I don't know if anyone here follows the news on the GiantsWD community site, but I thought it was worth bringing up that a beta version of a project aimed at modernizing and enhancing the game a fair bit has been released: Giants 1.5.
The current beta can be downloaded at this location. This patch renders GiantsHook obsolete, and disables GRM - a 1.5 compatible version of GRM will be released at a later date.
We're extremely interested in hearing of any problems associated with the patch, be they new or old, hardware or software oriented.
Changelist from 1.4 to beta 1.496:
Major multiplayer improvements:
• Integrated server browser, accessible from the Join Multiplayer Game menu.
• Integrated anti-cheat functionality for multiplayer games.
• Fixed all known multiplayer cheats/exploits.
• Giants now automatically loads .gck world modpacks created by GiantsEdit if they are placed in the Worlds folder. Maps can be automatically downloaded from the server host.
• Fixed a bug that could cause other players to appear to die and come back to life repeatedly when damaged.
• Fixed occasional crashing when using fully-charged adrenaline attacks as Kabuto.
• Smoothed out Reaper movement in multiplayer, fixed some missing animations.
• Increased player object update rates.
• Added full support for 3-team Mecc vs. Mecc vs. Mecc games.
• Weapon (un)availability can now be set by the host of the game through a menu in the multiplayer options screen.
Minor multiplayer improvements:
• Base build games are joinable in progress.
• Fixed a rare crash in 3-way games for late joiners before entering the game.
• Fixed a bug that prevented late joiners from damaging gyrocopters.
• Fixed various other problems for late joiners.
• Fixed a bug that could cause invisible Smarties to appear in the center of the map for late joiners.
• Fixed a bug involving the Reaper turbo ability that could cause them to become "floaty".
• Fixed some projectiles (including mines and some Reaper spells) not being removed when the owning player leaves the game.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the sound volume to be set to 0 when joining a game through GameSpy.
• Changed the behavior of the "-highbandwidth" command line switch. This is now a server-side only setting that will increase the update rates for
all clients, regardless of whether they have enabled the option themselves or not.
• Added more options for the max smarties setting.
• Vimp spawning can now be toggled on or off by the host in game.
• The world's terrain fog setting now limits the visible range of player markers.
• Fixed a bug that caused enemy player markers to disappear from some angles in 3-way games.
• The mute button now works properly.
• Removed "Lost World" restrictions.
Graphical improvements:
• Giants now uses 32 instead of 16 bit color for transparent textures when in 32-bit color modes.
• Included the DirectX 8 renderer that shipped with the GeForce 3 version of Giants. This is enabled by default on graphics
cards that support it, and can now be toggled on or off in the graphics options menu.
• Added "Very High" model and shadow detail settings.
• Added a "high" setting for enhanced water effects that uses a higher resolution water texture.
• Added an option to enable dynamic lighting on some effects.
• Increased maximum number of shadows and decals visible at once.
General changes:
• Weather is synchronized in multiplayer. Weather effects can now be easily added to custom multiplayer maps.
• Improved performance and appearance of weather effects.
• Minimizing the game in windowed mode should work better.
• Object limit doubled.
• Added a new command line, "-framelimit", to limit frames per second.
• Fixed a bug that could cause some objects to not be hurt by area damage in certain situations.
• Fixed projectile collision detection on many objects.
• Fixed some sounds that could get stuck in a loop.
• Fixed alt+tab problems under Windows Vista.
General balance changes:
• Mines left on the battlefield will explode after five minutes.
• Increased maximum mines per team to 30.
• Enemy party house buildings are no longer visible on the map.
• Gyrocopters and reaperskis now deal a small amount of splash damage to nearby enemies when destroyed.
Meccs:
• Sniper rifle: reduced range, damage, and ammunition.
• Repair pack: increased self-healing rate. Teammates are now healed more quickly.
• Repair pack: repair packs can now be used by gyrocopter passengers.
• Jetpack upgrade: increased rate of fuel recharge. Nitro is more powerful.
• Stealth bush: increased movement speed while bush is active.
• Gyrocopter: increased projectile speed, refire rate, and range of machine gun. Mortars now have a short delay.
• Machine gun: increased projectile speed, refire rate, and range. Reduced ammunition.
• Mortar: Grounded mortars detonate more quickly.
• Meccs can now enter enemy gyrocopters.
• Backpack items can no longer be activated while drowning in deep water.
