Panzer Elite III, Ostpak, MvR and the BritPak mod

First a brief history of Panzer Elite. 

Panzer Elite (PE) the tank simulation developed by Wings Simulations and published by Psygnosis Limited.





PE was developed and released in 1999. The developer fell into receivership and the PE code was purchased by JoWooD and re-released as Panzer Elite Special Edition (PESE). PESE is the original version of PE with all patches and mods of the time, they were supplied on a second disk.





MichaelY created the "FullMonty" mod. This mod improves on the realism of the simulation. Later efforts include Monty vs Rommel and the Torch mods.


Ostpak is a single player mod for PE staged on the Eastern front. It is now the most extensive expansion for the Panzer Elite engine. It is also multi-player compatible.

P.E.D.G. (Panzer Elite Development Group) was founded by beta testers of PE. The mod they produced is on the bonus disk as Brit44.
Most (if not all) founding members then moved on to Steel Beasts, leaving the non founding members of P.E.D.G. to continue to develop the original game code as PEDG.

PEDG continues to develop the original game code as the PE-X project and is the work of Brit44Aldo.
Their home page is here http://pedg.yuku.com/ 

 The PE III mod we are testing is created by BobR

Installing and testing the Panzer Elite III mod....

The install.


I have two versions of PE, one on disk and another from Good Old Games http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/panzer_elite_se For the purposes of this review I will use the Good Old Games version as it is readily available to all and only $5.

So a basic install of the game was done.

I then patched the install to 1.12 http://ostpak.chollie.co.uk/patch12.exe as I was not sure if the Good Old Games PE had the patch installed.

Then onto the mods and they were installed in this order.

79 MB (Last updated December 23rd 2010)
154 MB (Last updated December 23rd 2010)
70 MB (Last updated December 23rd 2010)
They need to be enabled by the Mod_Enabler.exe in the main PE directory.
Panzer Elite III includes all of the Ostpak mod fixes for the original game, plus the latest PEX mod from PEDG.
This features extended view range, fog and weather effects, time of flight for shells, improved infantry behaviour and ballistics, reversing AI tanks,and many other game engine fixes. Included is the improved Brit44 sound and particle effects which enhance the gaming experience.

All of Geezer's realistic art work for Armoured fighting vehicles (AFV's), trees, infantry, and structures have been adapted into the original Panzer Elite game world wherever possible. The 30 Monty vs Rommel and Britpak scenarios can be played with the 40 originals and the 60 Ostpak scenarios for mega campaigns.
Scenario2009 includes all 49 Ostpak East front scenarios.
Scenario 2010 includes 39 West from scenarios from Monty vs Rommel, Torch, Brit44 and the Ostpak mod.
As per the recommendations of the post by BobR, http://panzerelite.yuku.com/topic/482?f=1
I added the seamless terrains for the 3 theatres available.
All installed, the first thing I did then was to go to the 3D control centre and reselected my resolution as 32 bit is now available as an option. I also turned everything up to maximum and left the audio settings as default.


I have Windows 7, so I set the compatability of the PE exe to windows98.
A quick test of a quick mission to see if the game was OK. Everything was great!
Now onto the playing PE III...

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