Unreal Tournament 3

[kingcomrade]

So I got my hands on this game.
It's pretty good, the graphics are very pretty. The gameplay is kinda fun, though there's almost nobody playing online and the bots' AI either sucks or is impossibly and frustratingly good so you don't really want to play team games (it seems like your own AI team is fucking useless while the enemy team is really good about snagging points and whatnot). The gun designs are ugly. I've said it before, whoever designed the guns should feel ashamed of themselves. The guns are also very imbalanced. Some guns, like the flak cannon and minigun, are leagues better than guns like the goop gun (which is useless in this game). The plasma rifle was improved a little from the previous game because now the bolts move faster. Most of the guns which shoot slow-moving projectiles, like the plasma rifle, the minigun's secondary attack, the goop gun, and the secondary shock rifle attack, they all suck in a game where people move very quickly.

The rocket launcher, minigun, flak cannon, sniper rifle, and primary shock rifle are pretty much the only guns worth using. The flak cannon can instagib someone at close range. Compare that to having to hit them a half dozen times with the goop gun, which shoots slow, has piss poor accuracy, and has slow moving projectiles.

The vehicles are pretty much the same. The one truly awesome thing in this game, and I laugh every time it happens, is that when you squash someone beneath your Manta (you have to squash them, not just run into them) the announces goes PAN-CAKE in the most ridiculous voice I've ever heard. It's hilarious.

Anyways, the character models are beautiful and very well done, but there aren't very many of them. Two or three faces, and either a male or female body with some swappable parts. It's not too little, but it's not a lot, and it also kinda sucks because there are no cool non-human models. Just dumb looking robots, though the kroot-looking monster aliens are fairly cool. You could totally fap to the face of the trashy chick in the campaign if you've got graphics turned up.

Anyways, my verdict is: Don't buy at full price. If you have ut2k4 you're not missing that much for that price.

 

[Gragt]

UT still plays good and is the best game Epic produced yet.

 

[Herbert West]

UT2004 is way at least as good if not better than UT3. UT3 has niearly nothing new, however the dark walker is very very cool.
The worst thing about UT3 is the overdesigned art. Like Epic didn't knew when to stop and just kept piling on more stuff and more details to their levels just to show off. The effect is that it's hard to concentrate on enemies moving through that visual insanity.

 

[lefthandblack]

http://utforums.epicgames.com/showthrea ... ght=Ripper

I use this to replace the bio-rifle.

There's a thread in the beta-forums that has a guy working on real-world weapon replacements that looks pretty good too, though I haven't tried it.

 

[fastpunk]

...

The AI has some problems but Epic's been fixing them. The two patches actually improved quite a bit of the game and a third one is just around the corner. However, it's quite adequate. I find that a match on Masterful or Inhuman is more challenging than an online match.

Now, what I really don't agree with is the weapons issue. They are very well designed and animated. They're bulky and noisy and feel dangerous.Which is exactly how they should feel. Of course, this is purely a preference. However, balancing is very well done. Dunno about you but I get quite a few kills with the Bio Rifle. The alt fire is especially useful for setting up little traps around corners or defending objectives. It's a defensive weapon and works very well when used accordingly. This goes for all weapons, they work very well when used in the proper context. A little example: the alt-fire of the Stinger, it's very useful against Mantas because it pushes them back, thus helping you not getting pancaked. Get enough hits and you've killed a vehicle that otherwise is too fast for most of the weapons you've got. It's also useful against flak maniacs rushing towards you for the same reason, it pushes them back enough to give you some space to maneuver. Also, please note that some of the slow moving alt-fire on weapons (like the shock rifle or stinger) are there mostly for close range combat.

And I don't see how people moving very quickly is an issue. Fuck's sake man, if you could hit well in UT2004, you should be hitting twice as well in UT3. Weapons generally do more damage - some of the splash damage weapons like the Rocked Launcher or Flak Cannon alt-fire are killers in medium range even if you're far sighted. Moves like the dodge jump are out. Couple this with the more grounded gameplay (can't jump high, can't dodge far) and hitting things shouldn't be an issue. Oh, and I almost forgot the fact that player models are a lot larger than those from UT2003/2004.

Vehicles are a mixed bag. The Axon line-up has been tweaked rather well now and I have nothing to complain about them. On the other hand, the Necris vehicles are indeed unbalanced. The Dark Walker is too powerful while stuff like the Nightshade are cool but find little use for various reasons (in the Nightshade's case, it's just too slow and fragile). Still, the imbalance is not that obvious that it's game breaking.

