UT Review

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Ink

New Member
Jan 30, 2012
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I couldn't finish the review, I lost too much motivation to continue playing the game. If they make a half arsed game then I will make a half arsed review. Sounds fair.

Unreal Tournament 3 had sold 1 million copies in March 2008 as announced by and has been praised by a large variety of critiques. It's engine - Unreal Engine 3 - has won several awards including ____. So naturally you would expect this game to be extremely populated and highly addictive. This isn't the case. Hoards of original Unreal Tournament fans were left disappointed - including myself - at what was released on 22nd of November, 2007. I used to play the first UT and Unreal as a little boy. Then in 2005 after getting my first copy of UT04, found my eyes glued to the screen, obsessively clocking hours, no, weeks, trying desperately to hone my skills. There just simply wasn't enough time in the day when it came to playing 2004. I still burn hours playing TAM - Team Arena Master - to this date. Then 2007 came. I was 15 at the time. UT3 set a new high for graphics. Introduced a few new game types and vehicles. Designed tactical maps with beauty that were in a league of their own and hit the nail on the head with the excessively fun demo map, VCTF-Suspence. I didn't noticed some of the painfully clear reasons why true fans were unhappy when I picked up my first copy. I was just disappointed at the loss of Morpheous 3, Facing Worlds, assault and invasion. and the inability to accurately choose which taunts you wish to say.
I was browsing the web and came across a review for UT3, which stated Warzone was a combination of Onsluaght - yes - Assault - a little - and bombing run - No. Just because it has spheres and two teams does not make it Bombing Run - a game mode introduced in UT2004 which includes a ball and two goals at each end. I read other reviews only to find each one was wildly inaccurate. As if completed within a day only to fill a web page of content. This is around the time I just had started to use Unreal Tournament 3 Editor. So I thought why not I write a review? I have in my time purchased 3 copies of Unreal Tournament , 3 of Unreal Tournament 3, 1 of UT03 and 11 for Unreal Tourament 2004! As already stated donated unspoken amounts of time to UT04 so I know and are serious what I'm talking about. I started writing this review on ___________ just collecting ideas and things I would like to talk about. Having now spent the last 4 weeks playing UT3, and interviewing some original players and some from the new series I feel I have pin pointed all possible reasons why the latest edition just couldn't match it's predecessor in a sectioned review that boasts both quality and quantity. In doing so, this is more an evaluation rather than a leisurely read. In an attempt to reach those responsible for the UT3 and tell them not to make the same mistake twice.

After reading the reviews I searched why the game failed. The average quotes were: "There's something *wrong* with it. It's just not fun." , "I had such high hopes for UT3 after UT2k4" , "It was a PC game made for consoles". The whole experience for me was in 3 words: beautiful, limiting, and stressful. The inability - a word you will hear me say a lot - to turn auto taunts off in game. How many times have I heard "Line em' up and knock em' down!" ? I do just want to join the rest of the angry mob and shout abuse asking what was going through the minds of the folks down at Epic Game when they made this?!
The game in question wasn't a case of having too many improvements, but when improvements became changes. Things weren't what fans ordered. So lets begin. First tackling the over view, then getting more specific. Many fans whined about removal of Bombing Run and Domination. Two game modes that were populated during the first couple of years, or as seen in tournaments but now lay deserted with maybe 10 permenetly empty servers online from some place in Russia or something alike - a ghost town. They moaned about there not being a lightening gun, again, made no difference from the sniper, and many other pointless whining about changes. It wasn't till I looked back at my notes and found myself doing the exact same thing. Crying over the inability to walk forward, start the chat function while holding forward and keep moving which for the record was helpful in big maps when it came to incorporating teamwork. The music was phenomanal as always. So where do the problems start? For most of the console players and other people that bought the game to be finished within a couple of days and sold back to the game store; story mode.

