Do you, the game-playing public, care at all about Unreal Tournament anymore? That’s a question I had to ask myself when I started playing the PC version of Unreal Tournament III after its release late last year. Personally, I was thrilled to see the UT formula updated with a new engine and new potential for modification. But in the months ahead, something didn’t quite feel right. The servers felt a little emptier, and the mod sites felt a little more barren, as well. Had the once-thriving UT community splintered off and gotten into different games?
Checking back in on the PC version of UT3 today, things seem to have picked up a bit on the mapping and modding side. It might not be as hot and heavy as it has been with previous UT games, but there’s a good chunk of interesting content out there already, with more on the horizon.
All of this, from the still-forming mod scene to the lack of players on the PC makes me wonder how well the game will do on the Xbox 360, where it’s scheduled to land this summer, with retail sites reporting the specific, but unofficial date of June 30. After playing an early 360 version, it definitely seems like almost all of the pieces are in place for it to be a great version of a great game.
The game already performs just fine, with a good, sharp frame rate, good control, and plenty of available content. The 360 version has a new split-screen mode, allowing two players to get together on one machine. Also, you’ll get five new maps and two new characters, giving you more out of the box than the game has had on other platforms.
But, of course, there’s an elephant in the room, and it’s the ongoing discussions with Microsoft about user-generated content. The Unreal series has thrived on the PC due to an extremely active community of people making new maps, character models, and mods for the game, and PS3 users have been able to benefit, as UT3 on PS3 does have the hooks in place to use mods and other unofficial content. While representatives for Epic and Midway have indeed said that the talks continue, Microsoft officials have made their stance fairly public: allowing users to download content from the Internet and place it into an Xbox 360 game is too big of a security risk. Without that expandability, the 360 version would be way less exciting than its PC and PS3 counterparts.
Assuming that Microsoft doesn’t change its position, the 360 version of the game will be crippled in a way that the other versions aren’t. 360 players be stuck getting all of their UT3 updates directly from Xbox Live Marketplace. Perhaps Epic and Midway will try to license and collate the best user stuff from the other platforms and release them as regular updates in lieu of handing us the keys directly. But if you’ve been playing UT for any length of time, you already know that isn’t the same thing.
Either way, it’ll be interesting to see how this one turns out.
66 Comments
I still care about UT, but not as much as I used to.
I was soo excited about UTIII but it didn’t out that well, I find myself still playing UT2k4 over UTIII… maybe not having a proper system to play it is the reason… or coz I felt it was slower?
Oh yeah and Selected mods being uploaded onto XBL manually would be good.
It will require work both on the Epic and MS sides though, maybe some ad tie in for the free download will make them settle the R&D cost?
I used to love UT and as time went on I found less and less of a desire to play the same game. Mod’s and the like can even get old after awhile.
I dunno, I’d rather have a handful of worthwhile mods that the majority of the userbase is playing than hundreds of different mods/servers that are sparsely populated.
if microsoft allowed user created content to be freely downloaded from the internet , there would be a 360 homebrew scene in a matter of weeks.
I rarely play mods anyway, so this isn’t such a big deal to me. If the 360 version has not-so-damned-difficult achievements, I’ll at least rent it.
UT3’s demo was pretty disappointing, so I never picked it up… I don’t really like any of the games i’ve played that have been built on the UT3 engine either which is a real shame. Although i’m tempted to pick it up for the Night-Blade mod (a sequel of sorts to the multiplayer Thief mod for the original Unreal Tournament, which was amazing.)
I think the engine and the game were really geared towards console platforms, I don’t own any of them right now and I honestly don’t feel like i’m missing much without them. What I generally don’t like about the game industry right now, is that anyone new to games will look at them with a faint interest not understanding why people play them anyway. There aren’t many game developers that you can really like, big publishers have had a very detrimental effect on a lot of the great industry people.
The modding community has been quite good though, the modelling i’ve seen on the UT forums is fantastic, so I still hope that it gains success through patches and the efforts of the community.
