January 2004

Zebra Straw Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, January 28 2004
Here's Yodasplat's walkthrough for one of the toughest missions in Ghost Recon - mission 8 Zebra Straw.

"Let them have it with those grenade and be quick about it. Time's running out. Be sure to clean up that place and the trees beyond from a distance. You really don't have time to hunt them down. Blast 2-3 grenades among those ruins and them pick off the survivors as quickly as you can with your rifle. Keep in mind that now they know you are there ... People tend to get cranky when they get shot at. You are not best buddies with them now ... "

Anime Ghosts Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, January 28 2004
This new mod from a new Ghost Recon modder "sup" contains new Camo for all Ghosts, new random skins for the ghosts, and one very simple misson. It looks quite different from other skins you may have seen, check out some screenshots in the forums, and leave feedback for sup here.

Clan Recruiter Posted by Rocky on Tuesday, January 27 2004
Clan Recruiter are looking for staff with Ghost Recon experience to help with the launch of their new website in March. Full details here.

Moscow's Gatekeeper Posted by Rocky on Tuesday, January 27 2004
Slugg has released the latest instalment of his IceBreaker series of Ghost Recon mods. Here's the brief..

"This instalment of the IB attempts to cover the topic of the German Smolensk Offensive - one of the major battles that took place on the Eastern Front in the opening phase of German invasion of the Soviet Union.

Besides the three new maps this instalment of the IB also features a number of new weapons, uniforms, specialist classes, new vehicle models and new sound effects (including all team intercom chatter in German!)."

Full details and download available at the official Icebreaker website!

Red Storm Soldiers Posted by Rocky on Monday, January 26 2004
GR.net Staff member Sartillies has been busy researching the character names in Ghost Recon, and come up with quite an interesting report. Although most people recognise that some Red Storm developers slipped their names into the game, the extent of the infiltration is more than some might have realised. If nothing else, it also serves as a nice name check for those dedicated game developers we have to thank for Ghost Recon, so check out Sart's full report here!

Operation Diablo Posted by Rocky on Friday, January 23 2004
Here's a five mission campaign from Miltia Man. You'll need both expansion packs to enjoy this new challenge - grab it here.

SR2004 Prize List Posted by Rocky on Friday, January 23 2004
The pace is picking up as Ghost Recon co-op experts head towards the official start of the Alpha Squad Stealth Recon 2004 Tournament. The 40 lucky teams who managed to get signed up for this tournament can be viewed here. And I say "lucky" because the recently announced prize list is quite outstanding.

Hypernia and Ubi Soft are sponsoring the event. Hypernia and have put up a years worth of gaming on their Premium Server, that's $5000 worth of prize right there. Runners up get a Clan Web package, and every single team that completes the tournament is getting a full year of free voice comms hosting! Finally, as an additional bonus every team participating in SR2004 will get $50/month off every month from Pro or Premium server rental, and the setup fee reduced by 50%.

Ubi Soft have nine ATi Radeon 9000 Pro 128MB AGP 4X/2X Bus to give away!

If you are not participating, take a look at what the teams are up against for the first mission and make a note not to miss out next time around!

STOP PRESS!!! I just spoke with Chavez, and there's more! 1.st runner up gets a GR GOLD PACK and the top 3 teams all get Ghost Recon T-Shirts!

Who's That Girl? [updated] Posted by Rocky on Friday, January 23 2004
Thanks to some covert photography at Red Storm's offices, we can see what appears to some publicity shots being taken for an upcoming title.

CLICK ME

Much as I'd like to speculate, I'll leave that up to you - post your thoughts here. Thanks to Snailfan for the photo's!

[update] A caption competition has sprung up here!

The results are in! Posted by zjj on Thursday, January 22 2004
WOW!  The forum awards project has been fun!  The nominations for over 50 categories were submitted, polls created, voting completed and now the votes have been counted - three times!

Winners for modding categories such as best mod (Frostbite), best weapon (M4 SOPMOD from Standard Upgrade), and most helpful modder (Jack57) can be found here, here, and here.  Winners for humorous categories such as who needs a life outside of GR (Nightmare), most like to break pc out of anger (warhawk), and most typos (Snake) can be found here and here. Winners for general categories such as most recognized clan (AlphaSquad), most addicted online player (NYR_32), and most recognized member (Rocky) can be seen here and here.

Congratulations to all!

7.62mm Upgrade v1.5 Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, January 21 2004
Thumper sent in the latest upgrade for his popular 7.62mm weapons modification. The original full download is here, the first upgrade is here, and this latest v1.5 upgrade can be downloaded here! Drool over the images here.

SWAT Mod Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, January 21 2004
Chems has succumb to fan pressure to provide some SWAT characters in Ghost Recon, and prepared a small mod that adds just that. You can download the mod here, but please check this discussion for full instructions on how to install the mod, and also check out the cool images.

Dog ZEBRA Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, January 21 2004
Here's a mod from a new Ghost Recon skinner with some pretty neat models. Featuring all new models (including boonie with long sleeves and rifleman with soft covers + much more), some new weps (USAS 12g!) and attachments - you can view some images in this forum discussion. Download here.

WWIII [updated] Posted by Rocky on Tuesday, January 20 2004
World War III is a brand new Ghost Recon campaign from Christian, unfortunately it weighs in at over 170Mb due to the included music files! Broadband users can download it here.