The long time players like me don't really play the story mode. I think if they wanted a story so bad, they should have created an actual adventure styled game instead of recycling the Instant Action maps which would defeat the purpose of the whole tournament thing. The story mode features a struggle of war between the Isanaggi, Axon, Lianrdi, and the Krall or necris . Each cut scene done brilliantly with entertaining conversations and very watchable violence, not to mention the sequil thought of at the end#. People found repeating things they had already had finished to be stressful. I didn't mind. But what I thought was darn right stupidity and will never be able to get over, is trying to make each thing realistic in the first place. Respawners placed in a war? Flag standing for ________, or even my personal favourite; "Flags don't mix well with vehicle particles"... I couldn't believe my ears when I heard that. But I can't lie, it isn't all bad. I did find myself turning my speakers up to catch the conversations being said between the main team you fight along side with. The Krall's hunch back designs, or the Necris architeture, fabulous. The characters themselves, especially the robots were so unreal in terms of design!#refraphse# All of their voices in particular I have to worship. Very cool sounding. So I've breezed through the story on the easiest setting, unlocked a few pointless achievements I don't and never will care about and a few characters which is always nice to see new faces. But I did come across some strikingly irritating features. Lets launch off with the dreaded User Interface.

UI
Alongside other complaints this was the biggest problem on the forum research front. Something I was shocked to read is when the game came out was that you couldn't even add servers to favorites in the server browser. Ridiculous or what? However they did patch that problem up. But the can't list continues in relation to crosshairs. Bringing out their near invisible brand of cross's, hidden and specially suited - for example rotating with the rocket launcher. The aims - all grey - turn red when an enemy is in sight and has been shot at and green when an ally, which was a nice touch, along with the animating crosshairs but players, fans expected the kind of variety they never got as standard. This isn't the only thing that had paper thin thought lodged into it. In 2004, speech played a large part in the TAM, Duel, Assault, Invasion communities, and loads more. On the theme of invisibility, the text in UT3 requires glasses to read. And on maps like WAR-Avalanche - you can forget about it. Option to increase size? Forget about that as well. To counter this, I turned on text speech as I am a chatty person and do require to communicate to other players for the full UT experience. Mainly all I get is spammed text trying to direct a player into doing something but s/he can't read the text either or ' semi colon dee dee dee dee dee ex dee'. But lets say the text on screen was customisable. Lets say I was able to easily mute players boasting about their lucky head shots and have easy access to who is speculating the game or the chat log. The problems still pop up like mole hills out of game. As I have to turn my graphics down, when searching for servers, the big bar displaying mutators or server names takes up so much room that I can only see 2 players at a time and god knows why mutator list shows up before player list. All this results in 1/20 servers not being populated with +[number] indicating there is bots. Which shouldn't be mixed with human only servers. The buddies section should be integrated with server browser list like previously. Then again since UT players know populated servers are a treasure, it all winds up in the favourites selection anyway. There is no such thing as weapons placed in the center, which a player like me doesn't care about, but I can't imagine that being any trouble to do. The being able to chat while map loads was a nice function, but should be integrated with the vote screen like before. Instead, 'Game Type' and 'Mutator' wastes the left half of that page. People thought the UI was 'felt clunky, slow, and consolized'. It takes an average of 34 seconds for me to fire up a game of UT04, and 86 seconds for UT3. Which yes - isn't very fair considering the comes down to computer specs. But these kind of things apply to a large variety of people that just in the long run, aren't going to give up that amount of time. So to counter this I have conjured some ideas of my own at the bottom. But again there was a few nice things. I didn't have to dip into my User.ini to turn off ambient sounds this time around as it was integrated into the audio settings which was slightly refreshing. I think everything like this should access-able from within game. Along with a full explanation of what each thing does. Which thing was it in the advanced video settings that had a description of something along the lines of 'Checking X Toggles whether or not X is shown" which as you can see is very intuitive in describing which effect each thing actually does... Kind of like describing to the computer illiterate that 'the mother board is a mother board are you stupid'? Now. In writing this review, the main annoyance is the inability to minimize UT on the spot. There is an option 'Screen Mode' which gives the choice of Windowed or Full Screen. There is - or was - a button on the keyboard known as the 'Windows Key' with the ability to do this very fast. The WinKey longer works which was confirmed in small polls I did while in several servers. Those who were able to read the text confirmed the disability was universal rather than 'just one of those things'. It takes a minute to go into the options and change the screen mode. I even tried desperately to hit Ctrl + Alt + Del in an attempt to minimize the game before my latest note evaporates from my head which failed in the game being reloaded directly after, and yes, I got that hot headed. I now found out that pressing Caps Lock prompts a little message on my screen Curticey of Dell which minimizes the game, and sometimes causes it not to respond. I liked it when things were simple, the game starts windowed if chosen and I have the option to quickly make it full screen or not... Like UT04. But it appears that wasn't good enough for Epic's race for Christmas sales which cost them the franchises's reputation itself. somehow also fit in that eastereggs and truely making your game unique, people appreciated the hidden horns and it was something for people to discuss, but Epic are no strangers to easter eggs - or are they, was it changed in ut3, any eggs?