100+ downloadable maps, custom characters and modes for the PS3 alone make it worth the purchase. I just wish either Epic would have made it easier to download and install from the game instead of the route we used in the early adoption. And, that more people arn’t lazy about downloading the content themselves. We would have more of a thriving community.
ill get this game for 360 itl play smoother than the pc verson will. (on my pc)
plus this article says it will have mods:
http://www.oxm.co.uk/article.php?id=3893
There are so many great shooters out there and I haven’t played a UT game in a long time. I don’t doubt they’re great games, but I’ve only got so much time and all the mods and all that extra content on the PC also make the game seem like it might have a steep learning curve for someone out of the loop for so long. So I just don’t bother.
Unreal Tournament 3 is TRASH, especially compared to the far superior games that released around its release such as Team Fortress 2.
Unreal Tournament 2004 is a superior game in every respect.
Wow. An Xbox 360 game that doesn’t have an advantage over any other platforms.
I was a fan of the UT series, and even UT2k3 which everyone said was a huge disappointment. If that was a disappointment then UT3 is just a disaster because although I didn’t hesitate to buy the game, but the excitement level for the game seemed to have been right around zero. Even from Epic. And even the game it self, honestly felt like a bit of a let down from what I would expect of Epic. Even the simple things like the menus were completely butchered.
But if Epic, like you suggested actually puts out the community stuff by it self, I think that could actually be a solution to the dilemma with user-generated content since this way although you wouldn’t get as much content as you could, a whole lot more people would get it if it is handed to them right in the game. It’s always kind of a pain to have to go and download maps and such things outside, plus you can’t really enjoy it with others because likely they don’t have the same mods.
No thanks. It’s a phenomenal engine, but the mechanics are derivative. Speaking on the console side, of course. The PC version allows for plenty of creativity and has a firm grasp of its community. As for a 360 version, I think it will do well for people who are looking for something to play other than Halo.
To be honest I’ve never really cared about UT.
I really think UT3 was a dissapointment to many people because Epic was working on Gears 2 half-way into the devlopment of UT3.
I’m still a UT fan but I don’t own UT3 i still play UT with friends and its a lot of fun I might pick it up for the PS3 since its quite hard to play UT on a laptop but I still get some awesome headshots
why would you sum things up in the title that way, no way I’m reading the article now.
I think that during the time of the first UT there really wasn’t a whole lot of competition and plus it was awesome. Today, it has a lot of competition….
The only reason user created stuff is “risky” on consoles is because the majority of console users are not that smart and the same goes for the content providers(Aka, simple majority minded).
They dont want competition…
Eg, on PC there are mods better than allot of full games. Would Mic welcome a Halo beater free “Counter Strike” popular game on the Xbox?
When they charge money for Solitaire, I dont think so personally. M2cent
Btw, Welcome back Jeff and crew. Heard about this site on another podcast actually.
Oh god no a xbox 360 port too? I still cant get the bad taste I had barrowing somebody ps3 UT3 to see what is was like. (not as bad as playing call of duty 4 on a console at least it had a mouse option.)
the fact alone xbox 360 only has gamepad support makes me not want to even look at this with a 50 pole.
the ps3 was slow and horrible compared to the pc version it was like playing in slow motion even with a mouse and didn’t not even look as good.
DO not want in fact the though of it makes me sick.
Microsoft is going to lose a lot of money without having mod support.
I’m losing interest in shooters in general, after years on end of the same mechanics, concepts ect it’s unlikely that an FPS or third person shooter is going to keep me interested for very long because they all start to feel the same after a while. I’m gravitating back to strategy games on the PC- not so stressful and lots to think about.
I definitely don’t have any interest in UT anymore.
Come on, who doesn’t like Unreal Tournament… I am dying to get my hands on any version of UT3, (no 360, no PS3, and a computer that can blow up any moment). I have to play UT 2004 (it’s not a complain, the game is great but i’d like UT3) to satisfy my necessity of UT.
oh… dammit… i forgot… WHO CAN BE SO DAMN STUPID TO NOT LET PEOPLE DL MODS IN THE HARD DRIVES… THAT’S WHAT THEY ARE MADE FOR.
