IGN has a new trailer for Raven Shield, Ubi Soft's latest installment in the Rainbow Six series. Download the trailer here.

The official Raven Shield site has confirmed rumors that a multiplayer demo will be out shortly.

IGN has an exclusive trailer for the upcoming Ghost Recon expansion pack, Island Thunder. The trailer is available through IGN's media viewer (which limits 5 pictures and videos per day to non-subscribers). You can also download the trailer here.

Ubisoft has announced the second Ghost Recon mission pack, Island Thunder. The official press release describes the story and features of the expanion pack. The story is set in 2009 during a post-Castro election in Cuba. The Ghosts, a special (and ficticious) unit of the U.S. Army Special Forces, are sent in to subdue rebel forces and ensure the success of the free elections. There will be 8 new single player campaign maps, 5 new multiplayer maps, 12 new multiplayer weapons, 2 new multiplayer game types, plus new enemy and allied vehicles. Island Thunder will be released in Sept., 2002 for $19.99.

According to an interview by EBGames with lead designer Richard Dansky, the new maps should be "lush" jungle type maps. This will prove to be quite different in character from the urban and mountainmous maps of the original campaign and the wide open landscapes of the Africa based Desert Siege.

IGN posted a new report with details about the upcoming official US Army game America's Army (official site). The report seems to be from hands on experience of a working build of the game. It seems, that from descriptions of certain gameplay features, the game will be a great new entry to the genre of realistic combat games.

The IGN report describes long reload times for certain weapons, well animated character movement (from motion capture of actual soldiers), and difficulties that will plague snipers (which, hopefully, means that the sniper population won't be ridiculously high as in other "realistic" games like Medal of Honor: Allied Assault)

Regarding weapons, the IGN report says that:

each is modeled very realistically, right down to accurate reload animations. Watching the ten-second M249 reload really exposes some of the shortcuts other developers have taken simply for the sake of expediency (both methods have their place naturally). The sniper scope crawls a bit as you peer through it and the strength of the recoil forces you to pull your eye away from the scope after you've shot. The 15' radius of smoke surrounding you normally obscures the sniper's vision as well (which is why snipers operate with a spotter).

Each weapon has a unique shell ejection model as well. When you shoot the AK47 the shells shoot about 30' straight out to the right. The M16, on the other hand, expels its shells toward the rear right with much less force. Beyond the inherent performance characteristics of a weapon, the team is also modeling external variables such as temperature and humidity.

IGN also talks about the feature of making both opposing teams American. Each team will see themselves as US Army and their enemy as terrorists unlike in other games (including Half Life: Counter Strike and Ghost Recon where the opposing forces are counterterrorist vs. terrorist and U.S. Army Special Forces vs. Russian communist radicals, respectively) where both teams perceive the same reality.

Since the multiplayer game will be mission-based, the missions and briefings have been designed to conform with the dual reality of the game:

For an example of how this double-sided briefing might work, let's say you've been asked to perform a hostage rescue operation. The terrorists are holding a UN envoy hostage and you, as the Army team, must infiltrate the area and confront and defeat the terrorists. But the other team doesn't think they're terrorists. Instead, they get an Army briefing indicating that they've been asked to defend the envoy from possible abduction by an infiltrating terrorist force. Very clever.

The United States Army has announced their first ever official game, America's Army (official site). The game was just announced at this past Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) and is slated for release in July. The official Army game will come in two incarnations: an RPG titled Soldiers in which you build a character through training and experience and a standard multiplayer FPS titled Operations. One of the many surprising features is that it will be totally free.

The game was developed by the US Army and simulation experts at the Department of Defense, using Epic's popular Unreal engine. The game will feature realistic combat units, weapons and situations. Little bits of realism like guns jamming and using hand signals for silent communication haven't been overlooked.

In Gamespot's Gamespace for America's Army, there are several preview articles (remember, Gamespot content is locked to nonsubscribers after 3 days) that point out some of the game's features:

America's Army lets players communicate silently using the Army's military hand gestures--it's a nice touch. Another interesting feature is that, prior to taking on a certain role in the multiplayer mode, you need to complete a certain aspect of basic training. For instance, you'll need to go through a sniper rifle training program before you're able to use one in multiplayer.

