ShedBOy
17th December 2007, 14:43
http://www.beforeyoukillyourcomputer.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/ut3_small.gif
Unreal Tournament 3. It had a lot to live up to. If not only for the original UT which still boasts an impressive player base nearly 10 years on (10 years? jeez it is as well!)
As an unreal fanboy, im going to be slightly biased. But having said that, i should be one of the hardest to sway right? One of those overly critical unreal fanboys you see on the Epic forum, demanding that the game is made how THEY want it, as if by buying the game they have somehow bought a share in Mark Rein's soul, and if he doesn't deliver he will surely burn.
...Well no. I'm of the opinion that Epic should be able to build the game they want, and if i like then i will play it. And at a time when the FPS market is utterly crammed with more AAA titles than we have ever seen, I was hoping that Epic would hit the nail on the head with UT3.
So does UT3 cut the mustard? Yes and No.
http://www.pcgamersblog.com/50226711/ut3-708938.jpg
For me UT has done something that I was really hoping it would do: go back to it's roots. Epic went back to UT and looked at what the original game did best. CTF, DM, TDM were the main gametypes that everyone loved in the original. Their servers were always full back in the days of Wireplay and Barrysworld (anyone remember the Wireplay Face, Lava, November server? ah man, the hours spent there...)
One thing I read many times regarding UT3 is the "dissapointment at the lack of assault mode". Yes people loved Assault, and it was good offline especially with UT's superior BOT AI. But was it really a popular online game? No it wasn't.
One lacking gametype that I am a little sad about it Domination. Domination was the nearly child of UT, the second matrix movie, the german exchange student at school. It was ok and people liked it, but it was never really accepted into the mainstream. It was the same with 2k3, which heralded the slightly modded DDOM version. Personally i think this made it better, but once again it never quite lived up to its DM & CTF counterparts.
Warfare is the new child this time round, except that it isnt really. It's a tweaked version on Onslaught, which did make a splash online for 2k4, but not really in a competative sense. This time round there are orbs, and necris vehicles, which I will admit are fantastically designed. I get the impression that like the last incarnation, this will be a big "for fun" gametype, as opposed to a clan one.
When UT was released to compete with Quake3, one of the main things that stood out for UT over Quake, aside from the weapons and bots, was the movement. Double tap dodging, gambowling, backflipping: it had never been seen before. It was the most awesome thing you had ever seen, the first time you dodged a six pack of rockets and planted an alternate flak in the face of your opponent. With 2k3 the movement took a new turn: it went nuts. You could move round the map so fast that CTF attackers were having a field day. Many people hated it, and went back to UT. While it was toned down slightly in 2k4, the movement was still fairly manic compared to that of the original.
In UT3 though, they have toned it back down, but not as far back as the original game was. It has the hints of the 2k3/4 versions, but with a heavier "feel" to the game than the original unreal had. That coupled with the slightly increased game speed makes it really balanced. The game is not slow, but its not the mental speed that 2k3 was.
http://www.fpsrantings.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/ut3-demo-small.jpg
Which brings me to the weapons. OOOOH the weapons. In UT all the weapons were stupidly overpowered. All of them. The rocket launcher fired six rockets at a time for god sake. SIX! Again, with UT3, they have taken a leaf out of the original's book and made the entire arsenal blissfully overpowered. You can literally go into a fight with any weapon and your likely to get a kill. That was never the case in 2k3/4. Dual enforcers? RWAR!
CTF is brought back to life with the lack of shield gun, but with the hammer that still allows for crazy trick jumping without the irritating (i imagine, im an attacker ;P) smashing of flag carriers with shields up, only for them to just get propelled across the map toward base. The main thing lacking for me right now in CTF is the maps, but that is something that im happy say, won't be the case for long thanks to the unreal community.
So, the gameplay is good, the weapons are good, and Epic have continued the incredably high standard of map design and playability. The engine is amazing, the graphics are just :O and the overall feel of the game is incredably well balanced.
So at this point its time to jump onto your manta's and ride off into the sunset right?
Wrong.
http://blog.wired.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/09/27/ut3.jpg
While Epic have done some great stuff with this game, there are many things that they seem to have forgotten elsewhere, things that were polished in every other release of the Unreal Tournament franchise except this one. Things that Epic have always touted that they prided themselves on.