• Unpiloted gyrocopters are now destroyed when they land in deep water.
• Headshots will now deal extra damage to enemy Meccs.
• Fixed proximity missiles not exploding when near objects if fired directly at a target.
• Fixed a bug that made it unusually difficult to hit small objects with the gyrocopter machine gun.
• Fixed a bug that could cause gyrocopters with passengers to randomly explode.
• Fixed name tags being shown for enemy Meccs in the stealth bush.
• Prevented homing missiles being locked on to enemy Meccs in the stealth bush.
• Fixed Meccs not dropping RPGs when killed if they are equipped.
Reapers:
• Repair: duration is no longer infinite when healing damaged objects.
• Firewall/Fire Circle: increased damage against Reapers and Kabuto.
• Slow time: area of effect reduced by 20%, and it now has a vertical limit.
• Slow time: the casting Reaper is no longer immune to the effects of their own slow time spells, but they are slowed by it less than enemies.
• Follow: reduced projectile speed.
• Cloak: spells and mines can no longer be used while cloaked.
• Sniper bow: reduced range, damage, and ammunition.
• Powerup bow: limited maximum range.
• Sea monster: increased radius and damage of projectile.
• All spells, mines, and flares now have a re-casting/throwing delay that cannot be avoided by jumping.
• Reduced maximum health.
• Increased turbo energy regeneration and movement speed.
• Increased swimming speed.
• Increased most spell recharge costs.
• Reapers now start with an RPG bow and full turbo energy in multiplayer.
• Headshots will now deal extra damage to enemy Reapers.
• Fixed Reapers being able to damage their own team's buildings with the sword.
• Fixed Seamonsters damaging team buildings.
• Fixed Reapers being able to jump while held by follow.
• Fixed a bug that caused swinging swords into steep terrain to push players backwards across long distances.
• Fixed player markers remaining visible when on cloaked towers.
• Fixed Meccs occasionally becoming permanently held by the Follow spell.
• Fixed weapons becoming visible after switching them while cloaked.
• Fixed target health bar being partially obscured by the turbo energy graphic.
Kabuto:
• Adrenaline: roaring now increases the rate of adrenaline recharge.
• Offspring: Offspring now defend each other and Kabuto from attackers, and will automatically attack nearby enemies.
• Offspring: eating enemies and vimp chunks now restores health.
• Kabuto can now pick up and throw small-to-medium sized palm trees.
• Kabuto can now grab smarties that have been ejected from damaged party houses.
• Meccs and Reapers can no longer switch weapons or use items when held by Kabuto or offspring.
• Young vimps restore less health when eaten.
• Vimp herds are now spooked when Kabuto eats them.
• Fixed Offspring occasionally becoming stuck in the tunneling animation.
• Fixed Offspring being able to pounce on enemies while tunneling.
• Fixed cluster spell being able to damage Kabuto's weakspot.
• Fixed adrenaline attacks damaging offspring weakspots.
Miscellaneous/minor changes:
• Fixed sun flares being visible during some weather effects.
• Fixed repeated egg laying sounds for Kabuto.
• Fixed rendering of gyrocopter shadows.
• Fixed Verm death animations.
• Fixed a bug that made Reaperman machine gun fire overly inaccurate.
• Fixed some issues when restarting singleplayer missions.
Beta 1.496 to beta 1.497
Bugs fixed from 1.496:
• Fixed weather only starting once on dedicated servers.
• Fixed vimp meat/soul energy not being displayed properly for late joiners in base build games.
• Fixed offspring responding to summons when dead.
• Fixed a bug that could prevent offspring from dying properly in multiplayer.
• Fixed a bug that allowed multiple players to join team Kabuto after a server switches from an MvMvM to 3-way game type.
• Fixed gyrocopters being unusually difficult to target with adrenaline as Kabuto.
• Fixed Reapers being able to cast Tornado while cloaked.
• Fixed a bug that prevented Kabuto from being able to spike Reapers.
• Players no longer lose points when killed by turrets.
• Solved numerous crash to desktop issues.
General:
• Attack notifications are no longer played when buildings are damaged by players on the same team.
• New players are now automatically assigned teams that will best balance the game.
• Fixed players getting stuck inside of dead offspring.
• Fixed host being able to enter build pad in base build games when other players are on it.
• Fixed a bug that caused offspring to take too much damage from the tornado spell.
• Fixed a bug that caused machinegun ammo usage to vary with framerate.