Features
Adrenaline combinations were removed, and in some sort of way, replaced by Titan mutator? and pickups. The most annoying thing about adren concept was hitting forward 4x by accident causing you to activate one of the abilities when your meter is full. So removal was good or bad? It is handy in death match demo servers when health isn't as abundent, and is largely required for TAM. The pickups, I do like so it isn't all loss. Change in music, tint of colour and an award from the announcer when combining some, nice touches. The little improvements which if I remember correctly, came after the big update, telling you what you were killed by beside the name of your murderer, how much of something you collected, or even if you team killed someone. Much appreciated, they aren't getting in the way and I would expect them to appear in the next series. I also believe they removed or atleast hid the X was killed by Y with Z so the fright death would be more useful. Don't do that. Have it with the option to toggle in settings. Other content added - the slow motion feilds. I loved these ! Admittedly haven't and any real chance to use them in a fight, but the textures, the sound effect jumping in. Amazing. The accurate updates from bots depicting enemy vehicle locations made them pretty useful. #add comment about godlike bot#. This time around they imputed the force default character into the game. And as a bonus, allowed you to see your chosen character as well - which would sometimes appear as default or show others' true characters thus proving to be faulty. Pointless yes but people do appreciate these things and in the end the little things can add up. However one pointless thing did have a large impact. The account system. And let me just say the track of kills and time played does not show skill/rank, but just keep a record. I had difficulty getting into the User.ini?(did i?) and I think this is it's replacement. As when I found my password had forgotten itself, I quickly made a new account, sent it to an email I didn't know and found all my settings were changed to default. Annoying. This system could have been good. But there was an anonymity in UT04 which contributed to the experiance everyone knows and loves. Infact I went through a whole stage were I was using the setname command to fit in the 3 extra characters into my over populated name. And would have all the stupid ÃÓ°«ß to make my name nice and pretty and sparkely and fancy for each day I changed it. As said previously, meaningless. But that representation or quick name changes for whatever reason is gone, for those who want to go through that phase again. Also this limitation meant people could not test out 'prO' user.ini's. Another loss. This account system had a chain reaction which was accounted for. The clan tag system. For anyone that had actually played Unreal Tournament would know this was going to fail from the beginning. I thought maybe it would prevent 'fakers' so people could stop whining about who's in what team like a bunch of kids, but it doesn't negate that at all. Instead it just limits the creativity when it comes to positioning and designing the location of your team's 'text logo'. The ending result is nobody really cares about clans anymore. And while I'm clinking to the topic of the User.ini's replacement. I did try and pull my CD key out of UT3 to have a back up of it. Access denied. It's as if it was a previlliage to be able to do it within the model performance game that is Unreal Tournament 2004. There was lots of changes I would like to pass judgment on and as said previously, this is an evaluation, so I'll just fire away in bullet points to finish off the features section;


