Unreal Tournament 3
Unreal Tournament 3 is a video game that consists of 8 releases| News | UT360 Looks Good, Might Not Have Mods | July 20, 2008 |
Game 1: Borderlands
BEFORE: This is one of the games I'm expecting to enjoy, based on reviews, quick looks and Jeff Gerstmann's obsession over it. Going for a soldier right off the bat.
AFTER: I really like the art style, absolutely loved the intro. Great music. I like my pistol better than my machine gun so far. Loot is fun, I wanted to continue playing when the first achievement popped 26 minutes in.
Game 2: Forza Motorsport 3
BEFORE: Forza 2 turned me on to simulation racers, and based on the demo for Forza 3, this is going to be class.
AFTER: Oooooooohhh this game is tough to put down. Got the first achievement for jumping 5 meters nine minutes in, and that's including the optional install. Just had to try a few more races with my first F-class car, and racing a Yaris has never been more fun. This is going to last me a while.
Game 3: Alone in the Dark
BEFORE: This is gonna be brutal. Based on reviews, this is at best interesting but severely flawed. Practically got it for free, have to see for myself.
AFTER: There is no "after." I quit before I got an achievement. This is a real stinker. Horrible controls, clipping all over the place, cheap deaths abound. I'm removing this from my played list and throwing it Gamestop's way ASAP.
Game 4: Midnight Club Los Angeles.
BEFORE: I'm cheating a little here. I actually bought this last fall and played it for about an hour. It felt kind of weird after coming off 250+ hours of Burnout Paradise, so I gave up on it and traded it in. Found the Complete Edition on sale and decided to give it another go.
AFTER: What was I thinking? This game is awesome. I could have used a higher framerate, but zooming around LA in first person with Snoop on the radio is pretty sweet. I got pulled over and burned rubber as soon as the officer got out of his car. There's an achievement for that. 24 minutes.
Game 5: Mirror's Edge
BEFORE: I've already played and finished this on PS3, I'm expecting this to be pretty much the same.
AFTER: Tutorial level complete, 7:35 in. I still love the atmosphere in this game. The controls feel pretty OK, though I might prefer the bigger shoulder buttons on the DualShock. I'll probably finish this a second time on the 360.
Game 6: Unreal Tournament III
BEFORE: This is another one I have on the PS3, but I picked it up real cheap and wanted to see how it feels on Xbox Live.
AFTER: 6:17, "Lock and Load." A little more pop-in than I remember from the PS3. I play better with the Xbox controller.
Game 7: Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time
BEFORE: I've been playing through the Ratchet series with my son the past few weeks. This is supposed to be the best of the bunch, and I'm excited.
AFTER: 15 minutes, first trophy, and I can already tell this is going to be a great one. Ratchet & Clank on the PS3 is what I expected games to be like in the far-flung future when all I played was platformers on my Amiga. The production values are sky high. My son's gonna be thrilled, too.
Game 8: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
BEFORE: For Xbox Live Arcade games, I usually play the trial version up until I get the first achievement, then I buy the full version and cash in. This game I bought on a whim while looking through the XBLA titles. It feels a little wrong to be playing this after completing Shadow Complex, but I guess it's never too late to brush up on your gaming history.
AFTER: I'm guessing the VO recording budget didn't break any industry records. I love the music, though. This game must have been pretty ground-breaking at the time. "Rampage" unlocked seven minutes in. Lost all my stuff. Need to pick this up again ASAP.
