Projam Review

Tuesday, 14^th September 2004 10:41 BST (Europe/London)
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PROJAM is a mod for AvP2 that redefines all the skins, sounds, physics, and gameplay for both the Multiplayer and Single Player experience. It makes the game more true to the movie franchises.

PROJAM is a mod for AvP2 that redefines all the skins, sounds, physics, and gameplay for both the Multiplayer and Single Player experience. It makes the game more true to the movie franchises. It enables a realistic plasma caster, a extremely powerful self destruct that can take up half the map. It also makes the predators a bit weaker in order to more balance the game out. Click to view the Projam4 gallery The History of PROJAM by Phil "Mr. Grizzly" Olsen at ProjamMod The story of PROJAM spans approximately three years starting in around December of 2001. I was a well-known web designer, small business owner and avid gamer and the love of those things and the skills that came with them brought me to a pint where I wanted to merge them somehow. I decided to tackle "skinning" for the first time. What began as an exercise in self-education quickly produced what undoubtedly became known as the first of the PROJAM skins."Grizzly's Hicks" was posted on the LVMODS section of PlanetAvP.com in late December of 2001 and I got a lot of positive feedback. It was this skin that attracted the attention of my British counter part James A. Melia. After several emails and trading screenshots, James had convinced me to reskin the entire squad from AvP2 into the Marines from Aliens. It was a huge undertaking mainly because of the faces. There are so few shots in the films that we could screen capture to use to create the skins we needed. Oddly Hicks, who is in most of the film was the hardest to get a decent photo of. Non the less, production on PROJAM 1.0 ran about a month and half of intense work. James was obsessed with every little detail. I would finish a skin that I was sure was perfect, send it to him and it would come back with 10 changes. It was frustrating, but it really pushed us to get it 100% right! The one that almost brought us to the breaking point was we were basically done and James insisted on redoing Hicks face AGAIN. I had already done three of them, and I was just not in the mood to hear that. But you know, he was right. We found a photo from "Terminator" and we finally had a Hicks that looked the right age, since the only photo we had to work from before that was a press photo of Michael Biehn from much later in his life. The lag between PROJAM 1 and 2 was almost nonexistent. The day the first one was launched was the same day the team decided to revisit some camo coloring issues and a few missed logos on Hicks and Hudson's armor. Alien skins were also added to help bring a more movie like feel to the Xenomorphs. Work on PROJAM 2 lasted only two weeks and was reintroduced to the AvP community with glowing praise. Basically we had achieved what everyone else had been talking about doing, but never quite pulling it off. There are so many details in those skins that most people don't even consciously know they are there. For instance the camo pattern on the pants and shirts has been shifted from character to character because if you make clothes in the real world, no two pairs of BDU's will have the pattern in exactly the same place. Same goes for the pockets on the pants and shirts, they don't line up with the camo they are sown on to" It was this attention to detail that kept PROJAM as the premier skin pack for AvP2. Several others attempted to create their own version of the skin pack, but only one managed to even come close to the work James and I had completed. The Natural Next Step The pack remained unchanged until Primal Hunt's release in 2002, when I (then working on my own) came up with the Iron Bears skin pack based on urban pattern camouflage. In addition this was when I came up with my first weapon reskin, as James had done the pulse rifle in PJ2. I didn't realize how bad the Iron Bear skins were until I got Primal Hunt, because I was so focused on the Marines. It was at that point I also decided to reskin the existing AvP2 marines with "Aliens" correct armor. Technically this might have been PROJAM 3 but instead it was shipped more like PROJAM 2 AvP2. I basically re-released PJ2 in two flavors and called it a day. After Primal Hunt I basically took up skinning my brother, friends, and myself onto the models so that when we played together we would actually look like ourselves. Only 4 people in the world have that pack...the people who are in it. The Quiet Years The following years consisted of me tracking down people who were using our skins in their mods and saying it was their work. Then of course I was approached by the other serious moders and skinners in the industry to collaborate. ModMaker was the one who peaked my interest the most. He initially asked if he could use my base skins for his mod LAST ONE OUT. He showed me his work and I was blown away...after which I practically begged to be a part of the L1O team. In the months I worked on L1O, PROJAM simply faded to the background. When tragedy struck the L1O project I simply let moding and skinning slip into the background of my life and focussing more on my wife and son and our future. Along Came a Spider... A year later a guy but the name of Jon Valesquez approached me about using my skins in his newly planned realism mod. This was nothing new...it had been done a few dozen times before, but there was something different about this guy. He brought some impressive credentials to the table with an extensive Counterstrike background. In addition he had a very knowledgeable sense of real world guns and ammunition that intrigued me since shooting is one of my hobbies. He started weaving this intricate web of how he was going to achieve his goal, and I could feel the enthusiasm right over the IM client. Then he suggested that we simply fold it into the existing PROJAM name and take PROJAM the skin pack to true MOD status. From that moment Jon and I were a team! We started pushing hard and further than we thought Lithtech Talon could go. Jon doesn't limit himself in anyway, he goes for everything whether it seems possible or not, and only give up once he's exhausted all avenues. Quickly we realized that his attention to detail was going to set this mod apart the way James and I had set the skins apart. We also realized to do this right we were going to have to readdress the guard, predator and aliens skins. I knew the level of work that was going to take and I expressed my concerns to Jon. Within a few days