• Fixed objects occasionally being destroyed immediately after being thrown by Kabuto.
• Fixed Reapers being able to jump while casting fire circle.
• Fixed Reaperski ammo not being synchronized with other players.
• Fixed various problems with Reaper vimp soul collection in multiplayer.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Reaper teleport spell to be unusually difficult to cast in some situations.
• Fixed a bug that prevented Reapers and Kabuto from jumping while on some objects.
• Fixed a bug that could cause existing players to see an incorrect score for a newly connected player.
• The dedicated server utility now has the expanded Smartie count options.
• The patch installer should now be able to install to the Program Files directory under Windows Vista.
New multiplayer features:
• Left clicking teammates in the map menu will cause their name tag and health to be displayed at all times.
• Points are now awarded for returning your team's flag based on how close it was to being captured.
• The location of the enemy flag is now shown when a teammate picks it up.
• Added a voting system. Players can call votes from the multiplayer options screen (accessed by pressing F1) on dedicated servers if the host has enabled it.
Kabuto:
• Weakened offspring.
• Kabuto can no longer eat or feed trees to offspring.
• Rock generators now work properly in multiplayer. Added generators to several maps.
• Players are now awarded points for killing offspring in multiplayer.
• Kabuto's crosshair now properly reflects whether targets are in range of long-distance adrenaline attacks.
• Offspring can now attack players in Reaperskis.
Meccs:
• Reduced repair pack teammate healing bonus.
• Reduced range and speed of gyrocopter and handheld machine gun projectiles.
Reapers:
• Homing bow: ammo increased from 10 to 15. Projectiles are now louder and can be heard from farther away.
• Tornado: reduced maximum casting range and duration. Tornadoes will now disappear if the casting Reaper is killed before casting has completed.
• Tornado: reduced damage against base buildings and turrets.
• Firewall/fire circle: increased damage against Kabuto and offspring.
• Cluster: reduced casting delay and projectile speed.
• Added a sound to flares.
• Mines launched in mid air no longer have extra force.
• Fake Reapers created by the teleport spell now have player markers in multiplayer.
• Improved some visual effects.
Reaperski:
• Reaperskis are now spawned with full ammo.
• Reaperskis controlled by other players should no longer appear to move strangely when on land.
• Tweaked ski handling.
• Made it easier to do damage by ramming objects.
• Fixed some targeting problems with homing missiles.
• Increased health.
• Reapers now take damage when their ski is destroyed.
Singleplayer:
• Added weather to more singleplayer maps.
• Improved AI responsiveness on base building missions.

Yes I tried the 1.5 one week after the release and the community of GiantsWD did a good job!
Also with the ChateX tool it is really easy to join a game, no need to install gamespy and all its advertisement.
Just too bad we meet a lot of cheaters on the servers, but I hope the new voting system with the last version will correct that.
Keep it continue!

To verify - do you mean that you met a lot of cheaters on the 1.5 servers?
At current, the anticheat technology that has been implemented into the game has pretty much put a stop to cheating in the game - to the point that only people with a fair deal of x86 assembly and/or reverse engineering knowledge has even a snowball's chance of gaining any sort of advtantage over honest playing folk.
It might be worth mentioning that normal multiplayer gameplay tends not to really resemble what was intended by the game's developers - shieldpacks are used to absorb amazing amounts of damage, mines and grenades are used to propel people over vast stretches of terrain, in addition to other such tricks that can, at first glance, resemble cheating.
At any rate - as listed on the changelog, in addition to using chatex as an external server browser, you can also use the new ingame browser.

Not too many cheaters but in the last game I played last week on the 1.5 server (found with ChateX), we was just 2 and as Kabuto I was in the reaper base, all buildings was destroyed which means that there was no item shop and I was full life.
Then a new player arrive, join the reapers, spawn and kill me in 2 seconds (really) with multiple and really quick shots. That is what I call a cheater.
I did not meet other cheaters but a friend reported me some of them during games on 1.5 servers. So maybe next time I will go to your forums and report it (if I have time).
By the way thanks for the job you have done, I was really pleased to hear that Giants was still alive and that patch brings a lot of cool stuff for it.

Aye, if you happen upon something that appears to be blatant cheating, it'd be much appreciated if you could report it (including details like who/what/when/etc) to help us track down what was going on, and if possible put an end to it as promptly as possible.
Thank you. Giants is a great game and deserves to be preserved. :)