A 25Mb no music version is now ready for download, grab it here! If you have broadband please try the larger version, as the author states it adds to the whole experience!

More information on this mod is now available here.

Release Dates Posted by Rocky on Tuesday, January 20 2004
Here are the current official release dates for some upcoming Ubi Soft games, just in a moment ago.

Rainbow Six III Gold Pack : 20th February 2004
Athena Sword : 20th February 2004
Ghost Recon Jungle Storm : 27th February 2004
Far Cry : 26th March 2004
Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow : 26th March 2004

Willow Bow Posted by Rocky on Tuesday, January 20 2004
Sartillies has prepared an entertaining walkthrough for Mission 14 of Ghost Recon - Willow Bow.

"When you see the two nests OPEN FIRE!!! Don't worry about hitting anything, just spray and get everyone's attention. After a few seconds, turn around and RUN!!!"

Read the whole thing here, and view our other walkthroughs here.

Stalker's SASR Posted by Rocky on Monday, January 19 2004
If you've been following this forum discussion you'll already have seen the great work that stalker has achieved in his latest mod, which contains..

• All characters (including specialist) reskinned with AUSCAM and desert AUSCAM
• 6 Missions
• New Main Menu and splash screens

Download here.

Jungle Storm Hands On. Posted by Xian_Saint on Monday, January 19 2004
More information on GR: Jungle Storm. This time, a hands on preview by the folks over at IGN.com. Overall the report has nothing but good things to say about the game and they even brag about it using a USB headset and voice commands that were so popular in SOCOM. As if that wasn't enough, there are screenshots and trailer to show off the latest episode in the Ghost Recon series. Check it out here.

GR: Jungle Storm Posted by Xian_Saint on Sunday, January 18 2004
While most of us would prefer the next Ghost Recon title released to be for the PC, unfortunately it's not. The next title - Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm, due out this time next month, is available only on the Playstation 2.

Pre-order now at www.ebgames.com with an expected shipping date of 2/17/2004. All you PS2 owners out there, enjoy. The rest of us will keep holding our breath for GR2.

GR2 : 2004? Posted by Rocky on Saturday, January 17 2004
Just when you thought we had speculated about Ghost Recon 2 as much as was possible, there is yet more fuel to keep those hopeful embers burning! This months PC Gamer states that they are expecting news from Ubi Soft regarding Ghost Recon 2 any time now, and they have it slated as one of their top up-coming games for 2004. There is nothing concrete mentioned, so it could be nothing more than idle speculation, but we live in hope! Feel free to comment on this in our GR2 forum. Thanks to Dago for the news!

Edit > Here is the actual quote....

"...Follow-up and franchise extensions play a significant part in our list, with new properties increasingly difficult to sell to publishers trying to find a profit in every release. We expect to soon have news of a sequel to our former Game of the Year, Ghost Recon..."

WOW3 Posted by Rocky on Monday, January 12 2004
SI-Prozac's WOW version 3 is now available for download. So if lots of new weapon goodness takes your fancy, grab it here.

Forum Awards Voting Posted by Rocky on Sunday, January 11 2004
I am extending the Forum Awards to Wednesday while we get ourselves organised for collating all the results and announcing all the winners. So if you have not voted yet, this is your last reminder! There are a selection modding catagories including best mission, best mission modder, best map collection, and two polls running for the best ever map created for Ghost Recon, here and here. If you have ever downloaded a mod and enjoyed it, pay your dues and say thanks to the modders by placing your vote now!

10mm Map Pack Posted by Rocky on Wednesday, January 7 2004
Popular Ghost Recon map modder 10mm has released 6 improved version of the maps in his first map pack. Download the 40Mb installer here. Some feedback can be found here.

Power Ladders Posted by Rocky on Sunday, January 4 2004
Team Warfare are starting two Ghost Recon Power Ladders shortly - one USA, one Euro.

"... our new Power Ranking Ladders are based on the Elo ranking system that was originally developed for chess. Your rank is determined by a modified version of the Elo equation, a mathematical equation that takes into account the Power Rating of the team you played. With Power Ladders you are not restricted to a single pending match. You can have infinite matches scheduled, complete with match comms, at any given time,”  You can challenge any team on the Power Ladder regardless of rank. Power Ladders allow teams to make same-night challenges. ”

More details here.

Mod Downloads Posted by Rocky on Sunday, January 4 2004
The dawn of a new year, and the start of a new option for fans looking to download mods - MultiplayerMods.com. Run by the same guys that bring us The Combat Zone, Multiplayer Mods lists downloads for 18 popular online games, check it out!

Happy New Year! Posted by Rocky on Thursday, January 1 2004
As we enter 2004 we'd like to extend our best wishes to Ghost Recon fans for the coming year. It's been a great year for Ghost Recon, that has seen visitor statistics here at Ghost Recon.net actually increase rather than diminish. That's quite a feat for a game that has been challenged by some new young pretenders in the tactical shooter arena recently.

We are especially excited about the coming year as there are some potentially awesome and ground breaking Ghost Recon mods on the horizon, and as usual here at Ghost Recon.net we have many unique reports and content to be released every week. Here's hoping 2004 is another blockbuster for Ghost Recon, still the best Tactical Shooter money can buy!