End War Winners
Posted by Rocky on Tuesday, October 7 2008
I drew out twenty winners and mailed them a moment ago, so congrats to you and hard lines to the folks who missed out. This was a very popular competition, and I can tell from the entries a lot of console owners are really pumped about End War. You can read all about it at the End War forums. Speculation about a PC version carries on regardless, although the folks at IGN seem to think they found prrof of a PC version in the works, there is still no official word.

In the meantime, 20 lucky X360 owners just recieved their VIP keys for use tomorrow, enjoy folks, and thanks to Kimi at Ubisoft for letting us share these keys with you!

End War MP Beta Keys
Posted by Rocky on Thursday, October 2 2008
This coming Tuesday there's a private demo for the next big thing in the Tom Clancy gaming universe - End War. This RTS from Ubisoft is going to be huge, and X360 owners are clamouring all over for beta keys.

Lucky for you, we've got 20 (yes twenty) beta keys for the private demo of End War. To have one of these keys delivered directly to your Private Message folder on our forums all you have to do is send in the missing word in the following sentence correctly, and hope you're one of the 20 drawn from the correct answers on Monday 6th October at midnight GMT.

"End War ... the first video game controlled entirely by your *****"

Mail your entries to Rocky@GhostRecon.net with "End War" in the subject line!

GRAW 3 Rumours Start
Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, July 23 2008
Beonder13 noticed that The Official X-Box Magazine started the ball rolling regarding a possible announcement on the next Ghost Recon title with a short note in it's Rumour Mole column. If the rumour carries any wieght there could be a new game on our Christmas 2009 wishlist.

GR Complete on Steam
Posted by Rocky on Friday, July 18 2008
SillyHalfMexican noticed that the complete Ghost Recon series is now available on Steam, and for a limited period the package price has an additional bonus discount, bringing the 5 game pack down to just under $36!

Check out Ghost Recon Complete on Steam here, and comment in our forums here.

GRIN in the News
Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, July 9 2008
GRAW developer GRIN has been getting some airtime recently. There's a write up at Gamasutra detailing a talk they gave at a recent conference. There's also a series of videos on Youtube detailing GRIN's history via a Gamereactor interview. Part 1 has Bo explaining where GRIN started and details on their first major title, Ballistics.

Part 2 covers Phoenix Rising, Vultures, Unknown, Ghost Recon AW and some straight talking from Bo. If you only have time to watch one of these, spare 7 minutes for this episode, not only does it include Ghost Recon AW, but also an interesting swipe (?) at Bioshock. Hardcore fans will get a real kick out of Ghost Recon section though....

Part 3 brings up to date with their current project, Bionic Commando and also the future as they have scooped a top drawer brand although wouldn't reveal what it is. Bo also emphasises why GRIN love independence and won't be selling out to any major publishers anytime soon.

There's plenty in there that will draw some comments, so feel free to add your thoughts in our forums here.

Ghost Recon Covers
Posted by Rocky on Monday, June 2 2008
In this the 10th year of Tom Clancy titles from Ubisoft, I've put together a collection of Ghost Recon magazine covers.

The collection goes right back to 2001, and can be viewed in this slideshow, and is available for download here.

Signed Ghost Recon Games
Posted by Rocky on Monday, June 2 2008
Three forum members (including me!) were lucky enough to be the recipients of exclusive signed Ghost Recon games this week.

A scan of the original Ghost Recon game with signed box sent to me is posted here, and photgraphs of the box sent out to dporter is posted here. Thales will be posting his signed box later in the same thread. Many thanks to Kimi and the folks at Red Storm.

Support the Troops
Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, May 21 2008
A recent article has exposed the apparent lack of respect shown towards British fallen troops in comparison to other countries. If you feel, like we do, that this cannot go unchecked, please sign the official petiton here. Forum discussion here.

To all our site members serving at the moment, on the verge of leaving for active service, and those contracting, thank you, and be safe.

Site Issue
Posted by Rocky on Saturday, May 17 2008
Users may have noticed certain parts of GhostRecon.net being offline recently for periods of time, i.e the forums etc. We are investigating the reason for this and working to resolve it.

RSE Interview
Posted by Rocky on Thursday, April 24 2008
Play2Compete scored an interview with RSE Creative Designer Jeff "Geridak" McGann. It's a good read covering lots of ground, read it at Play2Compete, and post comments in our forums here.

South Ossetian Autonomous Region April 16, 2008
Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, April 16 2008
As Peace has pointed out in our forums, today is a special day - it's the date that the Ghosts' inserted for their first mission in the original Ghost Recon!

"South Ossetian Autonomous Region April 16, 2008 05:45 Welcome to Tbilisi, gentlemen -- I hope you got some shuteye on the flight from Bragg, because now that we're here we've got a lot of
work to do. "

Redstorm and Ubisoft are celebrating with the release of never seen before images and a competition.