I could care less. Unreal is a complete waste of my time.
I’d like to hear more about Quake III on XBLA though.
Mods, to me, are what makes a UT game great. So the Xbox 360 version will be inferior to the PS3 (that’s a first!) and the PC version.
I think personally, the first PC Demo really turned me off of UT3. I’m a big UT fan from it’s past few games, but something about just came off as a bad flavor especially when TF2 is out and really just made me apprecated the level designers and the online community.
But, I don’t know, I might give the 360 version has another chance now that in it’s a summer calendar with nothing to get in it’s way.
After the xbox community pretty much ignored the brilliance that was Unreal Championship 2, I really don’t see this game being that big of a hit on the 360. I just want to see if Microsoft tries to force Epic into making users pay for levels and mods that are free on the PC and PS3. Should that happen, that might just be the straw the breaks the camel’s back for me and my support of Microsoft.
I really think that UT needs to come out with a phenomenal game that looks incredible, plays wonderfully, and really transfers the spirit of the PC series over to the consoles if anyone is going to care. Every UT game on consoles thus far has either been less than spectacular or failed ot find an audience, and I think the next game will have to be pretty special to truly succeed.
I DONT REALLY CARE ABOUT MODZ. BUT WHY DOESNT EPIC WITH THE TIME THEY HAVE TWEAK THE SERVERS ( NONE OF THIS HALO, COD4 RANDOM BATTLE WITH A RED PING SHIT). DESIGNATE SERVERS ETC AMERICAN AUSTRALASIA ASIA EUROPE UNITED KINGDOM. IS IT REALLY THAT HARD TO HAVE A LAG FREE XBOX LIVE GAME WITH PEOPLE FROM YOUR OWN COUNTRY!!!!! I SWEAR IF I GO INTO ANOTHER AMERICAN ROOM WITH A RED PING AND SUM REDNECK GLOATING ON ABOUT HOW MEANS HIS SKILLS ARE WITH HIS UBER BRIGHT GREEN PING AHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
SEGREGATION IS THE KEY TO XBOX LIVE ADVANCING
peace
I don’t care about UT3 because I can’t run it. Well, I can run it, but it’s at a hilariously low resolution at single-digit framerates. Besides, something about UT3’s gameplay just doesn’t feel right. The vehicles have too much grip, the maps feel… I dunno, bland (I’ve played it on somebody else’s PC), and it just generally doesn’t feel as good as UT2004.
UT2004 in itself, did not feel as good as UT99. They’re still good games, but it feels like the magic is slowly getting lost in the crowd of balance tweaks and new graphics engines.
For some reason, the PS3 version of UT III seems to be a lot more popular than the PC version. Now, that doesn’t make much sense to me but I guess that’s just the way it is.
But, needless to say, substituting mods with split-screen isn’t going to sell more copies of the UT III for the 360. It’s really ridiculous that the Microsoft is not letting 360 players have mods. If the PS3 can do it, why not 360? What’s the big deal?
Personally, I’m an xbox and PC owner and I didn’t buy it on PC because I knew that I do all my multiplayer shooter playing on the Xbox.
I know…I”m one of the Halo idiots who doesn’t understand the sublime PC control Scheme.
I like PC gaming…but really I find the multiplayer action experience to be to SERIOUS on the PC. I like to play on Xbox live becuase the stakes seem lower…I can just have fun, I don’t ahve to have a clan or whatever.
I think that this game will do well on the Xbox because it’s a shooter and it’s made by the same company that made gears of war.
That alone will sell copies to johnny lunch pail and suzie time clock.
As far as mods go? That audience isn’t on the Xbox anyway…your talking two different worlds. Are there any games you can mod on the Xbox? I don’t think so…I doubt that any Xbox gamer will pick up a copy of UTIII and head to the check out line only to stop dead in their tracks and say, “OH wait! No Mods? Forget it. I’m just going to keep playing Call of Duty.”
