Here's a developer diary video for upcoming Xbox 360 video game America's Army: True Soldiers. The title is being developed by Red Storm Entertainment using the Tom Clancy's GRAW 2 game engine. It will be published by Ubisoft and is scheduled to hit retail stores in a couple of days.

Being a tactical shooter focused on multiplayer campaign, it is only proper for America's Army: True Soldiers to sport real strategy and tactics being employed by the United States. Watch the video clip at the full article to know what Red Storm thinks about this.

A new America's Army game is reportedly being developed by Red Storm Entertainment, the same team that gave us Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2. Dubbed America's Army: True Soldiers, the game will be an Xbox 360 exclusive and is slated for a U.S. release in September.

According to video game news website Eurogamer, players will be able to play as one of five classes in the game: Rifleman, Grenadier, Auto-Rifleman, Sniper, and Team Leader. Players can also beef up their characters by racking up experience points and spending them on skills.

True Soldiers will focus largely on team-based play. As an officially licensed Army simulation title, winning and losing in True Soldiers will hinge largely on good tactics and communication between players. Team members follow the Team Leader's orders, who in turn reports to a Squad Leader. Squad Leaders can use maps and recon data to coordinate attacks and call in artillery strikes.

Up to 16 people can join in the game's eight co-op missions. A new mode called Competitive Training, where a player and fifteen others can hone their shooting skills in one of three different target ranges, is also in the game. And of course, there's the standard team Deathmatch via Xbox Live.

Eurogamer also notes that Red Storm is planning ways to reward honest, helpful players. Honor points will dictate player rank and standing on the leaderboards. These points can be earned by "playing honorably" (more on this in the future, hopefully), getting respect tokens which are given out at the end of a game, and by recruiting people into your Army unit.

We'll be bringing you more info on True Soldiers as soon as they surface, so keep checking back here for updates.

The game Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 developed by Red Storm Entertainment / Ubisoft Paris (France) and published by Ubisoft is one of the most popular games today. The fourth of the Ghost Recon series, it is considered by some to be the best one to date. It has clan support, multiplayer, and new equipment for your Ghosts to play with. In addition, you can also expect a more intuitive GUI in the form of CrossCom 2.0.

Still, while the tactical elements and immersive gameplay brings me back to playing the GRAW2 demo, there are times when I just want see things blow up. This video is precisely that. Ghosts blowing things up. Enjoy.

 

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 by Ubisoft will have a clan system unlike its first iteration. Because of this, certain members of the gaming community have been asking "Why didn't Ubisoft include it in Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter?" It seems the Xbox 360 didn't have the same clan support that was integral in the original Xbox. They couldn't just port the Ghost Recon 2 clan system to GRAW and they couldn't fit creating one into the development schedule.

The brand new clan been designed from scratch. (It wasn't ported from Ghost Recon 2 since its clan system was a bit problematic.) From the get-go of GRAW2's development, the clan system was pretty high up on the list of things to be added according to GRAW 2 at Red Storm">Christian Allen (the creative director of GRAW at Red Storm).

So what does this new system have to offer? Aside from being able to choose your own clan name, you can also customize your logo, and easily organize the friends they have online. How does this work? If you open the clan screen, you will be able to create your own clan, view invites from other clans, and edit the your personal details in a clan you're already in.

If you view clan details, clan captains (people who created that clan) can edit the name, motto, URLs, message of the day, logo, and even the camo (the pattern of their clothing) of your team. It is here that commanders can manage and message members of the clan.This is also where the captain can give out promotions or demotions - or outright expel people from the clan.

After setting up the clan, the team is ready for clan matches. There are three methods of setting this up.

• Find my Clan: Basically, selecting this option shows all the matches your clan is involved in. You simply select one, and join in. No fuss, no thinking.
• Closed match version: This is where you start a prearranged match against another clan. Once the game has started, members of your clan can just hop in.(This could possibly be where the hardcore matches will play)
• Open match: This type of match is the equivalent of a pickup game in basketball. The clan starts an open match, and any clan can just drop in and play.

When GRAW 2 comes out, you can bet that the clan system will be very popular. It shouldn't be difficult to find or create a clan because of this.

Although Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 is slated to come out for the PC, PSP and the XBox 360, Ubisoft has delayed the release of G.R.A.W. 2 for the PS3. This news just developed when Ubisoft submitted the financial report for the fourth quarter of their fiscal year and G.R.A.W. 2 didn't show up in the list.

Ubisoft assures that G.R.A.W. 2 hasn't been cancelled. It's just that it will come later than the Xbox 360 version of the game. That's good news, since G.R.A.W. 2's features are tempting enough to get your covert op skills flowing again.

The fourth quarter ends at March, so you can expect Ubisoft and Red Storm to get right back on track for G.R.A.W. 2 for the PS3.

Remember the really short teaser of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 Ubisoft released, and that they promised the full trailer sometime around now? Well, they've kept their promise, and below, courtesy of GameTrailers, is the full-length trailer for GRAW 2.

When you slap Tom Clancy's name onto a game's box, you know what to expect: high-tech, high adrenaline, high tension. From the start we've known Ghost Recon to deliver - and improve with each installment - on all these, and by the looks of it, the sequel gets off to the promising start the original GRAW left off at its own end. Of course this isn't gameplay video (let alone a demo), so final judgment will be reserved for until later.

But then, the Ubisoft-Red Storm Tom Clancy series has always been a dependable franchise. Think about it: the high tech, things blowing up, you behind the wheel - er, the Cross-Com? If they ever did a Ghost Recon-Rainbow Six-Splinter Cell crossover (story-wise and in terms of continuity, very not likely, but just imagining), is there a game box that could contain that much firepower? (Toss in a defecting submarine and we have ourselves a little party!)