Mystery Game Revealed
Posted by Rocky on Thursday, April 3 2008
The purpose of the mysterious flash advert that appeared on the official ghost Recon site has been revealed - Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. Watch the video at IGN for more details, and to see why Ghost Recon was involved the the marketing build up. Post your thoughts in our forums here.

New Teaser from Ubi
Posted by Rocky on Friday, March 28 2008
The appearance of a mysterious smouldering dossier on Ubisoft's Ghost Recon website has fans pondering its meaning. Ubisoft marketing are starting to show more and more interest in viral marketing, fans will remember the End War campaign started in a similar fashion.

The burning folder appears as a flash movie shortly after the Ghost Recon page has loaded. If you look  hard enough you can see some clues, a number 42, characters S08, and what looks like a smal circular logo or stamp. Check the forum link below on our thoughts about the S08 marking.

The sudden and simultaneous appearance of a new Ubisoft forum, in the General section, called MACSAT7 Recovery fuels speculation.

Make your guess in our forums here.

Ubisoft Buy Tom Clancy Name
Posted by Rocky on Thursday, March 20 2008
Thanks to Pave Low for catching this breaking news today...

"Paris, FRANCE – 20 March 2008 – Today, Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, announces that it has concluded an agreement with Mr. Tom Clancy to acquire all intellectual property rights to the Tom Clancy name..."

Read the full press release and add your comments in our forums here.

Modelling Competition
Posted by Rocky on Sunday, March 16 2008
GhostRecon.net forum members have a great record for winning competitions over the years. Several members have won various prizes from Ubisoft (I even won a graphics card). More recently GRAW modder Rpghard won a load of cool stuff from Xfire for being a hardcore gamer, with a remarkable amount of time logged against GRAW.

Now there is a chance for the talented Ghost Recon modellers to use their skills to try and win some neat prizes from Codemasters in their "Design a Secret Weapon" competition.

"We are looking for outlandish and creative new designs for all sorts of weapons: planes, tanks, rifles, machine guns, ships, submarines, or whatever else you can imagine. "

Pictures have to be mailed to competition@codemasters.com, or in this thread at Codemasters. Good luck guys, I know you can do it!

Server Upgrade
Posted by Rocky on Monday, March 3 2008
We've had the GhostRecon.net server upgraded, so if you noticed some downtime a few hours ago - that's why! Hopefully you are enjoying the increase in speed the new server is providing. It's a great system that should make what has been a very reliable service even more reliable. Believe it or not, the new data centre it's housed in even has MoD trained guard dogs!

Co-op Too Difficult for Developers?
Posted by Rocky on Sunday, January 20 2008
The reward offered by co-op gaming is very familiar to many Ghost Recon fans, especially those have have enjoyed playing in any of the many co-op tournaments over the years. Nine team mates playing together against the AI enemy, multiple mission objectives, built in scoring, and modding tools to easily create an endless supply of new missions, are some of the reasons that Ghost Recon is arguably unmatched in gaming history for quality tactical co-operative gaming. Todays generation of gamers would be overjoyed to hear that their favourite franchise was about to release a title with the above features, and probably shocked to hear that those same features are already available in a game released seven years ago!

The thing is, with the orginal Ghost Recon, Red Storm Entertainment seems to have created a game more than eight years ahead of its time, as todays AAA releases can't match Ghost Recon's impressive co-op feature list, infact those features seem to deteriorate with every new release. Look at Rainbow six Vegas 2, while we might hope that the 9 man co-op limit with Ghost Recon had been surpassed, it has apparantly been decreased to two!

A recent article on C&VG highlights the difficulties faced by developers when creating a game with co-op functionality. The question we should be asking is, if Red Storm could code it seven years ago, why isn't every game developer striving to expand on those Game of the Year features, rather than cutting back? Or is co-op too difficult for todays developers to code in as the C&VG article seems to indicate - post your opinions in our PC Gaming forum!

Merry Christmas!
Posted by Rocky on Sunday, December 23 2007
Thanks to Krise for starting our Merry Christmas thread this year, drop in and wish everyone a Merry Christmas wherever you are in the world!

On behalf of all the staff here at GhostRecon.net, we'd like to wish you all the very best over the festive season, and for the coming Tom Clancy game filled year!

Tom Clancy Series to Merge?
Posted by Rocky on Saturday, December 15 2007
An article in an Xbox 360 magazine this month all but confirms rumours we'd heard about an interesting development on the cards for the Ghosts, Rainbow Six, and Ubisoft's new RTS title Endwar.

What this means, is possible plot interaction between each of the new Tom Clancy releases next year. Members of Rainbow Six, the Ghosts and perhaps even characters from Splinter Cell might be involved in the Real Time Strategy End War title.

As the next titles in both the Rainbow Six series and the Ghost Recon series are likely to be released next year there's every chance Ubisoft will be confirming this speculation sometime after Christmas. Chances are that this announcement could confirm a new game engine for GRAW3, and a change in development house, possibly taking GR back to it's roots....

