environment.
More details
Tuesday 22nd July 2003
Battlefield 1942
Time: 20:30 - 22:30
Tuesday Night Fragathon, usually held on Conquest #1 server however may occasionally feature Road to Rome.
More details
Quake 3 Arena: Urban Terror Mod
Time: 20:30 - 22:30
It’s a fun event and all levels of player are welcome.
More details
Wednesday 23rd July 2003
Battlefield 1942: Desert Combat
Time: 21:00 - 23:00
Weekly game to play the increasingly popular Desert Combat mod for BF1942.
Game details Mod details
Thursday 24th July 2003
Half-Life: Day of Defeat
Time: 20:30 - 22:00
Weekly DoD games, to be held on GAME.NET Server 1!
More details
Quake 3 Arena: Capture The Flag
Time: 21:00 - 22:30
Arguably the strongest mod for Quake 3, the CTF community night has now moved to Thursday evenings in an effort to clash less with the various competitions which run on a Wednesday. Everyone is welcome, whether you are new to online gaming, new to Quake3 or even just a battle hardened veteran looking for a challenge.
More details
Half Life: Team Fortress Classic (TFC)
Time: 21:00 - 23:00
An organised TFC (Team Fortress Classic) game open to all subscribers, this will be a regular weekly event held every Thursday. We can offer a friendly atmosphere, and an adminned game to keep things running smoothly and fairly.
More details
Friday 25th July 2003
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Friday lunchtime game with you having the chance to batter the GAME staff on the Preview server.
More details
Files and Patches
Another weird week for files this one with very little on the playable demo front but a ton of trailers to keep you occupied, along with a whole bunch of patches / additional content and a host of mods for UT2K3, of which more later.
Starting with the trailers then and the hype machine for Half-Life 2 continues to roll on with the release of three in-game videos. Using the Bink technology these are meant to be effectively what you would see in the actual game and, well, they are mighty impressive even though there really isn't a great deal on show. The first is some miscellaneous character footage and features the legendary G-man from the first game (not the overrated one from So Solid Crew), the 70 MB movie (get it he re) shows off the incredible level facial detail which we can expect to see in the characters, whilst the second movie comes in at under 48 MB (get it here) and gives you a brief look at a Docks section of the game, the attention to detail quite staggering. This is continued in the third movie which is set in a temporary lab environment and features some character interaction, pc-breaking and our first brief look at some proper weapon animations, get the 82 MB movie here and continue to drool.
If, like the developers at id software, you've stuck your fingers in your eyes and pretended the last section didn't exist then you might be tempted by the latest XIII trailer (get it here), that game being just as impressive as Half-Life 2 in graphical terms but perhaps for different reasons given its "comic" style. If you do download that trailer you'll probably recognise the voice-over as it is none other than Fox Mulder himself David Duchovny, he will be joined in the finished game by the original Batman aka Adam West in what really is shaping up to be a potential Doom 3 ass-kicker given its strong sense of style.
It is actually shaping up to be bumper second-half of the year for sequels with Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 just a couple of the "follow-ups" scheduled for release. Another is the long awaited Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, most of you are probably too young to remember the original Prince of Persia games but they were stand-out titles in the early years of proper PC gaming and this latest chapter in the series set tongues wagging at E3, there are four small tasters of in-game footage which cover fighting, blocking, movement and area exploration, all look exceptionally good and a far cry from the old 2D games where the series began. Equally as lush in the graphical department is Etherlords 2, a 25 MB trailer for which can be downloaded here and features plenty of in-game footage from this adventure-RPG title due out later this year.
Yet another sequel due out later in the year is the next chapter in the console series of Medal of Honor games, the intro sequence of which is available now to download here and with a title like "Rising Sun" you can probably guess that it features a certain Harbour that gets bombed. Still on the sequel trail there is an 18 MB movie out for Dungeon Siege 2 (not be confused with this piece of film excellence), the trailer showing off the usual gorgeous cinematics and there is some in-game footage amongst it, grab it here if RPG's are your thing although you will have to wait until 2004 for the full game. The final sequel to give a shout to is NBA Live 2004, this yearly update for the definitive Basketball game on the PC is due out in October and a small 4 MB trailer (get it here) gives you a quick look at what is in store if you choose to add it to your collection.
Along with sequels the second-half of the year promises to bring us plenty of wallet-emptying Expansion packs, as such it is no surprise that we are starting to see plenty of trailers for these and two movies for the RavenShield expansion pack Athena Sword were released this week (get the 26 MB one here and the 45 MB one here), personally I think they should be giving the pack away free given the obscenely short nature of the original game but perhaps there will be enough there to justify the price tag which comes with the final release. I also though that C&C Generals was pretty short so it is no surprise that an expansion pack for that game is due out in the coming months, Zero Hour is its name and you can download an interview with one of the key members of the team behind it by clicking here, at 68 MB it is probably one for fans of the game only. The final expansion pack to mention is for Combat Flight Simulator 3, subtitled "Firepower" it is due out later this year and features over 50 missions and 12 new aircraft, including the B-17 Flying Fortress, a 21 MB mini-documentary has been released and features in-game footage along with interviews with real life pilots (as opposed to pretend ones), grab it here.
Would you believe it - there were actually a couple of trailers for original games released this week! Only the two worth mentioning though with the lengthy 60 MB trailer (get it here) for next year's Stalker: Oblivion Lost hitting the FTPs, this FPS / RPG game seeing you thrust into the role of someone who earns their living from braving the embers of the Chernobyl disaster zone (I'm not making this up) and, on the basis of the demo, looks to offer an incredible level of interactivity with the world around you, throwing in all sorts of weird and wonderful things which the radioactivity / mutation aspect allows. From modern-day to the realms of fantasy for the other trailer of note, this for next year's likely mega hit on the MMORPG front Dragon Empires with the 1 MB movie (get it here) showcasing part of the introduction sequence for a game which already has hundreds of thousands of testers signed up for it.