* Head Armour - headshots in 04 were mostly luck. They seem to be more frequent in UT3 as if the headshot zones were bigger. probably to compensate for the way the game turned out in terms of overdoing on eye candy, and the movement which I'll be getting onto.
* Renaming the 100 the belt, keeping it classic.
* Fixed behind view vertical aiming. Sadly a lot of servers don't allow 3rd person but this was something that should have been dealt with.
* Still unable to unbind console keys. I used to use tab for entering vehicles. Now I use it to open console in game (you can not open console in menu. So if you think you can quickly hit console and type 'quit' to end your session, you can think again).
* Mobile turrets, very creative.
* Female announcer's voice was very smooth and futuristic. I thought it blended beautifully with the new aura that UT3 brought.
* Fright death. Gears of War 2 used this exact same concept with smoke grenades being fired when the game came out. The concept had to be changed so the grenades only effected vision as the game became unplayable. Nobody ever falls for this, so it does not confuse enemies as falsely advertised on the loading screen . Maybe for hiding yes. And it does prove to provide some sort of surprise when an inexperience Manta driver from the other team is coming for you. But the slow getting up process usually causes you to be flattened anyway. I noticed if you fake your death on a ledge, and fall off, you instantly appear on the ground - take damage? . However if you do not fall off your body will rediculously and unrealistic spazzum which as entertaining as it is to see, is not very practical when it comes to hiding.
* Inability to survive long jumps when players became accustomed to it with only 100 Health and a shield gun.

And lastly, the inability to toss weapons. Very disappointing considering this was one of the things that brought teamwork to TDM, weapon sharing, or if you want to toss a Redeemer war head launcher for your team mates while you rush into enemy camp on a suicide mission with your vehicle. My theory is that it was taken out as there is a personal timer for you only when you take a weapon. This would stop people getting extra ammo like on maps such as Suspence, when the main way to get AVRiL ammunition was to collect the berserk power-up opposing to just tossing the gun and have a fresh batch ready to go. This also means that you can collect a weapon someone has dropped, along with collecting the weapon at respawn. Opposed to in UT2K4 that practiced the direct opposite unless in UTComp's duel mode. However it doesn't require much thought to be able to have the best of both worlds, while having none of the worst. Just include toss weapon and the personal weapon re-spawner and everything is sorted. yes?

Movement
This is the main reason why I won't be online within UT3 after writing this. The movement is TERRIBLE ! Where do I begin? Firstly, the loss of a dodge jump means I'm limited in general. The camera shakes when you land putting your aim off, or slightly wabbles up and down when moving left and right, and left to right when moving back and forth. On maps like DM-Sanctuary, I burn with frustration when I see little hurdles I would have easily cleared in '04 but now are dwarfed by something at eye level. It's so aggravating! When I went back to 2K4 I felt the double jump there had a hint of low gravity which was so uplifting and releaving. People say UT3 is too slow because of these restrictions. No. UT3 is too fast. Speed in '04 wasn't how fast you can move your inpatient fingers on a keyboard. Movement was down to co-ordination, map fluency in getting pickups and off footing your opponent by stepping into their thinking pattern and becoming off-sync with their crosshair - while being in control of your own, unless of course talking about mouse sensitivity and reaction time. This is why you may find it near impossible to accurately place a shot on somebody with far more experience than you. The dodge had no power in it what so ever, making it impossible to glide up ramps which would have been as great as before. I believe there is a ramp to the Minigun in DM-Defiance which lays teasing at the top of a slightly large hill with the only option to go along the narrow corridor leading up to it, or hammer jump. But both of those classify under another topic. I imagine the counter argument to be 'well just download a mutator that allows dodge jumping'. What the game comes with is law. People play UT to play the same thing over and over and over and over with real opponents to test their skills, and maybe try and transfer their skills in one game mode to another, maybe that is. And there is convincing the admin to place it on their server as well to consider, let alone getting in contact with them. The wall dodge is similar to UT2003, where as the gravity if tame will let you jump further away from the wall, but if harsh will hardly project you any distance at all. Logical, yes, fun, no. This sapped any art left that was in movement. So even if there was an Assault game mode for people to create 'Trial' maps within, it wouldn't have kicked off anyway. I thought they would have learned their lesson from UT03 to not restrict free will but I guess not. But the movement failure doesn't just span from 1st person view, but 3rd as well. The characters move in an embarrassingly stupid way. It's become a fact that in UT3, you don't move left and right, you prance side to side while your - and their - characters sway at the same time like miniature sized inflatable arm flailing tube men with instantly changing direction legs and a grudge against each other. It's confusing, stupid and I never want to see it again. From a distance it's difficult to tell if they are moving back and front, and the quick changing direction in mid-air is tricky to get your crosshair on. However the idea of that kind of speed whilst in flight isn't that a bad concept as being in air bound in 04 made you an easy target, which I take note of in my ideas block.