Luckily, we have an entire End War discussion forum here, and our sister site AGR-S.com covers the Rainbow Six Series, so whatever develops, we've got it covered!

SCAR Movie
Posted by Rocky on Monday, November 19 2007
We've an exclusive movie from Special Ops 2007 today that features the SCAR assualt rifle. The movie takes us through the assembly of the components and also the grenade launcher attachment. Many thanks to Dick Splash for making the movie!

You can view it or download it from our SCAR 2007 download entry. More photo's and discussion from Special Ops 2007 in our Military forums here.

Audio FX Headphones Review
Posted by Rocky on Monday, November 12 2007
eDimensional (PC gaming gadget gurus) have released a new version of their popular Audio FX headphones. The new set is designed exclusively by well known modder Ben Heck and sports a new design and 5.1 surround sound.

I've been testing them for around 8 weeks now and they've become my preferred headphones - read why in my Audio FX5.1 headset review!

Half a Million
Posted by Rocky on Sunday, November 11 2007
It's quite a landmark occasion in our forums this weekend, as we crossed the 500,000 post mark! Our forums now have over 16,000 members and half a million posts, remarkable going since we installed the current forum software four years ago. I've posted an image showing how the forums have grown over the years since we first launched back in 2001 in this forum thread. Thanks to you all for making the forums such a massive success!

Ubi Beat Targets
Posted by Rocky on Thursday, October 25 2007
GRAW 2 is credited with helping Ubisoft maximise sales and beat targets, in the latest financial report.

"Ubisoft said that the PS3, PSP and PC versions of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter 2 drove sales..."

Read more here.

Ubisoft Contest
Posted by Rocky on Friday, October 19 2007
Last time Ubisoft ran a major promotional contest quite a few members here at GhostRecon.net came away with cool prizes. The latest Ubisoft competition is for its blockbuster title Assassin's Creed. The prize list is worth a look...

3 XBOX360, 20 Assassin’s Creed figurines, 15 PS3 Assassin’s Creed, 15 XBOX360 copies, 150 t-shirts, 100 hoodies, 100 faceplates, 500 5% discount vouchers, and more!

To play visit the competition site here (Europe only).

Ubisoft, Next Gen Gaming, and Immersion
Posted by Rocky on Saturday, October 13 2007
The BBC recently visited Ubisoft at their Montreal Design Studios and taked with some of the team there about next gen gaming. Check out the video here.

Ghost Recon Live Action in the UK
Posted by Rocky on Tuesday, October 9 2007
Warfighters.co.uk have secured a brand new 100% wireless weapons system that looks and behaves just like the real thing.

To celebrate their new weaponry they are offering a special discounted rates for warfighting this Saturday. So if you are in the UK and fancy trying out the very latest technology in warfighting, head over to their booking page now.

For more information on the days entertainment, and the all important mission list, visit the official Warfighter site here.

Ghost Recon for Free
Posted by Rocky on Saturday, September 1 2007
Ubisoft have just released four full games for free, ad supported, and Ghost Recon is featured in the line up. The other three titles are Farcry, Rayman Raving Rabbits, Prince Of Persia: Sands of Time. The Ghost Recon version is only available to residents of the US, but the download is available everywhere at Internode. Questions about the extent of the advertising and whether it is compatible with retail versions are unanswered at the time, but if you know, post it up in our Ghost Recon 1 forums!

Ubisoft Partner With Microsoft
Posted by Rocky on Sunday, August 26 2007
It's an alliance that may surprise PC gamers critical of Ubisoft's apparent lack of dedication to the PC platform, but it's true; Ubisoft have joined forces with Microsoft to publish games under the "Games for Windows" brand. What does this mean? It means that Ubisoft is committed to publishing exclusive PC titles such as Far Cry 2, and also PC versions of each of its console titles. More at CNN.

GRAW ACU Badge up for Grabs
Posted by Rocky on Friday, August 17 2007
Staff member Dick Splash has secured a fantastic GRAW ACU badge up and put it up for grabs in our latest competition.

To win one of these badges all you have to do is design a similar badge, but for GhostRecon.net. Dick Splash has posted more details in the official entry thread here. Make your image any size you like, and have your entry posted before the end of September. Good luck, great prize!

For more details on these excellent multicam ACU badges, check out this ebay power user's selection.

We Have a Winner
Posted by Rocky on Friday, August 17 2007
Congratulations to forum member InsolenceAndHeresy for winning our popular competition to win a special edition game music CD from Game Music Central.

This exclusive Collector's Edition Best of the Best CD features 18 all new tracks inspired by some of the greatest games ever made. It also contains a 6-page booklet featuring photographs and printed autographs of all 20 celebrity composers.

For more details visit Game Music Central here where they have some streaming media of the contents.