 | 1. Half-Life 2 The HL2 OST is probably the most understated one on the list but its also the one with the most impact. The album is nothing exceptional as a standalone but when combined with the game's carefully structured set pieces, the result is explosive. Whether you're being chased by the combine fuzz or trying to dodge a killer helicopter, Kelly Bailey's captures the moment perfectly. Among many things, Valve is also a master at pacing and rationing all good things so you spend most of the game being haunted by the silence or sounds of screaming zombies and venomous headcrabs. But when the soundtrack kicks in, oh man.... |
 | 2. Unreal Tournament The soundtrack for UT 99 was just as hectic and fast paced as the game it complimented. Just like the maps and the different gameplay modes,the music had a lot of variation. From the spacey techno mashups to the racey on the edge rock themes, each track went perfectly with the corresponding map and set you up perfectly for the mayhem about to commence. The fact that most of these original themes are still used is a testament to their musical quality and remains my favorite to this day. |
 | 3. Katamari Damacy This game is goddamn charming. And so is the music that has a very 8-bit era vibe to it. Minimalistic and catchy tunes. The soundtrack makes some interesting use of animal voices, jazz, samba and techno - sometimes all in the same track. |
 | 4. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind The moment you enter Tamriel, you're treated to the one of the most memorable and grandest opening themes. Sadly, the rest of the game's tracks don't surprise you same way but they all compliment the doom and gloom feeling underlying your adventures in Morrowind. I remember being genuinely spooked by some of the set pieces in countryside and large part of that was due to the music. |
 | 5. Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura A close fifth behind Morrowind. The soundtrack shares a lot of its themes with ES3 with a similar but still distinct adventurous feel.I found the Arcanum track to be really moody in places and that set a good tone for the events in the game. It gets some heavy usage out of string instruments and thats a big plus in my book. Very underrated, much like the game it supports. |
 | 6. Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver Dramatic and overstated, the music matches upto the game in every way. It carries the industrial steampunk style of Nosgoth well and compliments the many tragic/ironic moments in the game. Raziel is angry and out for vengeance and you can sense it in the game's music. |
 | 7. The Operative: No One Lives Forever The opening credits for this game used to be my ringtone for a while. The groovy 60's soundtrack sets the mood perfectly with some really goofy themes to go along with the wacky adventures of the Cate Archer. The retro space age pop used has a very light hearted self conscious feel to it and never gets overbearing. |
 | 8. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City I know licensed soundtracks are a bit like cheating but I've never heard a better compilation of time pieces like Vice City. Each radio station had a unique color and flavor to it. From the crazy shenanigans of Dj Lazlow to the creepy stereotypical pimp Fernando Martinez, Rockstar really delivers on the humor front. With varied channels like V-Rock and Wave 103, Vice City has you covered no matter what genre of music you like. |
 | 9. Halo: Combat Evolved Chanting monks and huge orchestral pieces with a hint of rock sum up Martin O'Donnell's score pretty well. I'm sure most gamers must have heard this theme a million times by now so I don't really need to justify why this is one of my favorites. |
 | 10. Mass Effect I love BioWare's style of storytelling. And Jack Wall knows how to score those character defining moments (He did some themes for the Myst and Splinter Cell series). His work here was obviously inspired by Vangelis' Blade Runner score. Very space noir, if thats such a thing even. |
 | 11. BioShock Its all about the atmosphere here. Irrational created a scary world and the score just amplifies that sense of fear. It delivers a certain sense of wonder and dread as you explore Rapture and keeps you on the edge constantly. It gets some heavy use out of instruments you usually don't hear in a video game - piano solos, violin crescendos. |
 | 12. Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos The music in Warcraft 3 soars and ebbs like the characters in the game. Its mostly orchestral pieces but they are all varied enough that you never really find them to be repetitive. I still listen to the soundtrack during gameplay after nearly 7 years of play. Blizzard's music is just as addictive as their games. I was initially thinking of picking WoW but then I realized that most of my favorite themes (bar the Stormwind City Intro) were picked up directly from W3. |
 | 13. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots A typically great Harry Gregson-William soundtrack to go along with Kojima's vision. The string setup during the opening sequence struck a chord with me and that feeling stayed throughout the game. HGW nailed every action sequence with this hollywood style score which is closer to a Michael Bay movie than a video game. |
 | 14. Contra I must say Contra is here purely on nostalgic value. It was my first ever game and the tune has stayed with me. More so than even SMB. The high tempo beats serve as a great background to the sound of all the crazy alien weapon firing sounds in the game. |
 | 15. Bionic Commando Rearmed Another obvious on the list. Who doesn't dig this remixed masterpiece ? Simon Viklund did the impossible and made the old Bionic Commando theme better! I don't remember ever spending so much time browsing a game's menu because of the soundtrack but thats exactly what I did here. I would just hang out in the menu or the starting area of a stage to listen to the awesome chiptunes. |
 | 16. Mega Man 2 Honestly, its hard to pick one Mega Man from the amazing lineup. Ultimately, I found that most of my favorites were from the 2nd Mega Man, not surprising since its the first one I played. I don't know, maybe you like the techno remixes of Mega Man X. I prefer the pounding themes from MM2 to get my adrenaline going. |
 | 17. Batman: The Video Game Until Arkham Asylum came along, this iteration was the only memorable entry in the franchise. It features a weird mix of the typical dark,gloomy Batman undertones and some ridiculously upbeat themes which sound like they were picked up from the Adam West show. |
 | 18. Beyond Good & Evil I loved the happy and uplifting music used here. The ambient feel of the music was a perfect fit with the light hearted tone of Jade's world. The gameplay pace was slow and steady and the themes was just as such. |
 | 19. The Longest Journey Actually, I haven't played this one for quite sometime now but I do remember enjoying the tech noir style of music used in the game a great deal. It had a cyberpunk feel to it which is unique so props for making that work in a game. |
 | 20. Super Mario Bros. You can't think of video game music and not be reminded of this Konji Kondo classic. I wasn't going to include this one because its just so obvious. The one that started it all. Its like rating Charlie Chan against modern hollywood movies. Oh well, I caved in and here it is at 20. |
Let's do it.
