Right, so the Battlefield 2 AGASA competition is around the corner. SSG has decided on the two teams that we will be putting forward and have for the past 2 weeks now, been practising together on one of the clan servers provided by SGS/AGASA/Telkom. Obviously because of the new additions, learning each others game play styles is crucial to playing well together.  Although some may think this is just a game, and shouldn’t be taken so seriously, but if you want to win, you need to dedicate yourself to learning the strategies and understanding teamwork. Playing BF2 on any normal server with any bunch of random players is very different when you only have 4 control points and 8 players per side. Each player has a specific task they need to carry out for the duration of the game, either Tank driver, mechanic to repair the tank, medic to keep your squad alive and a few others to help bring down the enemy armour and infantry. This can get quite intense especially when the game isn’t going your way, and if you don’t take control of your necessary points in a timely fashion, you will lose and lose quickly as well.

The general team makeup consists of 1 commander, 2 squads. 1 tank squad which will consist of a mechanic and a tank driver, possibly one other player to drive the APC, depending on the map. The other squad will consist of the remaining teammates who will make up the infantry division. The infantry needs to be very pro-active in terms of taking out the enemy and capturing opposing points, communicating constantly over Teamspeak with the rest of the team, they can update others on enemy positions and movements. Without this communication each player will effectively be battle blind and wont know where to turn when the bullets start flying. The primary function of the armour squad is to keep their armour occupied for the duration of the game, preventing enemy armour from taking out friendly infantry and then moving onto capture our primary points. The commander has one of the most crucial roles to play, which he can only accomplish if his squads listen to his orders and follow through with them. The commander has the ability to spot enemies as well as dropping Artillery on their positions and supply crates for friendlies. Together the above roles form a very dynamic team which should be able to effectively neutralize the enemy.

+SSG+ AGASA Teams are below:

Team: +SSG+Vanguard (BF2)

	Alias	Role	Full Name	Age	Gender	Location
	+SSG+bunnyZors	Captain	Charl Pretorius	24 years		GRJ
	+SSG+N4rco666	Vice-Captain	William Barendse	25 years		GRJ
	+SSG+gonzilla86	Player	Trevor Walker	22 years		GRJ
	+SSG+PipeBombSeun101	Player	Jean Barendse	19 years		GRJ
	+SSG+rocket_power01	Player	nicolas whipp	16 years		CPT
	+SSG+Th3NaRRoW	Player	Marc mathews	18 years		PRY
	+SSG+theham123	Player (Manager)	Hilton Moore	24 years		GRJ
	+SSG+wAcKy	Player	Jacques Marais	22 years		PLZ
	+SSG+[The_Killing_J0k3]	Player	Tim Yen	22 years		Johannesburg

Team: +SSG+Sternguard (BF2)

	Alias	Role	Full Name	Age	Gender	Location
	+SSG+TheVovo	Captain (Manager)	Vaughan Robey	27 years		Mossel Bay
	+SSG+dj_sam_antha	Vice-Captain	Sam	32 years		JNB
	+SSG+Aedrox-za	Player	Jesse Greaves	18 years		DUR
	+SSG+BIOSraider{{++}}}	Player	Flip Dippenaar	25 years		GRJ
	+SSG+Kettie-Rek	Player	Adolf Bosman	23 years		PRY
	+SSG+lazersaurus	Player	carl pfutzenreuter	22 years		GRJ
	+SSG+Little-Mermaid	Player	Jonty	19 years		PLZ
	+SSG+PhaZZed	Player	Christopher	26 years		CPT
	+SSG+Surv0	Player	Ian Kidd	25 years		CPT
	+SSG+TroubleKelp	Player	Roxanne	16 years		JNB

So Ive been patiently waiting for this title for a while now, with an expected release date of late 2008, I guess its gonna be a bit longer then. But all is not lost, I can use this extra bit of time to save up for the upgrade I know Ill need. The physics alone is probably enough to bring an average gaming pc to its knees. Alot of Bf3 will be based on Bad Company but otherwise it will be a different game in its own. The below clip seems to be all I can find on the matter, it gives some insight.

So far the rumour is that this game is only going to be playable with DX10. That effectively nullifies all of us XP players. I cant actually believe it to be true, but the engine called Frostbit DX could relate to the DX engine used in Bad Company for the Xbox and Ps3, except this will be the PC version which could mean DX10? I hope this isnt true but if it is, I will be forced to change against my own will.

Here is some leaked info on what to expect:

• Release in late 2008
• Powered by “Frostbite DX”
• Set in year modern day (just like BF2, ed.)
• Will ship with 8 maps, each supporting up to 40-players per team
• Two playable factions, NATO and MEC (Middle Eastern Coalition)
• Same “ticket-based” gameplay style as before
• Maps are mostly urban, based in Middle East
• Squads and Commanders are present, introduced are “Battalions” which consist of three to four squads.
• Five playable classes; Sniper, Assault, Engineer, Medic and Support
• Will feature 48 different vehicles (24 for each faction)
• Will feature 34 different weapons (17 for each faction) and another 22 unlocks (for both factions), in total 56 different weapons.
• Other unlocks include different types of ammunition, body armor, helmets, camouflage and accessories.
• Possible public beta in “Summer 2008?
• Online stats tracking, awards and “real world ranks”
• “Soldier” feature, looks like MMO-styled characters and avatars
• Ranked servers will be available for resellers weeks before the game ships (for testing, apparently, ed.)
• In-game replay and recording feature
• VoIP, friends list, in-game IM-client and “extensive clan support”
• Built-in auto software updater (no more patches!, ed.)
• Widows Vista and OS X (no XP?!, ed.)
• Announcement and teaser trailer in January 2008.

Recently blogged about by Chris on iMod. I thought Id elaborate a bit more from a players perspective rather than one of an advertising nature. AIX2 brings a showcase of new vehicles, maps and weapons, everything a BF2 player lives for. Its a little change from our favourite vanilla version and can be a welcomed break from the routine mayhem that happens on the local normal servers.

It adds a new 32 aircraft into the game, 37 custom weapons and 7 custom kit classes, 14 new maps and 10 Dice remakes, add another 30 custom maps with the headhunters mappack, a new army (United Nations), stationary health stations along routes in maps, stationary weapons kits that can be picked up at any time. Theres a few new vehicles as well. They have done pretty well by adding an accuracy based points scoring system for snipers sniping at long distances. Get more for those targetted headshots while the guy is running flat out for cover… It also displays distance etc, quite handy. It seems to be me that theyve improved the accurance of the weapons as well, although not adding any difficulty to the game, its still nice to get high scores

Bots have been implemented for Co-Op play with humans, so in server config files you can change bot skill and various other settings. When a player joins a server with bots, one bot will be kicked to balance the field, this is an optional setting though, and thus if there isnt anybody else to join you, bots will have to do. And they arent 2 bad either.

My favourite part of this mod is the jets. As you may have noticed I am a fan of flying, and well getting to fly a bigger variaty in my favourite game while taking out enemies is awesome. Some really strong jets are the harriers, A-10 warthogs and the Su-47 is crazy. One could play on for hours just flying around. The maps are much bigger and vehicles move faster to counter the size. There are some maps that give a tank per player, the game gets pretty interesting after that.

Its great fun to play and I recommend to all. If you would like to download a copy of the mod locally, get it here, you will also need the core map pack and the Headhunters map pack.

Local server = 196.25.200.210

Thanks to telkoms Do Gaming service and the chaps making it happen.