The Rooster's Nest: Awards

Forbidden City:
Travel Guide

By: CR6 of Rainbow SIx Retreat
See the original HERE

I don't usually post mod "reviews", but this will be as close to a review as I'll get ;-)

With the release of the highly-anticipated Forbidden City this week, I thought I would share some comments on it as I’ve spent quite a bit of time with the mod as one of the beta testers. I figured it might by fun to use an idea of a good friend of mine (Thanks Ivans!) and post my commentary in the form of a "travel guide".

Destination: Beijing
Originally included with the Rainbow Six: Eagle Watch Mission Pack (in which almost all the maps were famous landmarks), Forbidden City was ported over for the RS engine by John Sonedecker, an artist/3D modeler for Red Storm. He designed the original Forbidden City map for EW, and is currently the lead level builder for Ghost Recon.

With this release, John Sonedecker has recreated one of the most aesthetically beautiful maps ever in the R6 series. You have to remind yourself there are dangerous tangos around because you keep getting distracted by the breath-taking and accurate textures used in this map. Pretty good for John because as far as I know, RSE didn’t buy a ticket for him to fly to Beijing to do research the map :-)

Click to see larger picture

Sights & Activities
Mod-master Serellan (aka "The Rooster") teamed up with John to recreate the single player mission "Operation: Red Lightning" and refine the multiplayer experience.

For single player, among other things, Serellan created brand-new tango skins. Check out the image below that shows "relaxing" animations that people don’t often see cuz they shoot tangos too fast ;-).

Click to see larger picture

Serellan has done a truly outstanding job in paying attention to all the fine details like porting over the original background buildings from EW. The water textures and sound in the canal have been modified from the original EW map to be more realistic than ever.

For multiplayer, all four original team multiplayer starts are included as well as some new ones.

Overall, between John and Serellan, I dare say this whole mod package rivals anything that comes out of the box from the original RS/UO.

How to get there:
I know a lot of people who so far have been hesitant to try out mods for fear of messing up their RS/UO installation or other reasons. I can guarantee this mod is about as bug-free as you can get, and installs like a breeze into the UO mod folder.

Once the mod is installed, activate the "R6 Mods" file under "Mods" in the options menu. (Note that future R6 ports by John & Serellan may be installed in this folder too.) To access the mod in single player mode, use the Customs Missions menu. In multiplayer, the mod should show up with the rest of the default maps. All players require the mod installed to play it. Serellan tells me a RS-only version of this mod may come out later.

There's been an estimated 3500 downloads in the last five days since release. So what are you waiting for? Grab the whole thing here at The Rooster's Nest!