When it got delayed, I lost interest.
I’d like to think there are enough shooters available on the 360 that it isn’t that big of a deal if they do not get twenty new maps weekly. Sure it is a downside, but it isn’t like that is something that has been done for years and now is being taken away, as far as I know this would be the first console game to support user submitted content. The split screen is a big plus for me though, infact until reading that I was probably just going to rent the game…now I’ll be considering a buy, there just aren’t enough local shooters on the 360.
One thing I found odd was that my local Best Buy has a slot cleared for UT3 for 360 in the store that is always empty and says, “As Advertised” on the paper separator. Just an odd observation I thought I’d share.
well thats microshit. Full of B.S. wants ur money.
I nowadays don’t care about mod support anymore. I invested too many hours in Quake 1-3 and Half Life Mods and really wasted most of them. Very few mods lived up to my standards (Rocket Arena 3…ah..yes that’s it) and whenever I fire up a game now I expect quality. That said, I think Indie development studios are “the new thing” at the moment.
To answer your opening question–no.
The way I see it, if they wait this long to get the game out, it’s not worth it.
Virtua Figter 5 had the same delay, but wasn’t available on the PC, and UT is.
sigh. what’s with these sick delays.
Rock Band Europe…. UT3, VF5.
as for mods, don’t really care either way
I don’t know… if they don’t overcharge me for maps it can be decent in some way.
I can’t say i care about UT anymore, Halo offers a similar, deeper and more enjoyable (imo) experience anyway.
Far more interesting games coming out this year to bother with this as far as i’m concerned.
Holy cow we need a thumb up/down system here for comments so i can vent passively at stupid ass comments.
As someone mentioned earlier to open up mods in a pc format would give free reign to homebrew, Microsoft will do things their way, as they would be smart to for the security of the system.
People are making the classic mistake of making predictions based only on what the hardcore will want. I cant see that the average console gamer will be affected or even know or care on what they might be missing out on, Microsoft releasing “some of the best mods” as a package is really not such a bad thing, finding a game with a decent amount of people playing it is the main plus. As long as there is plenty of content in the first place, it shouldnt be an issue.
You can whine that its just not the same as pc, but isnt that the point? buy it for pc. Its as bad as these tools still whining about useing a controller over a mouse. YES it is different, but i think recent shooters (Call of duty in particular) have shown that its just as fun and intuitive (if not more so). Half the issue you pc Elitists are having is that you started on a mouse and you have an inability to accept change. I had to show my uncle to play cod2 on the pc after he was initiated to the fps via halo, he had a hell of a time trying to pick it up. Dam PC Hermits.
I predict this game to probably do better on the 360 than the pc and the PS3, mainly due to xbox360 dominance in the online (and shooter) field, this console is where their target audience now reside. People who want to play online shooters are people who own the X360 or the pc. Or both as I do. More and more am i turning in preference to my Xbox to play shooters, the so called dominance of the mouse being now a moot point. Basically anything made by valve being the exception, but those are games specifically made for the pc.
I had a choice for COD4 and I have a choice for this game, and that choice is console.
We still play UT2K4 Bombing Run every day at lunch, but the PC specs are just too high for UT3. The demo on our machines was running at about 18 FPS.
I’m hoping the 360 version is smooth and has a decent demo.
I love Unreal, don’t get me wrong… But, the gameplay is too arcadey in the modern world of COD4 and even Gears of War. How many times can you play a shooter where the only depth lies in being able to shoot and run at the same time. Unreal has become about graphics and vehicles, not actual gameplay. Sorry, I just thought that it would have matured more after all this time.
Personally, I was not hyped about UTIII. Well I was, but the demo really didnt do anything for me at all. Personally UT2003 > UTIII…yes, that bad… Upon starting the game, the menus were terrible and very unrefined. Next, the gameplay was nothing new. Now I am not saying that they needed anything new or that anything was really broken, but in this case, there was no reason for me to spend 50 dollars on an experience I already had with UT2004.