Game Modes
Let's pretend for a second this game in terms of what I have said so far stands shoulder to shoulder with flawless. I describe Warefare as Onslaught with themed nodes and orbs replicating a basketball fast break like action. I think it is just marketed as a cross between ONS and AS to compensate for the loss itself. Without going into too much detail involving the maps, this is an improvement to Onslaught. Judged on being one of few active game types and the sheer entertainment I take after winning or losing on any of the popular maps. I'm glad the creators finally decided to add Vehicle Capture The Flag as an official game type. I've said before, the main map to play is Suspence. So things are going well, until Duel mode. I thought on first site, 'Oh, this will be nice considering it was integrated with Deathmatch last time around, so things are going to be a little more organised. Duels are 1 Vs. 1. For people in despute or trying to improve skill (as it was the fastest way to). Not alternating players waiting to jump in and have their say on the battle field. Further more in duels there is no such thing as double damage, or was no such thing. I found it slightly laughable when one spawned in front of my face much to my surprise. Again, more evidence that Epic don't really know who plays their game and who just buys it to kill a few hours on a rainy weekend before moving onto the next new toy. Greed, Betrayal are like Last Man Standing and Mutant, they exist, but we all act like they don't because nobody cares. Both new game types I thought were something the mod community would have brought out. It was the other things that brought DM and TDM and CTF down. Otherwise I'm sure they could have been as good as before.