Game 1: Unreal Tournament III. I found this on sale and decided to get it for PS3 because of the mod support. Not that I'll be using any mods, though. First off, five minute patch download. Yay PS3. 14 minutes in, "Lock and Load" for killing my sister over and over. Apparently, someone felt the need to give this game a story. Really solid, fast-paced shooter action, though. Some Gears of War-looking dudes (Dom, specifically) in the cinematics. Seems to be pretty nice with the trophies, being multi-platform probably helped with that. Had a quick online match, too. Fun. Much prefer this to Halo. Will be playing more.
Game 2: Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. Installing Game Data. Five minutes and counting. No progress bar. Don't have my hopes too high for this one. Should be some fun explosions, though I feel Bad Company and, in particular, Red Faction: Guerilla have set the standard in that department. First trophy, "School's Out" squarely at the five minute mark. Not a train wreck so far. The first mission was actually pretty enjoyable. Seems like a good discount purchase.
Game 3: Warhawk. Again, it's gonna take a while to patch and install. I like my PS3, but this is semi-ridiculous. I'm too old for this. I played the Warhawk demo and found it enjoyable up to the final Warhawk air combat tutorial. Also, it failed to connect to any multiplayer matches, which put me off the full-price PSN purchase. When I found it in a bargain bin with the headset pack-in, it was a different story. First impression: The music in the menu screens is awesome. I did a quick online match before I resorted to running the ground training to pick up the trophy. There's a bit of a learning curve here, but I managed to notch up a few kills, as well as getting spectacularly shot down in a Warhawk a couple of times. Kind of a Battlefield vibe, must be explored further.
Game 4: Resistance 2. Major title update. I've easily spent 40 minutes waiting for stuff to download and install these past hours. Reminds me of the time that I bought Burnout Paradise for my buddy, went over to his house to surprise him, and promptly stared at an update screen for two straight hours. Oh, well. 17:50 into a very action-packed, scripted start to the campaign, first trophy pops up. This is a quality product. I need to go back and play Resistance: Fall of Man before I play this, I think.
I'd love to do a backlog write-up of my other PS3 games as well, as soon as I find an OK way of doing it. First half hour? First level? Tutorial completed? First in-game reward? That might actually be less arbitrary than going for the first achievement or trophy. I'll come back to that.
These are the other PS3 games in my backlog:
Devil May Cry 4
Heavenly Sword
Valkyria Chronicles
MotorStorm
Lost Planet Extreme Condition
Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty
Everybody's Gold: World Tour
Resistance: Fall of Man
Only 5 bucks for one slightly used soul, that's a sweet deal if I ever saw one! In this rant filled episode, we go off topic more than once. Listen in amazement as our train of thought goes of the tracks at nearly ever turn. Jason finally uses his PS3 for more than TV or movies this week with an update on Home and MLB 09: The Show. Steven has lukewarm feelings toward the multiplayer demo of Bionic Commando and lets loose a storm of cursing at Fable 2. Going off road was never this much fun, so tune in and see where the dirt road takes us.
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Checking old favorite games
First, I started visiting the entries for games I played decades ago, only to find out that there is often a lot of empty space to be filled. Many of the even more popular games lack of substantial elements. The first reaction is to read the Wikipedia-Entry and the MobyGames Database, checking out what the most brief summaries have to say. This leaves me in the urge to copy-paste the entry immediately, so I can be done with it.
Plagiarize ye not!
But of course, I know I must not do that. Every single item on the Giantbomb Wiki must be original material. Legal issues are the reason. And especially in the United States the law suits following the claims of copyright infringement are insane! So - I swallow my immediate instinct and actually turn on my own slow gray brain cells. There are some blurry memories to be found, but nothing that could compare with the ones of senior video game journalists. Even Shane Bettenhausen, who is a couple years younger than me, has an encyclopedic robo-brain of videogame knowledge.