Now mind you, I have put it many more hours than I would like to admit in on the Live! launch title Unreal Championship back in 2002. It was addictive even thought it was more or less just a consolized port of UT2003, it was a hell of a good time on live. And sure, they were just updated graphics, but playing on console was fun and the new maps were pretty cool as well as the new formula. The sniper rifle was changed up with the shock rifle and the game was made a bit slower.
In the end, I just feel like there’s already a ’science fictiony space gun’ game on the 360 — called Halo 3 — that satisfies my need for this particular type of gameplay.
i was a fan of the original UT– and then a bit of UT2k4, but sadly throughout the years the friends i had that were also into it splintered off into other game interests and my ‘local UT groupies’ kinda fell apart. If I knew anyone that played UT still, UT3 would be a no-brainer buy for me, but nowadays with a much more stringent budget than back then, I have to save for other games that are more likely to capture my play-time more. Again tho, its not because I ‘dont care about UT(3)’, I really wish I could (afford it), but alas, it just doesn’t rank up there on my game priorities anymore…sadly.
(in any case, i would never get it–ut3– for the Xbox360 anyway, that genre will always be PC for me–with the exception of Halo of course)
Whine about not having a mouse,?
a mouse has like 4 times the sensitivity and precision than the weak sauce analog stick, there is more tracking than a stick could ever have the precision and speed of the mouse, there is no contest. and that is cheep mouse,
If you buy a 2000dpi or 4000dpi the amount of control you got ever that mouse courser is insane. It not just different an analog stick is not capable of doing what a mouse can in hardware period.
On the ps3 if you get stuck online in ut3 and use one of these mice you are guaranteed to win no matter how much you suck since there is no way a gamepad user with a stick can hit you before you can shoot them in the head with a sniper at close or long range.
No way they turn slow than molasses while you can spin around aim with ease it’s like you are super human you can tell who is using a gamepad easy just by watching them they do not move like people with a mouse can period and anybody who uses a mouse (even a cheep one) knows this. The only way they can be even is if the game helps them aim.
That is why the ps3 version is slow down by like 40% (and almost unplayable that way It is the worst it’s not fun at all. It’s like street fighter 2 vs street fighter 2 turbo on max speed) night and day. Even with a mouse it plays like this it’s like playing guitar hero with out the guitar , or lightgun game with out a light gun it’s not fun it just don’t work right.
People on consoles whine about not having a good d-pad for street fighter want arcade sticks and all that junk spinners for tempest what ever the fact xbox don’t at least have a mouse option is enough to whine all day long.
All shooters play equally horrible with out a mouse on consoles, ut99 on ps2 junk, Ut championship that was trying to be the UT2003 for xbox, Oh my god ista-gib was a joke the thing was unplayable and slower than hell and looked horrible. It like all the ports make the pc shooters worse.
Quake 3 on xbox live? I can only image the horror that will bring as people try to hit things with a gamepad and a rail gun. while there flying though the air on boost pads at high speed in maps where all there is boost pad and platforms in space.
somebody might get lucky and hit something once in a match it’s not effective on the ground at semei close range let alone in the air..
and the menus is ut3 are bad because they had some console guy throw in some console menus for the console but PC guys know better than to put up with junk like that so they fixed it in the patch since we whined enough on there boards they knew they was broken.
and ut3 specs are very low you can play it on anything decent, even with weak PC hardware you can match the ps3 look and framerate easy.
I hope it does have mods!
College Hoops 2K8 allows players to upload/download user generated content. Hell there is even an achievement for it. I don’t see why Epic couldn’t figure out a way to do the same for UT3 on the 360. If they don’t I can say that I won’t be getting the game.
If 360 won’t have mods then i guess i’ll get the ps3 version instead
“UT3 updates directly from Xbox Live Marketplace” truley a dark day, this series is done IMO.
cube.
I have heard zero complaints about call of duty with a controller, a game which plays as a traditional fps. The sales for the xbox version exceed that of the pc. I know i’d much rather play it with the controller, its just more fun.