Epic's reputation, and that of the unreal franchise was damaged upon the release of the demo. Simply put, it wasn't ready. Not even close.
The menu system was shocking, and still is. The server browser simply didnt work. There was no favourites menu. There was a fiddly login system that didnt allow you to enter a valid email address with a European keyboard. You couldn't use piped weapon switch, and you still can't. You couldnt assign custom crosshairs and you still can't without the use of CustomUT.
And then there was the server side aspect of the game. Or, in actual fact, lack thereof. Never has there been a release of UT without a dedicated server. Never has there been a release without webadmin. Servers restarted on random ports everytime, which made admins realise why there wasn't a favourites menu: how can you favourite a server that changes address every time it restarts?
It was like Epic had never released a game before, and while many of these problems have been fixed, the damage had been done. Gone are the days when UT admins could say "ha, you would never see Epic do such a shoddy release!"
But hey, it's all about the game for most of us right?
With the community for UT being what it is, anything that the community desires with usually be created by someone. Want a face remake? It will happen. Want brightskins? Beat you to it!
Maybe Epic have relied to heavily on the community to create this content themselves this time round however, and indeed you could argue that after so many mods for previous releases that they would have included things like proper bright skins and hit sounds in the game, and rightly so, they should have.
But one of the things that really worries me about UT3 is also something for which earlier I gave it credit: going back to it's roots. UT3 has been criticised for not doing anything "new", in a market that is currently enjoying a boom in innovation and competition. After all CTF and DM are nothing new, leaving just the re-invention of a gametype that has already been in 2 previous UT releases. But who knows. If UT3 makes it competatively purely on the 1v1 scene then i guess that's enough. I mean look what it did for Quake4... :E
If UT can make it in the overcrowded market that is the online FPS market atm, then it's done well. If it doesn't, the reasons will be fairly obvious.
Overall: 3 ps3 controllers out of 5
http://ps3.absolute-playstation.com/gfxap3/front/ps3-controller-small.jpghttp://ps3.absolute-playstation.com/gfxap3/front/ps3-controller-small.jpghttp://ps3.absolute-playstation.com/gfxap3/front/ps3-controller-small.jpg
Unreal Tournament 3. It had a lot to live up to. If not only for the original UT which still boasts an impressive player base nearly 10 years on (10 years? jeez it is as well!)
As an unreal fanboy, im going to be slightly biased. But having said that, i should be one of the hardest to sway right? One of those overly critical unreal fanboys you see on the Epic forum, demanding that the game is made how THEY want it, as if by buying the game they have somehow bought a share in Mark Rein's soul, and if he doesn't deliver he will surely burn.
...Well no. I'm of the opinion that Epic should be able to build the game they want, and if i like then i will play it. And at a time when the FPS market is utterly crammed with more AAA titles than we have ever seen, I was hoping that Epic would hit the nail on the head with UT3.
So does UT3 cut the mustard? Yes and No.
http://www.pcgamersblog.com/50226711/ut3-708938.jpg
For me UT has done something that I was really hoping it would do: go back to it's roots. Epic went back to UT and looked at what the original game did best. CTF, DM, TDM were the main gametypes that everyone loved in the original. Their servers were always full back in the days of Wireplay and Barrysworld (anyone remember the Wireplay Face, Lava, November server? ah man, the hours spent there...)
One thing I read many times regarding UT3 is the "dissapointment at the lack of assault mode". Yes people loved Assault, and it was good offline especially with UT's superior BOT AI. But was it really a popular online game? No it wasn't.
One lacking gametype that I am a little sad about it Domination. Domination was the nearly child of UT, the second matrix movie, the german exchange student at school. It was ok and people liked it, but it was never really accepted into the mainstream. It was the same with 2k3, which heralded the slightly modded DDOM version. Personally i think this made it better, but once again it never quite lived up to its DM & CTF counterparts.
Warfare is the new child this time round, except that it isnt really. It's a tweaked version on Onslaught, which did make a splash online for 2k4, but not really in a competative sense. This time round there are orbs, and necris vehicles, which I will admit are fantastically designed. I get the impression that like the last incarnation, this will be a big "for fun" gametype, as opposed to a clan one.