I feel intimidated and want to stop before I even start editing.
Getting adventurous
Then the pride kicks in. I fire up the waybackmachine from archive.org reading old interviews. I visit fan-forums and try to find the earliest entries to recollect what people had to say about the game when it was published, slowly rebuilding my memory. And suddenly I want to contact all the old geezers who were building these games, to ask them about their memories and having a desire to write it down.
For example, nobody has written a biography of Tim Sweeney and the early years. He programmed on what became the very first Unreal-Engine while he was a school-kid. Or a more profound history of game programming, from Shigeru Miyamoto to John Carmack and John Romero. It could provide a more technical, fact based book than David Kushners "Masters of Doom" did for idsoftware.
I am not a journalist. I am not a writer. I am not interested in becoming either one of those. English was the 4th of many languages I still fail to conquer. So, if anybody feels inspired to do the work instead of me - please feel free to update the GB-Wiki instead of me.
One complaint though, they could have differentiated the single player from the multiplayer/bot matches more, things like getting rid of the team blue vs team red setup, I think it would have made people play the single player more.
Graphics are excellent, multiplayer is fast and twitchy, and it's always fun to hear one is "DOMINATING".
[17:18:40] <@BlazeHedgehog> It's competent. But I already own UT2004.
[17:18:45] <+TonicBH> I only own the original UT
[17:18:59] <+TonicBH> so some of this shit that might've been in 2003/04 is "new to me"
[17:18:59] <@BlazeHedgehog> UT3's so bland that it could've literally been a content pack for UT2004
...
[17:19:23] <@BlazeHedgehog> But that's the thing
...
[17:19:36] <@BlazeHedgehog> Nothing in UT3 gameplay-wise is impossible in UT2004
After all, UT3 just seems like UT2004 under the Unreal Engine 3 skin. Not like there's anything wrong with that, but a followup in the series should try to push the series forward somehow. I find the PS3 version to be the most innovative as it introduces mod features to a console game without having to hack systems or the game itself.
I'm also pissed they took out Assault mode again. I've said it before, but Assault was the best damn mode in UT. It's co-op with a twist, and it was always fun to try, even with that Convoy map in the UT2004 demo. Other than that, I liked the map variety (from Asian castles to jungles to cities, much like the variety of classic UT). But yeah, I'll save my $12.
Maybe I'll get UT2004 instead. It's probably like $5 now.
I've been dabbling with Quake Live recently, it's fun even though I suck at it sometimes. One duel match ended 30 to -1 where I literally got owned by some guy named "Mustaine." Skilled bastard. QL is fun, but it feels like it's... lacking. I don't see why, it's Q3A and Q3: Team Arena with stat tracking, achievements and new maps... Yeah, go check it out, is free.
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New Resident Evil 5 Single-Player Content Starts Feb. 17
Two new story-based episodes, a bunch of costumes, and a catch-all Gold Edition package are on the way for your horror-shooting needs early next year.
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Atlus Bringing 3D Dot Game Heroes To North America
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Brad Pitt Plunges Into Dark Void
Pitt's Plan B production company options the film rights to Capcom's upcoming jet-packs-and-aliens adventure.
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Hands-On: Ridin' Zelda's Spirit Tracks
A few minutes with Nintendo's next DS Zelda installment.
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Most Popular Achievements (11/14 - 11/20)
As the year winds down, it's clear that one game will stand alone... well, for the next few weeks, anyway.
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Most Popular Achievements (11/7 - 11/13)
Oh hey, right, this thing. Sorry it's late!
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New Resident Evil 5 Single-Player Content Starts Feb. 17
Two new story-based episodes, a bunch of costumes, and a catch-all Gold Edition package are on the way for your horror-shooting needs early next year.
|
|
|
Atlus Bringing 3D Dot Game Heroes To North America
It's coming in May!
|
|
|
Hands-On: Ridin' Zelda's Spirit Tracks
A few minutes with Nintendo's next DS Zelda installment.
|
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|
Brad Pitt Plunges Into Dark Void
Pitt's Plan B production company options the film rights to Capcom's upcoming jet-packs-and-aliens adventure.
|
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Most Popular Achievements (11/14 - 11/20)
As the year winds down, it's clear that one game will stand alone... well, for the next few weeks, anyway.
|
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Most Popular Achievements (11/7 - 11/13)
Oh hey, right, this thing. Sorry it's late!
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