What the game got wrong was the map line-up. Partially. They look great but only about half of them play properly. The CTF line-up is especially weak but that's what mod makers are for. The new taunts suck and so do the menus. The campaign mode is stupid (the old ladder mode would have been enough) and high ping numbers online are a killer. Still, it's a decent game. A lot of fun although it takes some time to get used to it. But if you still play UT or UT2004 and are happy with it then I guess UT3 isn't a must. I got it because UT is pretty much my favorite FPS series. I've overplayed UT and UT2003/2004 and UT3 is fresh enough to warrant a purchase for me. But that's just me.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I have no idea how can you actually say that the models are well made. All of them are FAT (but apparently it's a general 'part' of the U3 engine...), gray and uninteresting and there aren't even many of them.

Anyway, the game didn't survive long on my HDD. The gray graphics, stupid AI (Once, there was something like this: a friendly bot went inside a tank and rode it STRAIGHT INTO A WALL... oh yeah, and after that it left. Next, another friendly bot went inside the tank and tried to ram through the wall. After the long and fruitless struggle it left too. The last bot that went inside the tank, actually managed to ride it out of the wall... straight into an abyss (Y) ) and overall boredom and lack of fun when compared to the original UT didn't really appeal to me.

 

[kingcomrade]

They are very well designed and animated

They are well animated, maybe, but the underlying design is ugly. There is no getting around it. The guns are ugly. They are uglier than Doom 3's guns.

They're bulky and noisy and feel dangerous.

You must be playing a different game. The guns in my game are thin and piddly. They are not bulky. The shock rifle is a tiny little tube. The minigun also looks piddly and small.

And I don't see how people moving very quickly is an issue

It isn't. Slow moving projectiles are.

 

[Dire Roach]

I remember playing the demo and thinking it was precisely a rehash of UT2k4 with generous amounts of bloom and bump mapping added. The dark walker looks pretty cool (although it seems very cheap or impractical when in play) and the hoverboards seem to lend themselves for some ultra-fun moments. The only thing that irked me was the lack of a way to disable or adjust dodge controls; I always turned off or remapped that shit in all the previous games.

BTW, has an Invasion Mode mod been made for this game yet?

 

[kingcomrade]

I don't know how you could accuse the game of being grey. Not even the robot characters are grey. The human characters are either a bright yellow or wearing red and gold cloth. The aliens are green and the necrons are black. There are a couple industrial and grey levels but usually they have a lot setting them off (like the green on the Deck 16 remake). Ut3 is not a grey game.

 

[kingcomrade]

Why would somebody do this.

 

[fastpunk]

They are very well designed and animated

They are well animated, maybe, but the underlying design is ugly. There is no getting around it. The guns are ugly. They are uglier than Doom 3's guns.

OK, I like em you don't. As I said, it's a matter of preference.

They're bulky and noisy and feel dangerous.

You must be playing a different game. The guns in my game are thin and piddly. They are not bulky. The shock rifle is a tiny little tube. The minigun also looks piddly and small.

Yeah, look at that weapon. It's so thin and piddly you almost can't see it.

Maybe you've checked the Small Weapons preference in the settings menu... or you were actually playing a different game than UT3. Except the Enforcer, BioRifle and Sniper, all weapons are quite large.

And I don't see how people moving very quickly is an issue

It isn't. Slow moving projectiles are.

Which is compensated by larger player models, deadlier weapons, lack of dodge jumping and generally more grounded gameplay.

 

[Atrokkus]

Q3 >>>>>> all UT

though i admit UT3 wasnt taht bad.

 

[kingcomrade]

OK, I like em you don't. As I said, it's a matter of preference.

It's a matter of taste, and mine is better.

Yeah, look at that weapon. It's so thin and piddly you almost can't see it.

It is in the game (why didn't you provide a first person shot?). And it's still ugly.

Which is compensated by larger player models, deadlier weapons, lack of dodge jumping and generally more grounded gameplay.

No, fanboy, it's not. The slow moving projectile guns suck compared to the other guns.

 

[Comrade Hamster]

UT3 is pretty much just UT, except now they've unleashed the mediocre UT3 engine on us; texture streaming makes me sad.

 

[fastpunk]

OK, I like em you don't. As I said, it's a matter of preference.

It's a matter of taste, and mine is better.

:facepalm:

Yeah, look at that weapon. It's so thin and piddly you almost can't see it.

It is in the game (why didn't you provide a first person shot?). And it's still ugly.

My oh my, that is thin!

Which is compensated by larger player models, deadlier weapons, lack of dodge jumping and generally more grounded gameplay.

No, fanboy, it's not. The slow moving projectile guns suck compared to the other guns.

