Magnum50

Welcome to the first of hopefully a monthly newsletter covering gaming news that is related to Tactical Gamer. Any major, breaking game news, will be posted immediately, but the purpose of this monthly newsletter is to share the latest news and release information without tieing up space on the front page. Not all games will be covered in this monthly newsletter, just the ones popular and supported by Tactical Gamer.


February Tactical Gamer Newsletter

World of Warcraft:
The World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack was released last month, and our WoW group here at TG has embraced the expansion and declared it a winner.

NeverWinter Nights 2:
NWN2 received another patch last month, bringing the current version up to 1.40. Check the NeverWinter Nights forum within TG to see this new group forming; we are also looking forward to some new mods on the horizon.

Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter 2:
Just when GRAW1 was starting to take off here at TG, GRAW2 was announced. Last month not only were plenty of information and screens released about GRAW2, but it was learned that GRAW2 will be released for the 360, PS3, and PC simultaneously. My sources say March 30th is the release date, but some web sites still report a March 5th release.
There has been a flurry of trailers and gameplay videos released in the last week or two, and if you have a Xbox 360, a single player demo of GRAW2 was just released on Marketplace. The demo is extremely short, but worth a look; a better download is the GRAW2 music video on Marketplace - it has more footage and info than the demo.

Rainbow Six Vegas:
R6 Vegas has been a surprise hit for alot of us tactical gamers, especially after the disappointing arcade shooter that was R6 Lockdown last year.
R6 Vegas is out for the 360 and PC, and still coming soon for the PS3. The PC version has been patched two times in the last month. The latest, just released a few days ago, gave many owners an install error - it was pulled the next day and a new, but same version number patch was released. Unfortunately, Vegas may be a great game but because it requires a Shader Model 3 video card to run, it's hard to find a game here at TG. Despite this, we do have a small group occasionally getting together for some good tactical action. Read more in the shooter forum.

Just learned and added before final publishing, The Xbox 360 version of Vegas will be receiving a content update in March, below is the copy/paste of the news:
"The latest OXM issue reveals that Ubisoft is preparing to release 10 new multiplayer maps (Red Lotus, Wartown, Marshalling Yard, Neon Graveyard, Presidio, etc.) as well as 2 new game modes (Assassination, CS like VIP protection mode, and Conquest, where you need to protect locations in order to win) for its recently release tactical shooter Rainbow Six Vegas. The DLC will cost 800 points ($10) and is scheduled for March release."

The Battlefield Series:
Three Battlefield titles, Point of Existence 2, Project Reality, and 2142 continue to run strong here at TG - they are still the most populated servers right behind the WoW group. PoE2 recently had a large map pack release, which we are fully supporting, whilst Battlefield 2142 had a new patch last month and EA has announced that a booster pack is coming for it. All three Battlefield games seem to have an endless amount of members playing, leaving many of our other game servers/players jealous.

SWAT4:
After a great tactical run with SWAT 4 here at TG, it has since pretty much died. But you tactical minded gamers out there are in luck. Hot SWAT Mods has announced a mod coming soon for SWAT 4 titled "Lockdown". It will contain new and improved tactical features, new weapons, and new maps. Will it revive the once great tactical game? We certainly hope so - stop by next month to find out for sure.

Call of Duty 2:
CoD2 continues to be another winner here at TG. With new mods released and a dedicated admin team that just won't quit, there seems to be training and scheduled play sessions posted almost daily. You can find this game cheap now, so if you're even slightly interested you should pick it up and join us.

Armed Assault:
Armed Assault is another winner here at TG. We already have a dedicated group of gamers and missions makers hard at work. TG has two servers for Armed Assault, and guess what folks, it ain't even out yet. Well kind of. Some of us couldn't wait for an English or American release, so we bought some of the European versions and used patches and black magic to get Armed Assault up and running in our native tongue.
BI Studios, the developers of Armed Assault, are still working on the game and have released a patch or two with another one still in the works. Feb. 6th is when the English (Great Britain) version gets released, and that should bring a whole bunch of new players to our TG servers. Unfortunately, as of yet, The US of A still has not gotten word of a release. We can only hope for a new and improved version eventually being released in the States.

Other Games:
Not that these games don't deserve as much attention as the others, but they are smaller and less played in the TG arenas.

The classics like Operation Flashpoint and Ghost Recon continue to be outpaced by their newer versions, but we always seem to have a hard core group of those great tactical gamers of yester-year willing to get together and play. I know that CounterStrike Source has had about 5 new maps released last month, and HL2 Episode 2 is still coming soon, with the much anticipated Team Fortress 2 game attached.

America's Army has been patched but none of the problems identified with the latest 2.7 and 2.8 versions have been addressed; therefore AA has died here at TG and the server has been removed. The good news is that a completely new version, using the new Unreal 3.0 engine, is still coming this summer - so they say.

Game News Around the net:
Of course Microsoft's new operating system has been released. It's getting okay reviews but the general consensus is to hold off on buying Microsoft Vista till more drivers are released, more games are supported, and more bugs are squashed. If you have a Direct X 10 capable video card, and games like Company of Heroes or Microsoft's Flight Simulator X, then you might want to consider getting the upgrade sooner then later, because the graphics for those supported games are just absolutely incredible. Of course framerates across the board have decreased with Vista.

Battlestations Midway has been released for the 360 and PC. There's a demo available for it also, which I highly recommend you try before you buy.

Supreme Commander and Silent Hunter 4 are said to be coming sometime in February or the beginning of march, but we have no official confirmations - just web site postings on that information.

In the near future we anticipate GRAW2, new HL2 Episodes, Forza Motorsport 2 (for the 360), and Command and Conquer 3.

I suspect there will be an add-on for Vegas, but there has been no announcement yet. (see edit above) But, if you played the campaign, you know the game says the story is "to be continued". No official announcement on a Gears of War part 2 and 3, but it is rumored. It's also rumored that this title may come to the PC also.

There you go. If you have any news or information on upcoming games please PM a member of the content team before the end of the month, we will review, verify, and post in the monthly newsletter.

If any of you game admins have news or information to share about your particular game, please do the same and let us know. Your content development team is here for you guys and girls.

__________________
Magnum
www.gettacticaldammit.com

Obi

We also have a scrim in three weeks so there is enough time to buy the game and get some practice before helping represent TG!

ChopStick

Natural Selection is no longer part of TG?

Magnum50

if your asking why NS wasn't mentioned or covered, then the answer is "because i don't know about it or play it, in the future any news game officers want in the newsletter needs to be submitted via PM to a member of the content development team before the end of the month.

We can't and don't cover/mention all the games we play.

__________________
Magnum
www.gettacticaldammit.com