In an earlier article, we told you about Ubisoft's confirmation that a sequel for Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is currently in the works. Well now, G.R.A.W. fanatics will have yet another reason to rejoice 'coz we've just gotten the first details on this much-awaited sequel!

How, you ask? Through this month's edition of GameInformer folks, that's how. Let's run down the details revealed in the issue, shall we?

The sequel has apparently been in development since GRAW was released for the 360. Ubisoft Paris and Red Storm are working together to bring us the sequel, but they still haven't announced which consoles GRAW 2 will be coming to. But of course that doesn't stop rumors going around that it will be available on the PS3, Xbox360, Wii, and PC. But then again, all that remains pure speculation, people. Now, on to more game details!

• Dynamic weather conditions - sand and rainstorms, howling rain and winds, down to the littlest details like moisture from rainstorms, you name it, GRAW 2's got it!
• Object translucency - players will be able to see through surfaces (i.e. leaves, fabrics, and such) under the right weather conditions.
• "God Rays" - for those not in the know, God Rays is a graphical technique that simulates the way light goes around an opaque surface. Meaning, you'll see rays of light realistically pouring through windows, etc.
• New smoke effects - GRAW 2 will have the so-called "depth sprite" which makes smoke particles hover and move around objects like an actual gas. Say buh-bye to the hard lines you often see between clouds and surfaces! Realistic rendition of smoke will also make it react to light and wind, with all the improved particle effects and tons more graphical improvements.
• Setting: South of the U.S. border, with the game beginning in the urban regions of Mexico. GamersReports says that the game will take place over a span of 72 hours, with tons of featured location types like forests, mountains, jungles, and towns.
• All the action will commence in both Mexico and U.S. although the game's climax will be the invasion of U.S. soil to take over El Paso.
  

Do we dare say that GRAW 2 might be even better than its predecessor? Heck yeah! And take note, these are just generic details that we have right now, what more when detailed info on the gameplay and combat emerge? Oooh, we're sure we're not the only ones excited as hell about this game, so stay tuned 'coz we never know when we might come across more GRAW 2 goodies.

Victor the Explorer? Nah, too wussy. Victor the Crack Shot? Sounds cool, but people might think I'm doing drugs. I think I'll settle for Victor the Victor.

While Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (GRAW) has been out for a while, there are plenty of people who love to play the game. Of course, not everyone wants to pay for all those Xbox Live upgrades, so Red Storm and Ubisoft have decided to give us a minor freebie.

In addition to stability and gameplay updates, GRAW will also be getting five new achievements for multiplayer gun battles for free, such as the explorer, crack shot, and victor titles mentioned above. They don't do anything to the game itself except give you another title, but some of these titles just sound really cool. Those titles, by the way, are the following:

• EXPLORER: Win 5 Team or Solo matches on each original MP map with at least 5 different gamer-tags in the room
• VICTOR: Win a public player match in all original game types with at least 5 different gamer-tags in the room
• TEAM PLAYER: Win 30 co-op matches with at least 6 gamer-tags in the room
• ASSASSIN: Find and kill an opponent who has the Assassin Achievement
• CRACK SHOT: Kill 10 players with gunshots and at least 5 gamer-tags in the room without reloading or dying

Of the five achievements, people will probably be interested in the assassin achievement most of all. To get it, you have to kill someone who carries the title of assassin during a match. It sounds simple if you intend to rush that one guy, but the thing is, no one's explained who the original assassin will be. That's a challenge right there, as rumors will definitely fly around for a while as to how one becomes the first assassin.

Keep checking your Ghost Recon accounts to see if you've become the assassin. Till then, sit tight, camp for a while, and maybe lay a trap or two for your friends.

Buy: [GRAW]

Red Storm, a super-powerful computer at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico could be the only thing standing between Earth and an asteroid the size of a Hollywood blockbuster.

The Cray XT3 supercomputer, the first computer to surpass the 1 terabyte-per-second performance mark, has simulated what it might take to keep Earth safe from a deep impact of a menacing asteroid.

For the trial computer runs, researchers used asteroid 6489 Golevka (which isn’t going to hit the Earth) because of solid geometry data known about it. Golevka is roughly 0.33 mile (one half-kilometer) across, but weighs an incredible 460 billion pounds (210 billion kilograms) say asteroid experts at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

Red Storm's crunching have resulted in several useful info that can be used future planetary defense systems. Two of them includes the Deflection Method which will keep the asteroid in one piece but changing its trajectory to miss Earth. The other is the Disruption Approach which will blow the space rock into smithereens making sure all the bits miss the Earth. (This sounds a lot like that Bruce Willis movie. Is Red Storm moonlighting as a scriptwriter?)

"There are a range of in-between options," said Mark Boslough "but the deflection end of the spectrum is much more realistic."  According to Red Storm small, shallow explosions are much more effective for moving the asteroid than large, deep ones.
While the Armageddon-style big bang approach may sell more movie tickets, blowing up real asteroids is the least likely scenario because putting a nuclear bomb on the planet is harder to execute outside a soundstage. "If you do break the asteroid, you want to make sure none of the big pieces hit the Earth," Boslough said. However, deflecting it with multiple low-yield bursts over the asteroids entire hemisphere reduces the chance of having big chunks continuing on its impact trajectory.

But whatever method is used the goal is to solve the problem quickly even if the actual impact dates is still decades away.
"When you are saving the Earth, it’s good to have a plan B. I suspect that if a Near Earth Object (NEO) were confirmed to be on an impact trajectory, public opinion would demand fast action and this would become plan A, if it wasn’t already," Boslough said.