Vehicles.
I do admire the vehicles and with my last breath will try and purswayde even the most inaccurate of aggressive critiques that the game isn't all bad. In representing UT, they do put the 'Fun' into the 'dysfunctional game' which can be said at least. Proof of this resides in two most popular game types hosting the various tanks and buggies. Vehicles have changed drastically not just in terms of their superior design but physics as well. Improved smooth hand breaking generated the kind of skill that was fun to practice and rewarding to succeed with. The wheeled vehicles being able to drive almost swimmingly underwater was also a pleasure. Of course with their penalty as no truly amphibious machines have been officially introduces, yet. However it's not all good although some will disagree. Vehicles are by far heavier in comparison. I first noticed this when my tri-rockets dented a Hellbender yes, but didn't hardly budge it, were as before, the 'Bender on AS-Junkyard had to be modified to withstand push back of Shock cores/beams and rockets which were accepted facts in all other circumstances. The most obvious advantage is in 04, if a player with even an excuse of hitscan set your raptor in their sights, it was difficult and an overall hassle to get away due from the shock beam pinging you left and right. So thumbs up for that, but the trade off being it is far more difficult for infantry going up against their artillery counterparts than before. Maybe it's just me being used to the previous and it does make sense that a vehicle should win 80% of the time, but there is something uncomfortable about the unfairness#maybe countered with more than one antivehicle ?. The other knock on effect being if you were unfortunate to lock horns with a vehicle and win, you have to wait the penalty of their vehicle disappearing before being allowed to continue your travels as the burnt remains are just as stubborn. You can not move the wreckage by force without difficulty, can not shoot it away, and can not drive through it, even when it appears to have biodegraded. You must instead still wait till it has competently gone. The vehicle explosions don't really have much of an impact as before unless it is a self destructing device in which case has too much impact. Then comes taxi-ing. Before to get around without being in a vehicle was to be on one. Promoting extra teamwork and new concepts to the game. This was sadly taken away from us. And instead replaced with the hoverboards ability to cling to team vehicles. I don't have the terminology to describe fully how the change was made, but standing on your teams vehicles will force you to just fall off due to not being able to withstand the force. And standing on the roof of the enemies' extra sensitive vehicles will cause you to be crushed even when reversed putting a frown on my face. It was completely acceptable for an opposing player from before to jump onto your vehicle and start drilling flak vigeriously and if s/he was successful enough to jump on, then your job was to get them off. So the hoverboard taxi was introduced making up for the co-operation. At first I thought it would be unfair, but if the maps are even, even if the maps can't support a strong deference, both teams will have the same advantage which is fair. Taxi-ing players aren't exactly difficult to pick off. Without integrating this into my ideas block here is a my verdict on some of the wide selection (trying to ignore their sleek finishes).



* Manta - The agility has increased dramatically which is perfect. It was just as what was required for this kind of vehicle. It takes less damage when bumping into things and can float even on the smallest of ledges. Again, great! With skill you can dodge the improved AVRiL missiles and successfully taxi a team mate with speed without them face planting in mud. Very happy with the way the Manta has turned out.


* Raptor - The 'go back button' has been taking away, changing it's use so it's now more of an offensive fighter. Jumping out causes it to temperately stop in mid air before slowly making it's calm and plesent decent. - Need to know more about this thing. The dog fights are particularly fun and a nice rewarding 'top gun' pat on the back from the announcer when you eliminated the competition. First person view in vehciels people wasn't happy about when it came to raptor.


* Hellbender - Now more of a spam vehicle from a one driver, one spammer and one sniper. Which I have mixed feelings for. It has good and bad points and it's changes are one of those things that is easily acceptable so get used to it. I suspect the 'Bender took the scorpions place as being the car with a head shot zone. Which was an improvement in responce to the primary pestering that came as part of the package. Those that can multitask can defend themselves while driving. And the zap from 04 was very difficult to use forcing it to be mainly used as a vehicle sniper. Needless to say people found that little tweek naturally irritating so through it's UT3 transformation it has been given a well deserved upgrade.


* Goliath - All I have to comment on really is the amazing military design even though I said I wouldn't. I think out of all the renovations, the Goliath has come out tops. I don't know where to begin with the mass of complements so I won't even start. I would like to just say however the increased smoothness was as ever a blessing.


* Stealth Hellbender/Nightshade - The indestructible spider mines aren't as teeth grinding as you might think. It is possible to put up with them trying to eat your face without over heating even whilst they harass you at your spawn point. You do have to be sneaky with this one. If you're discovered, much like in UT04, if somebody activated the booster adrenaline combination elevating their health status, there is a natural hunger to destroy them there and then while you have the chance and as an added bonus, extended satisfaction to know they could have got away but you never let them. A nit picky thing in ciritising would be to say to be a bit more creative with the name but in game people just associate the Stealth Hellbender as 'the shade' anyway.