When UT was released to compete with Quake3, one of the main things that stood out for UT over Quake, aside from the weapons and bots, was the movement. Double tap dodging, gambowling, backflipping: it had never been seen before. It was the most awesome thing you had ever seen, the first time you dodged a six pack of rockets and planted an alternate flak in the face of your opponent. With 2k3 the movement took a new turn: it went nuts. You could move round the map so fast that CTF attackers were having a field day. Many people hated it, and went back to UT. While it was toned down slightly in 2k4, the movement was still fairly manic compared to that of the original.
In UT3 though, they have toned it back down, but not as far back as the original game was. It has the hints of the 2k3/4 versions, but with a heavier "feel" to the game than the original unreal had. That coupled with the slightly increased game speed makes it really balanced. The game is not slow, but its not the mental speed that 2k3 was.
http://www.fpsrantings.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/ut3-demo-small.jpg
Which brings me to the weapons. OOOOH the weapons. In UT all the weapons were stupidly overpowered. All of them. The rocket launcher fired six rockets at a time for god sake. SIX! Again, with UT3, they have taken a leaf out of the original's book and made the entire arsenal blissfully overpowered. You can literally go into a fight with any weapon and your likely to get a kill. That was never the case in 2k3/4. Dual enforcers? RWAR!
CTF is brought back to life with the lack of shield gun, but with the hammer that still allows for crazy trick jumping without the irritating (i imagine, im an attacker ;P) smashing of flag carriers with shields up, only for them to just get propelled across the map toward base. The main thing lacking for me right now in CTF is the maps, but that is something that im happy say, won't be the case for long thanks to the unreal community.
So, the gameplay is good, the weapons are good, and Epic have continued the incredably high standard of map design and playability. The engine is amazing, the graphics are just :O and the overall feel of the game is incredably well balanced.
So at this point its time to jump onto your manta's and ride off into the sunset right?
Wrong.
http://blog.wired.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/09/27/ut3.jpg
While Epic have done some great stuff with this game, there are many things that they seem to have forgotten elsewhere, things that were polished in every other release of the Unreal Tournament franchise except this one. Things that Epic have always touted that they prided themselves on.
Epic's reputation, and that of the unreal franchise was damaged upon the release of the demo. Simply put, it wasn't ready. Not even close.
The menu system was shocking, and still is. The server browser simply didnt work. There was no favourites menu. There was a fiddly login system that didnt allow you to enter a valid email address with a European keyboard. You couldn't use piped weapon switch, and you still can't. You couldnt assign custom crosshairs and you still can't without the use of CustomUT.
And then there was the server side aspect of the game. Or, in actual fact, lack thereof. Never has there been a release of UT without a dedicated server. Never has there been a release without webadmin. Servers restarted on random ports everytime, which made admins realise why there wasn't a favourites menu: how can you favourite a server that changes address every time it restarts?
It was like Epic had never released a game before, and while many of these problems have been fixed, the damage had been done. Gone are the days when UT admins could say "ha, you would never see Epic do such a shoddy release!"
But hey, it's all about the game for most of us right?
With the community for UT being what it is, anything that the community desires with usually be created by someone. Want a face remake? It will happen. Want brightskins? Beat you to it!
Maybe Epic have relied to heavily on the community to create this content themselves this time round however, and indeed you could argue that after so many mods for previous releases that they would have included things like proper bright skins and hit sounds in the game, and rightly so, they should have.
But one of the things that really worries me about UT3 is also something for which earlier I gave it credit: going back to it's roots. UT3 has been criticised for not doing anything "new", in a market that is currently enjoying a boom in innovation and competition. After all CTF and DM are nothing new, leaving just the re-invention of a gametype that has already been in 2 previous UT releases. But who knows. If UT3 makes it competatively purely on the 1v1 scene then i guess that's enough. I mean look what it did for Quake4... :E
If UT can make it in the overcrowded market that is the online FPS market atm, then it's done well. If it doesn't, the reasons will be fairly obvious.
Overall: 3 ps3 controllers out of 5
http://ps3.absolute-playstation.com/gfxap3/front/ps3-controller-small.jpghttp://ps3.absolute-playstation.com/gfxap3/front/ps3-controller-small.jpghttp://ps3.absolute-playstation.com/gfxap3/front/ps3-controller-small.jpg