he had a new member joining the team, Todd Slade. At 15 Todd's graphics design abilities were already on par with mine if not better in some ways. His Predator and Alien skins were a PERFECT compliment to the PROJAM marines. While Todd aggressively tackled those species I worked diligently on human skins and armament. After several months of grueling work that made us all pray for death, PROJAM 3 was released to the public. PROJAM 3 By the time PROJAM 3 had launched we were all tired of working on it. It was a long hard road of challenges and tight time frames balanced against our families, work and in Todd's case school. We were simply ready to play it. The reception from the community was, for the most part, amazing. We received 5 out of 5 stars from PlanetAvP when they reviewed it for mod of the week, and people downloaded the mod in droves. Frosty, a respected member of the AvP community set up an exclusive PROJAM server...people were excited! Making the mod had taken its toll on us all but we remained a focused team...and that's about the time the cracks started showing. The funny thing about most game communities is that they almost feel like you owe them something. They seem to forget you made this mod on your free time with your own blood sweat and tears. They don't realized that you had to fight with your wife about the time you spent working on the mod, and than you did it for the pure love of the game. While most our fans were very supportive we started trying to please the louder minority...patching, tweaking, fixing. It got to the point where Jon simply walked away from it all. We were very soured by the loud minority and forgot that there was a silent majority out there who loved. I think I played the mod 2 times and never bothered with it again. This time it's war... I wanted nothing to do with PROJAM 4. I had other projects planed, other engines to learn, it was time to walk away from the aged Talon based game. On PJ3 I had been a project manager of sorts...coordinating with Todd and Jon, timing things, working on the website, setting up the marketing. Jon was doing a large portion of the actual doing...but we collaborated often and he bounced ideas off of me and Todd. About a month or more after PJ3's final patch Jon (whom had also sworn off modding) started to whisper in my ear about PJ4. Once again his infectious tenacity started cutting through my cynicism about it all. For Jon PJ3 had been a learning process...a way to get to the mod he wanted to make in PJ3 but felt like he had fallen short. After telling me he had found a coconspirator in Sterling Doebler whom is a skilled coder, I agreed for one last round on the condition that this would be the final and definite PROJAM mod. Jon had full control, no holds bared, no time frame, no limitations for PJ4. Todd and I agreed to support his every whim on the project and we asked only that it be done before the AvP movie (or Doom III) was released. I had to move heaven and Earth to get my wife on board, promised her I would only work on it in small chunks and after the kids were in bed. Jon and Sterling began with HUGE ideas...crazy things that I didn't think were possible. The scary thing is that eighty to ninety percent of them actually worked out and made it into the mod! I have heard it said that "God is in the details", well Jon must know the face of God by heart. Smoke coming off the barrels of firing weapons, explosive tip armor piercing bullets that ACTUALLY pierce armor and then explode, firing rates, sound effects, taunts, light flares, bullets splashing in the water...it was all there! Then came the crazy things! "Phil I need you to reskin the shotgun so it can be used as a double barrel sawed off." WHAT!!! Mean while the AvP movie trailers had come out and Jon created a Predator self destuct to mimic the one seen in the trailer in every detail. Todd created a skin to match the "Celtic Predator" seen in the trailer as well. The PROJAM magic was set to Ultra High and we had no idea when it would all be done. The ideas kept coming, the skin requests kept building. "I need a Pistol skin to match the Springfield 1911, a Glock 17, and some kind of Magnum" Off to the gun company websites I went trying to come up with just the right look. As August approached we knew it was coming down to the wire. Todd and I were burned out, Jon was starting to show signs of strain and I hadn't even talked to Sterling yet. And then there was one.. We decided this time we were going to beta the mod, because this was the last time we were doing this. Once we got the mod to a point we were comfortable we invited the PlanetAvP staff to a sneak preview of the mod. SMID (shootmeimdumb), PAvP's resident mod reviewer joined us for a preview of the now scheduled release of PROJAM 4 on August 6th, 2004. We made the mistake of allowing a few friends to attend the demonstration, which in hind sight was not too smart cause it was too much for them to sit through a 2 hour demo without running around and trying the new things out. I don't blame them, but it was almost impossible to talk on Roger Wilco over the sound of plasma casters, taunts and a other weapons fire. All and all it went very well and we are told there will be a review of the mod on PAvP the day of the mod's release. I'll save you some of the suspense...he was amazed by what Jon and Sterling had done and Todd and I had supported. His exact words were: "Projam 4: It's Not A Mod, It's A Revolution." So now we sit here fixing little things and adding content here and there...details. We are looking forward to playing what we have created with others. We are not trying to please everyone this time. The vocal minority will just have to decide not to play. The team plans on a long break at which time Todd and I are going to do a few skin only packs and then move on to other projects. Will there be another PROJAM project for AvP2? I'd say slim to none at best. However, there is always Aliens vs. Predator 3. I think all of us would jump at the chance to be on that project, and honestly I can't think of a more dedicated group of guys with more passion for the AvP games than us. So David Stalker, if you are reading this...call us. :) Threw extensive tests and time, I have concluded that this is worth a download, even though I eventually got rid of it because lack of diversity in players(same players everyday) kinda dragged it down. But the effects on the plasma caster and self destruct were really well programmed even though it takes 20 some seconds while you cant move and are uncloaked, and everyone can hear you laughing. I would give it a 4 out of 5 star mod rating. Click to download Projam4