One of the oddest aspects of America's Army is that, while the core gameplay pits the US Army's forces against terrorists, you can play only as the "good guys." You cannot actually play as a terrorist, yet to you, the opposing team will always appear as terrorists. Similarly, while the weapons available to you include things such as the M4 assault rifle and the M-60 machine gun, the enemy uses things like AK-47s. Should you kill an enemy, you can pick up his AK. But you will never start a round with one. That's to simulate the idea of picking up foreign equipment in the field. At any rate, the notion of perceiving the opposing team as terrorists certainly raises some philosophical questions.

IGN, reporting from E3, lists off some of the new features in the next installment in the Rainbow Six series, Raven Shield (official site). Some of these new features include weapons models in the first-person view. While many other shooters like Quake 3 normally include a model of your currently held weapon, this was not the norm in previous Tom Clancy shooters like Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six. Developer Red Storm Entertainment states that weapons models couldn't be drawn up to their standards in the past using polygons - only rough models with detailed textures. With their current technology, Red Storm will be adding highly detailed polygon models of weapons to add a little more of a realistic look, while keeping it optional for those who might not want this new feature.

Also new will be an enhanced "peeking" control. Previously, peeking around corners was either fully leaning over not standing straight up. Now, using the CTRL button, you enter a sneak mode and using your mouse you can analogly control the amount you lean. This should prove more useful in spying around a corner and minimizing area exposed to enemy fire.

IGN reports on a playable Xbox version of the upcoming Splinter Cell from Ubi, a stealthy Tom Clancy game that "bisects the market between Rainbow Six and Tomb Raider." The game places you as a lone intelligence officer, sent on stealth missions. You will get super spy equipment like thermal vision, a stealth meter and a fiber optic camera that you can squeeze under doors.

Ubi Soft has released an 82mb demo (available on Gigex) of the upcoming Tom Clancy's The Sum of All Fears (SOAF) - official site - game for the PC. In the demo, there is one prison map used for single player and multiplayer. The single player level involves neutralizing American militants and rescuing ATF agents.

SOAF is based on the Ghost Recon engine. Sounds, graphics and most controls will be familiar to GR players. The code for the demo is still ineffecient: I had difficulty playing with decent frame rates above 600x400x16, while I normally play GR at 800x600x32 on my P3-733 with 384MB PC133 and nVidia TNT2 (soon to be replaced by GeForce4 Ti4400 128MB!). Multiplayer was almost unplayable with lag freezes that lasted up to two minutes. Hopefully, these problems will be fixed by the time the game goes gold.

Unlike GR and Rainbow Six, SOAF puts you in control of only one player - a squad leader. Missions plans are preset, so no player planning is possible. Your character is part of a squad, who you can direct only using general commands like opening doors, clearing rooms and grenading rooms. If your player dies, you take control of another character in your squad. The mission is failed when all members on your squad die. Other computer controlled squads move throughout the map, following the preset plan. While in R6 and GR where you could pace yourself and adjust your plan, SOAF requires you not only to follow the preset path, but also progress with the plan's timing so all the squads are coordinated.

SOAF is scheduled to be released at the end of the month, coinciding with the film's release.

House Rep. Joe Baca (D-CA) introduced a bill that was co-sponsored by 21 House members on prohibiting the sale of violent games to minors with penalties up to $5000 and 90 days in jail. The bill must now pass the House Judiciary Committee before coming to a vote before Congress. As mentioned in a report from Gamers.com, violent games

that contain any of the following:

• Decapitation, amputation, dismemberment, or mutilation
• The killing of human beings by the use of an object as a lethal weapon or hand to hand fighting
• The car jacking of a vehicle
• Rape or other sexual assault and prostitution
• Aggravated assault or battery
• Other violent felonies

The first and second points in the above list are in many games. The third seems to be associated with the Grand Theft Auto series.

It's interesting to note that this will be a federal measure, which would mean that, if passed, it will take effect across the nation. Baca specifically mentions the incidents at Columbine High School and recently in a German high school as motivation for his bill.

If this bill is passed, it could mean drastic changes in video games - even for legal adults. Though the measure would only empower the government with the regulation of sale to minors, video game developers, in a fear of reduced sales to the large demographic that is under 18, may censor their games as to not be deemed "violent."

A similar bill is making its way through the legislature in Germany. Recently, an expelled student killed 16 people at his former high school before killing himself. His mother says the troubled teen seemed obsessed with violent games.