Not really. It's just you that sucks.

 

[kingcomrade]

:facepalm:

:facepalm:
look I can use eyerolls too. That gun is ugly. It looks like it was designed by someone who thought the PT Cruiser was a good idea. The only good looking guns in that game are the sniper rifle and flak gun. The guns are not bulky. The minigun is a bunch of thin tubes. It looks small and weak. The shock rifle especially has a bad design, it's a thin tube with a keypad on the end. Then again, I'm sure I'll be told that it is bulky and powerful looking.

Not really. It's just you that sucks.

Oh, I do, now? Fanboy, don't pretend you know how good or bad I am at the game.

 

[fastpunk]

:facepalm:

:facepalm:
look I can use eyerolls too. That gun is ugly. It looks like it was designed by someone who thought the PT Cruiser was a good idea. The only good looking guns in that game are the sniper rifle and flak gun. The guns are not bulky. The minigun is a bunch of thin tubes. It looks small and weak. The shock rifle especially has a bad design, it's a thin tube with a keypad on the end. Then again, I'm sure I'll be told that it is bulky and powerful looking.

Not really. It's just you that sucks.

Oh, I do, now? Fanboy, don't pretend you know how good or bad I am at the game.

No use arguing with you, butmunch. You're just too much for me!

 

[WalterKinde]

Pretty graphics, shit gameplay, when compared with ut2k4.
UT2K4 is the better game with more game modes than UT3.
Which is a shame why epic made some of the decisions they made i can only attribute to the need to put the game on the PS3 and then the 360.
Were it PC exclusive like the previous games this might not of happened at least thats what i tell myself.

 

[kingcomrade]

God, this gun looks awful. It's a stick. Especially when you can see it in the hands of other players it looks silly and undersized.

The minigun isn't helped by the fact that its animation makes it look weak and short.
By the way, if you do play this game, don't set graphics past Vivid (don't set it to Intense) because then you won't be able to see shit for all the bloom.

 

[kingcomrade]

No use arguing with you, butmunch. You're just too much for me!

You're right, you can't argue with me.

This gun is the one I truly do like. The sniper rifle in 2k4 was really boxy and had a really weak sound effect. This one is much better, it actually looks like a gun, unlike most of the rest of ut3's lineup:

This is actually a bad screenshot, it's hard to make out. I'll go take another.

 

[kingcomrade]

 

[Jasede]

This looks better than Crisis; though why is everything so bright and unnatual-tinted? Still, looks great. Hope I can play these games smoothly in ten years or so.

And the guns do look awful, aside of the Sniper.

 

[DefJam101]

Easily the worst UT, by far. It just lacks the depth of the other games, feels like it was produced by college frat boys. Movement system is far too simple and quake-ish for a game series that ultimately plays a pretty shit game of deathmatch. Gun & character art design is half-assed, as is the voice acting. (F YEAH!, in an m-rated game???) Hitscan is as big of a problem as ever (as kingcomrade pointed out), if I wasn't so good at shock combos I probably would be complaining. And the menus, oh god the menus; where are my tight and compact menus with tons of options? What the fuck is this bright red paint splotch shit?

I had such high hopes for this game, it is truly sad how far Epic has fallen. =/




P.S. kingcomrade have you played the old UTs? I just got the impression from your OP that you were new to the series, if this ain't true then nvm.


edit: By the way, kc; if the game looks too bloomy for you I recommend actually cranking up the bloom settings, and then increasing the contrast of your monitor. It helps improve the look of the game a lot, much less washed-out.

 

[WalterKinde]

To get that effect, you need a top of the line vid card anything from a Nvidia 8800gt and above, 2gb of ram or more and a 2.5ghz dual core or better cpu.
And its all about the bloom baby, thankfully you can turn that down in graphic settings but its just not the same with the bloom off or reduced.
And as for those damn game menus, i get the feeling the console version was why it was that way, although to be fair haven't seen the ps3 version maybe the interface is streamlined on the ps3.

 

[MetalCraze]

UT3 is a castrated UT2004
Also - arrows on the ground that show you what is the shortest route to flag and to base in CTF. What the fuck?
Graphics are good? Well no. Textures leave the impression that they were castrated for xbox360 and they were. Damn they look like the ones in UT2003/2004. Characters also look like a low-detailed mud compared to those in ME. And both games use the same engine.
UT3's Bloom is one of the fugliest blooms I ever saw in a game.
Add to this much less game modes, much less maps, much less character models, less weapons, the same vehicles save for some new, incredibly dumb bots in games that require teamwork and you have a generic boring multiplayer shooter.
UT2004 is much better than this.