The only playable demo worth highlighting this week is for racing game Midnight Club II, this 168 MB trial version allowing you to play 3 of the vehicles on the LA level of the map, featuring various game mode support and also including the ability to play against up to 8 players online. Get it here if broom brooms are your thing.
The most significant patch for GAME.NET service news this week is the official release of version 1.30 for Vietcong, the 32 MB update (get it here) fixes various server & client issues along with various anti-cheat bits and bobs introduced, improved netcode and the usual graphic tweaks. Also updated is Deathball, the popular UT2K3 sports-mod is now on version 1.80 with mainly bug fixes in this release, grab the full 79 MB install here and as mentioned earlier our servers are now running this version. Other games to be patched include the recently released Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne expansion pack, you can get the small 1.11 update for that game here and a similar update for the original Warcraft 3 game can be downloaded here, whilst souped-up Quake 1 mod Tenebrae also has a bit of a facelift with version 1.4 (get it here) released.
Further downloads of note include a pair of maps for BattleField 1942, the Battle for Britain map weighs in at over 48 MB but is a must have if you play the game online as it features a new aircraft and a new radar facility, plus bringing the multiplayer combat to the UK for the first time in the game's history. Whilst the Battle of Britain was a key point in World War 2 it looked like the clash between Iraq and the Allied Forces at Baghdad International Airport could have been a key moment in the recent Gulf conflict when "unconventional attacks" were promised by Comical Ali, it turned out to be a bit less eventful than that but somewhat predictably a map for the BF1942 mod DesertCombat featuring the Airport has made its way onto the net, get it here although I make no promises about its geographical accuracy. If you would rather chance your arm at making your own maps then you should grab the 15 MB editor for Enemy Territory (available here), I've been spending a bit of time playing this game over the past few days and it clearly does have a lot of promise if a steady supply of decent maps can be added to the melting pot.
These days mods for games can be big business, be it developing them into fully fledged commercial packages (Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat and Tac Ops prime examples), taking the concept and including it in future versions of games themselves (QW TF > TFC) or even hiring the team behind free mods to develop commercial software (the Splashdamage team a good example with the aforementioned Enemy Territory). With most FPS games released these days the potential is obviously there and the skills exist in the online community to make the most of the tools they are given, the $1,000,000 Make Something Unreal contest for UT2K3 taking it up a notch with a massive amount of prizes on offer for competing modders, including the chance to own a commercial Unreal licence which could be the basis for a future game release. The contest runs until next year and is spread over three phases, the first of which concluded a few days ago and to correspond with this we have seen a tidal wave of UT2K3 mods hitting the FTPs, some of which will eventually make their way onto the servers, others that will fall by the wayside and be consigned to dustbin along with copies of Gary Barlow's Greatest Hits.
Our FTP admins have just about been coping with the deluge of new files but are still plugging through to keep everything updated, in the mean time I have put together a list of some of the main ones we have managed to have a look at, they are as follows:
Jungle Warfare - Modern Day "realism" war type mod, with player classes and variety of weapons. Current version is Beta 1.2 so you will need the 294 MB Beta 1.0, then the smaller Beta 1.1 and Beta 1.2 patches.
Conquest Marines - Futuristic class-based warfare with vehicles also included. Current version is the 31 MB Beta 2.
Face Off - Modern-day weapons but in a slightly unrealistic setting. Current version is the 70 MB Alpha 1.
Unreal Speed - Driving based mod with armoured vehicles & plenty of weapons. Current version is the 51 MB Beta 1.5.
Global Warzone - Post-Apocolyptic mod with different corporations (classes) competing for resources across various worldly settings. Current version is Alpha 3.85 but you will need to get the 113 MB Alpha 3.80, then the much smaller Alphas 3.82, 3.83 and 3.85, patching in order.
Dawn of Destiny - Star Wars. For UT2K3. Nuff Said. Current version is the 146 MB demo.
Jupiter Effect - Robot style combat. Current version is the 50 MB Beta 2.
More details about exactly which mods we will be supporting will be in next week's Newsletter.
Special Offers
There are not many better examples of flogging a franchise to death than The Sims series with its multitude of expansion packs and a proper sequel on the way soon, there is no denying though that the addictive nature of the games mean that the expansion packs do add a lot of welcome content to the games and as they sell in bucket loads they obviously have an audience out there. If you are a Sims fan but have held off diving into the wealth of new content that is out there then now is the perfect opportunity with our special 3 for 2 offer on six of the packs, for more details visit this site.
More expansion pack bargains come in the shape of additional games added to our 2 for £30 range, the most pimp-worthy being the fact you can now get Elder Scrolls III and the BloodMoon expansion pack, or Warcraft 3 and the Frozen Throne expansion pack, for just £30. Excellent value even if you hate most RTS / RPG games like I do
.Also worthy of a mention is next Thursday which is "Internet Shopping Day 2003". You can read more about this extravaganza here, on the other hand if you cannot be bothered to click the link then it can best be summed up as a day when you will find bargains aplenty across the various participating sites. For us this means that every hour, starting from midnight on the Wednesday / Thursday, you will see a new game that has been vastly reduced in price with only limited stock available, the offer expiring when the stock is sold or the hour runs out. This will run all day and as time goes on the price of the game on offer each hour will also drop by £1, so that in the last few hours we will be selling various games for less than a fiver. The offer will span all formats so there should be something for everyone's taste, more details available on the shop site over the course of next week.
Regards,
Dave "BigFoot" Angus
GAME.NET Community Liaison
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