Autumn Media Release news

Dear community,

Leaves are falling from the trees; days are getting shorter, which finds most of us behind their computers even more! We are excited to introduce you to our awesome autumn media release!

Behind the scenes, the output from the TA team has increased two-fold with some unbelievable work being produced! A lot of internal activities are going on, so much so it’s hard to keep up with everything being worked on.

We are officially in Alpha stage, for those unaware what that involves it means implementing core functions into the game, such as weapon ballistics, damage systems etc.. so that we can actually now run around in the levels shooting one another.

Even at this premature stage, the game is great fun!

So what happens next?
Well having had a thorough internal “Alpha test” we naturally discovered many bugs that need correcting, features that need implementing or fine tuning along with the weapon damage, health and money systems being balanced and tweaked further.

This has all been documented thoroughly into our “bug and feedback” area and has already started to be worked through. Once all of this is done, we will again have another internal Alpha test and repeat the cycle as above until we are satisfied we have a through, full-proof and community ready Beta version!!

We often receive numerous messages via our social sites, emails, forum pm’s asking “Will Tactical Assault play be the same as the original Tacops?"
As stated above, we are in an early test stage so things will logically change from day to day, however even at the present state the gamespeed is great... in fact...excellent! The feeling of the game is like driving your own car, it feels familiar and trusted.

The levels are breathing out immense feelings, building up the atmosphere, anticipation and make it very rewarding to place in such a talented zone of wonders! In short, it feels like Tacops but graphically is far superior!

A strong reminder to everyone, Epic’s UDK was only released 1 year ago. The Dev Team have basically had to re-make TA from scratch as the content was not portable from UT3, we are very happy with our progress and hope the community reflect upon this.

Our environment modellers are creating wonders, this is a massive team effort with everyone critiquing work, helping one another to optimise textures, layouts and sharing content and knowledge. Level designers are importing the models in their maps, fine tuning routes for best game play flow, adjusting lighting for best atmospheric conditions as well as directing new talent and trialists on tasks to work upon.

The character team has seen new blood join ranks, by the name of Betelgeist whom is currently working on a hostage model and worked ultra fast that it may even be finished for our preliminary Beta date!

So without further a due, please scroll down to check out a dedicated media montage of some of our Levels, Characters and Environment Models

Enjoy!

pAldred has done an awesome job here, showing great ingenuity by taking a few reference pictures and creating this missile launcher. This will be a feature for level Area 3 (being designed and created by mjl86), which shall feature in a later Media release.
After seeing this, you may want to stay grounded and stick to transportation by foot!!

This humdinger of a troop truck was designed and created by Midwinterdreams, he has done a fantastic job, making everything modular so they can be used individually for spare parts, level props and so on! This will feature in Area 3 and be linked to the team objectives.

Anvil is the most popular map in Tactical Ops: Crossfire. With the help of our environment team, Spin has created a new and far improved version of it, which is still seeing fine adjustments made to art sources and lighting in other areas of the level.

Every part of the map has the right atmosphere and been well and truly designed for great playability, right the way down as planning routes, areas both teams will meet at a stranglehold to the smallest detail of calculating player jump heights, field of vision through different doors and so on! It’s an honour to have it in our game and we can’t wait to show you a fly-by movie!

Designed & created by restcrew

St. George

Credit where credit due... this whole level has been solely created by restcrew himself, with the original TO:Crossfire version done as a joint effort with r@yden. restcrew has taken this old favourite and done all the block out to making all models and textures himself! This map is very popular in Tactical Ops: Crossfire game and because of this we wanted to include it in TA too!

So yes, it is back... but with far greater graphics, textures, models, more balanced and includes a new route!

Flyby Video of St.George

Motion Capture by mypetgoldfish
Edited and special effects by bek
Music by JTMarrin
Sound Effects by Nishant and Havokmann

Saving the best till last, adhering to what the community has all been waiting for... a much anticipated actual in-game video content!
It may not show the full playability, hud, menus and weapons handling however this does give you a great inside perspective of our game environment, which are crammed with magnificently crafted models and textures plus an array of sounds and music to put your mind and soul into the battlefield!

We hope you enjoyed all aspects of our news release; we welcome you all to join our forums and discuss this in detail, providing us with your feedback and opinions.

Regards
Your TA Team
www.tactical-assault.com

mmt and Striker just love to tease you, so have put together two silhouettes each of their terrific characters models being worked upon. We shall feature these fully sculpted, textured and skinned in our next media release