I never said that the mouse couldnt technically beat the controller in speed an precision, thats a pretty obvious fact, but its only really an issue when you are playing the two against each other. Which in fairness shouldnt happen. Theres no denying shooters on the console in the past have been a bit of a joke control wise, but with recent titles the controls are as tight as ever. (although it might not feel that way at first if your not used to it.)
The AWSD keys werent exactly designed for an ergonomic shooter experience, let alone FREGQ keys, space, alt, ctrl, shift, simultaneously.
Dont get me wrong Ive enjoyed practically every FPS series on the PC, but now if I have a choice im going with the console. Except for valve games.
Rowr, the gamepad controls for Call of Duty 4 are “good enough” because of how the game was designed. (And just to put it out there, I’ve played at least 30 hours of COD4 on the PS3 and 360, and still find the controls to be cumbersome at times). Play a faster paced game and the gamepad becomes more of a chore than a fluid and enjoyable experience. The mouse is still the best way to play a first-person shooter.
“The mouse is still the best way to play a first-person shooter.”
I have to disagree. While, in the end, you can adjust ’sensitivity’ for camera turn — the controllers put everyone on the same level in terms of interface.
I never miss having to map all sorts of keys on my keyboard — because hey, while the mouse might be great for looking around, I fvcking HATE having to use the keyboard for movement.
In terms of interfacing with the game on a whole — I just find the controller more enjoyable. An argument for technical ‘precision’ one against the other, as Rowr says, it obviously in favor of a mouse: but once you get used to the analog sticks, you can still kick some ass.
See above for what my response was going to look like.
I got a chance to play this game at this years New York Comic Con. It was insanely good. The graphics were damn near flawless and we weren’t even playing a “close to done” version. There were virtually no texture pop ins and the lighting was great. One other thing I found really cool was the ambient sound effects. They were really innovative; you’ll understand what I mean when the game comes out.
The producers were there and they were stating that the 360 version will indeed have special down-loadable content for the game. Yippee. I never played the PC installations of this series and from what I heard they are the flag ship; obviously. However, if they can pull off a almost strictly multi-player based experience (like Shadowrun didn’t do) this could be the start of something really dope for 360 owners.
BTW: I agree with Mal; if you get accustomed to the analog sticks you can do some serious damage.
http://www.warp9gaming.com
A lot of pc players are still hanging around in UT2004 and Classic. I guess UTIII didn’t convince all of us; it certainly didn’t convince me. I care about UT, deeply. I just don’t care that much about UTIII. I hope Epic makes things right the next time. Oh wait, didn’t they say they would no longer focus on PC because consoles is where the money is at? I guess I’ll still be playing 2004 and Classic when the next decade comes around.
Do we care about UT anymore? Well after buyin UT3 for the PS3 I’m not so sure. After playing it for a short while, I felt like: “Ok, this is Unreal Tournament alright. Can I go back to Rainbow Six Vegas 2 now??” It feels like the game itself is out of date, and it doesn’t really suit the controller. I’ll try it again with the USB keyboard and mouse and some mods and have another go later. But WTF happened to the assault mode? That was my favourite in ut2004.
I was never actually a huge fan. I prefer console fps games, so I’d take Halo or Call of Duty 4 over UT any day.
One of the problems I have with UTIII is its graphical style. I mean, the graphics look sharp but most maps are way more gritty than the old UTs. One thing that defined UT is its abundance of saturated colors. Where is the color in UTIII? Also, the character designs are way more chunky and bulky this time around. Clearly the designers thought that it was a good idea to make the characters look like they’re from Gears of War. I don’t know, but I like my UT with less chunk, I guess.
I don’t know what the problem would be downloading mods and maps off the the internet and placing it onto your 360, other than perhaps the risk of a virus getting into Xbox Live.
I haven’t played an Unreal Tournament game in such a long times, mostly because my PC is old and hasn’t been able to run the past few installments. -__-