* Paladin I feel was downgraded in terms of strength but not speed. If they were to go head to head from before and after, in an extremely boring fight the 04 I would believe to win by a mile. I only have had a chance to use this in WAR-Downtown. Parking it infront of the core wasn't as clever as one might have thought. The inability to go first person view in vehicles meant I couldn't see what was ahead from the behind view - the camera was peeping through the Powercore. My shields turned off instantly when coming in contact with the narrow allay I was parked in and as they took I think an average of 3 seconds to turn back on, found my carefully slow reversing into positioning for the oncoming wave of titans wasted as my so called 'tank' lay in ruins before that very 3 seconds could expire. The result in the final verdict being that it is usually an unfounded pleasure to use this to it's full potential. Skilled drivers required!
* Scavenger - This vehicle is a ball that has 3 spidery like legs that some how disappear when going into 'pin ball' mode. And for it's weapon, it's followed by a little sun that can be set on people to whip them. I don't really understand that either to be honest but this little contraption is always fun to roll about in. I thought it would be awesome if whilst the bowling ball action, you could jump out and self destruct on next contact with a target, which is something I cover in my ideas section.
* Scorpion - Out of all the refurbishment I think this little kart came out worst. First off I'm surprised the web attack wasn't recycled in one form or another. Instead replaced by some sort of flying - only - metal seeking black and team colored ball that makes a nice 'splotchy' sound. Perfect for protection from the quick vehicles do you wish to put the Scorp on defense. The claws are finally placed at the front unlike last time were the blades looked more like pathetic wings than deadly pincers. Some may treasure it and disregard my words but I would bet my only buck that everyone at some point has had that car it's head and been unhappy about it. It is down to skill and control. Having said that, and had talked about 'acceptable' changes relating to the 'Bender. This is one of those things that I really can't be bothered with. Setting your self up for some cinematic stunts and find the car got snagged in a little bit of invisible mesh and everything that could have gone wrong does. I think there should be more freedom whilst boosting especially with the fancy new hand breaking turns. It could have made for great fun with the emphasis on could. The final assessment is on this thing's self destruct mechanism. This vehicle deserves that ability. But it is way over powered, and should be, considering the conditions whilst boosting. I think of my self as a calm person, and never once slammed my mouse on the mouse mat from rage. But I do catch myself questioning the level of bullshit when getting caught in the over exaggerated near invisible blast of the Scorp's destruction. And as with all hopefuls, put my suggestions for improvements at the bottom.
 

jomi294

gg
Sep 20, 2008
37
0
0
Monterrey, Mexico
This reads as a "Why UT3 is not UT2004" at times to be honest. There were a vast amount of problems with UT3, but the gameplay was not one of them, at least for me. Loving UT and UT3 myself, UT2004 is almost laughable in that regard.

By the way, if you wish to continue playing UT3, most your gripes can be fixed through the game config files.
 

JohnDoe641

Killer Fools Pro
Staff member
Nov 8, 2000
5,330
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www.zombo.com
This reads as a "Why UT3 is not UT2004" at times to be honest. There were a vast amount of problems with UT3, but the gameplay was not one of them, at least for me. Loving UT and UT3 myself, UT2004 is almost laughable in that regard.

By the way, if you wish to continue playing UT3, most your gripes can be fixed through the game config files.
I didn't read all that but my feelings towards UT3's gameplay are basically the same as poopcakes so I'll just agree with him.
 

d3tox

Face down in a pool of his own vomit.
Apr 8, 2008
1,045
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I haven't been able to quit because the gameplay is that good. True Story.
 

Sir_Brizz

Administrator
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Feb 3, 2000
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I love the gameplay. I agree that most of this reads like "Why UT3 is not UT2004". Most old school UT players I know had no problems with the movement or the gunplay, it was everything else they hated.
 

Arnox

UT99/2004 Mod Crazy
Mar 26, 2009
1,601
5
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Beyond
I actually liked the movement in it but hold on now. You can't turn off view bob?
 

JohnDoe641

Killer Fools Pro
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Nov 8, 2000
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www.zombo.com
I love the gameplay. I agree that most of this reads like "Why UT3 is not UT2004". Most old school UT players I know had no problems with the movement or the gunplay, it was everything else they hated.
Yeah, this. As an old school UT player that's exactly how I feel.

