SimHQ.com - Technology Zone - Three Days of E3: The 2003 E3 Expo

Rainbow Six 3 has a new mission pack coming out. Athena Sword looks very nice as the graphics are being enhanced along with many new weapons, maps and modes of combat. There will be eight new maps for single and multiplayer. Some additional maps will be those from previous RB6 titles that have been declared “favorites” to the community. Rainbow Six 3 is a favorite of many staff members so we are greatly looking forward to this title.

Finally, we are growing very concerned with regard to Harpoon 4. In fact, our money says Harpoon 4 will not see the light of day. It was nowhere to be found at E3 and since Carl Norman left Ubi, we are apprehensive about how much anyone at Ubi actually knows about Haproon 4.

Recently, Harpoon 4 was brought "in-house" which is seldom a good sign of development and in our minds, might have been the first step towards it’s ultimate cancellation. On an encouraging sign, we have it on some authority that Harpoon 4 is about 80-85% finished. Our optimism is fading quickly that Harpoon 4 will actually see the shelves even knowing it is mostly done.

Editor-in-Chief Bubba Wolford recalls seeing Harpoon 4 at E3 1998 for the first time. “I remember being overjoyed after knowing a new version of Harpoon was in development. I played the classic version of years and often, days on end. Those were the days I often was too busy chasing Russian subs and intercepting Tu-22 Backfire bombers to even eat. Those are some fond memories.

Let’s all hope Ubi has enough foresight to get it done and out the door. Let the community work the kinks out. If it is good, it will be embraced and carried on for years like simmers have done with Falcon 4.0.”

1C Company

In the 1C booth was Oleg Maddox showing IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles. Bubba and Doug got a chance to learn some new info about building a trk file along with an unexpected treat — a presentation of new upcoming planes for Forgotten Battles with descriptions narrated by Oleg!

Based on our information, these are the first ever screenshots of Oleg’s new Forgotten Battles add-on so enjoy. We consider them exclusive to SimHQ. Looks like something on the lines of Secret Weapons of IL2 or something. Yummy! Take a look...

1C also had two other sims that looked interesting: Private Wars and Out Front.

Private Wars from the TS Group and 1C. You control a mercenary squad in missions around the world. You play the leader of the group who values the zeros in the paycheck more than the victories. You will battle against drug lords and terrorists as well as other foe. Missions are based on industrial espionage, VIP kidnappings and border conflicts. The situations are real, the combat realistic. Private Wars has 15 sequenced pre-defined missions, and you put together the team. Missions based in Afghanistan, the Middle East, Columbia, Europe, USA, Russia and Africa. Use over 60 types of weaponry among 30 mercenaries. Private Wars is due in 2004.

Out Front from Best Way and 1C. Out Front is a WWII 3rd person strategy and role-playing game that uses real time tactics. Out Front is the story of a tank commander who has survived a battle in which his tank was destroyed. He realizes he is far behind enemy lines and needs the help of partisans to make it back to friendly territory. Graphically, the screens for Out Front looked every bit as good as some of the other more high profile RTS titles. Out Front is also due in 2004.

Buka Entertainment

We had a quick look at Fair Strike by the Russian company Buka Entertainment. It is a helicopter simulation that looked quite washed out and fairly basic at this stage of development. Not real impressed with what we saw. The developers told us the game was pushing over 100MB of textures! Those with 64MB video cards could have problems with this game if that information is accurate. The game simulates the AH-64D, RH-66, Tiger and Ka-52.

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