UT3's weapons balance and movement were almost perfect. If they got rid of the stupid double jump and just made the single jump higher depending on how you hit your jump button it would be flawless imho.

I wouldn't change anything about the weapons, not even the uber goo. It all has its place and used correctly all the weapons can net you a killing spree really fast.
 

HugoMarques

☆☆☆☆☆
Dec 14, 2010
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When I went back to 2K4 I felt the double jump there had a hint of low gravity which was so uplifting and releaving.

Yes, I get it, you used to be a fairy, then you took UT3 with hatred.

There's nothing wrong with UT3's movement. There's something wrong with the whole series' incoherency. With games with different movement styles, players take sides. UT3 tried to bring the best from UT and UT2004. In my case, it worked. I love the end result. And dodge CAN be used on ramps to get access to different areas, it's just that none of the retail maps have these ramps set up. The Jailbreak map Makoy is just filled with these ramps.
 

fru0

New Member
Mar 28, 2009
10
0
0
I disagree with the addition of the dodge-jump in UT3.

What I really hated was that Epic tried to create a dodge that was sort-of in-between that of UT1's dodge and UT2k4's dodge-jump, and not one or the other.

It made UT3's dodge feel slow, clunky and too high. It felt no where near as fast as that in UT1, and the single-dodge of UT2k4.
Try dodging your way in and out of a close battle in UT3; it's just too slow. Try the same in UT1 & UT2k4 and it feels so much more responsive. This is what made the first two iterations of the game so exciting.

The dodge felt much more useful and required skill to keep up the pace. They dumbed this down in UT3, and only tried to make up for it with a faster run speed; making the dodge (the most fundamentally important feature of the UT series) feel even less important.

What I would have liked was something new to the movement system; skiing down ramps for example? :)
 
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oldkawman

Master of Your Disaster
UT3 game play is 97% awesome.

Current on-line DM and WAR is far better that what ut2004 had.

I think there are 4 main reasons why UT3 was not a big hit;

#1 The minimum and recommended hardware specifications were unable to run this game well enough, it was just too slow on all but super uber rigs. Sandy bridge comes to the rescue.

#2 Too many bugs-n-technical issues, mostly on vehicle maps, that are still unresolved. On-line warfare is great. Off-line, not so much, poor bot paths and programming. I only play DM off-line.

#3 Too much hate from the haters. That crap spreads and prevents others from trying it. EPIC could have handled it better, but they fell in love with the console market and let the PC players fend for themselves.

#4 The game learning curve requires skill, intelligence, and practice to get good. That leaves out the more casual players and the latecomers.

Current on-line play is very competitive and features some very skilful players.
 

UBerserker

old EPIC GAMES
Jan 20, 2008
4,798
0
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UT3 gameplay was almost perfect. What a proper sequel to the original UT1 should have been - the music also kicked ass and many of the taunts were hilarious.

UT2k4 was a terrible nightmare that I still can't forget. What the hell was up with the floaty hitscan-focused gameplay, the cartoonish art style which looked like crap and the generic music (except a bunch of tracks). The fact that's the only Unreal game I have (not for outer reasons) uninstalled speaks tons. They managed to fuck up DM in that game MY GOD how is that possible

I really hate it, but it had some awesome mods

Of course UT3 has its share of very very bad things too, like the menu being slow as hell and VCTF
 
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UBerserker

old EPIC GAMES
Jan 20, 2008
4,798
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I was talking about the gameplay
I don't give a shit about SP ladders or campaign they're all pointless and bad

Ok there's a SP Ladder I liked, the one from the PS2 version of UT where you had to fight four cool bosses
 
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UBerserker

old EPIC GAMES
Jan 20, 2008
4,798
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Hey at least in the UT3 Warnament I wasn't forced to go through 5 matches of Double Domination with bots