Strangely, this Huxley footage doesn’t remind me of Unreal Tournament 3 at all, unlike what I formerly perceived. I was also surprised to see that the “MMO element” in Huxley looks exactly like your typical MMO (i.e. walking around in third-person). Perhaps the FPS elements would kick in when you get into missions.

Anybody stoked about Huxley?

Post from: EveryJoe

New Huxley video is released

Your eyes don’t deceive you. What you’re seeing is a fully-destructible environment. Still not sold on the Lego mod? Try watching another video.

If you wait long enough, a version for the 360 or PC might come out soon. Until then, only PS3 owners get the Lego love.

Post from: EveryJoe

UT3 for PS3 has new Lego mod

1. The Orange Box
2. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
3. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (Xbox 360 version)
4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
5. Bioshock
6. Halo 3
7. Crysis
8. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas
9. Warhawk
10. Unreal Tournament 3

What are your Top 10 shooters for 2007?

Post from: EveryJoe

Top 10 shooters of 2007

We all know that PC gamers are getting Unreal Tournament 3 this very month, but the release date for the Playstation 3 version remains tentative. Mark Rein, vice president at Epic Games, told Eurogamer that the chances of getting the PS3 version this year is still pretty good.

“Right now we’re very close to a release candidate, and we should have it finished by the end of this week. Then we send it off and it’s just a matter of what happens from there.”

While Rein never said it explicitly, I think it’s very doable. Why? This Eurogamer quote was given roughly around November 8, Thursday, at an event in Birmingham. The end of that week would be the 10^th or 11^th. Production would take from two to three weeks (around the end of November), and delivery would probably be another two weeks (this would roughly fall in the first week of December).

There’s a catch.

UT3 won’t make it to Europe until 2008 because according to Rein, the region’s certification process takes longer. They’ll still be testing the game in different languages, so that will eat up some more time.

Post from: EveryJoe

UT3 for the PS3 might launch this year, but Europe gets no love

If I’m not sucking blood in nightclubs and shooting zombies on the head, I’m spending quality time with the Unreal Tournament 3 demo, which is now available for download. I chose to prioritize it over the Call of Duty 4 demo (which is also available) because of one very important reason: size.

Size alone is a sufficient come-hither because the UT3 demo is good for a mere 777MB.

It gets even better when you run the game. Not only are you treated to the best performance of the Unreal 3 engine so far, but you’ll also be treated to a surprisingly wide range of features that’ll keep you busy for a while.

What are the requirements, you ask? Here’s your minimum:

Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista
2.0+ GHZ single core processor
512MB of system RAM
NVIDIA 6200+ or ATI Radeon 9600+ video card
8GB of free hard drive space

The installation took some time, but for an unreleased game sporting top-notch visuals, performance is pretty good compared to other recent games (*cough* Stranglehold *cough*). Don’t let that 8GB of free space fool you—the demo eats up 991MB when installed.

I’ve been putting in the hours at Vehicle Capture the Flag. You can also spend time in Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Duel. There are three maps available: HeatRay, ShangriLa, and Suspense. As far as the demo is concerned, Suspense is exclusive to Vehicle CTF.

The levels are reasonably-sized and easy to remember—particularly Suspense, which is just a long bridge with two bases on each end. The weapons are familiar. These include the old Impact Hammer, the Bio-Rifle (aka snot gun), Minigun, Flak Cannon, Redeemer, and my personal favorite, the Rocket Launcher.

The UT3 demo is a fantastic download. It’s small, it’s fun, and you can squeeze out a considerable amount of time. I won’t be surprised if you play this game until Gears of War and/or the complete UT3 comes out.

Post from: EveryJoe

Unreal Tournament 3 hands-on impressions

What’s a gamer got to do when he’s waiting for Gears of War for the PC? He works on his backlog of unfinished games, that’s what. Ever since my PC upgrade, I’ve been steadily eliminating my list and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is one of them.

Bloodlines is a three-year-old RPG/FPS that I put off playing because it’s a hog to play. It was a huge hog in 2004 and remains to be one today even when the machines are several times more powerful.

If you’re a huge Vampire fan, or if you appreciate good yarn, then you’ll forgive Bloodlines’ wonky combat. Yes, the melee system could really use an overhaul, but the role-play elements offered by the game emulate what the pen-and-paper system has.

Unlike the first Vampire RPG, the shooting portions in Bloodlines become more forgivable when you improve your character’s skill with ranged weapons. You’ll get your chance to put this to the test when you visit the Hollywood cemetery and take on that zombie-shooting mission, as long as you’re not using a Toreador.

I’m currently frequenting the Hollywood quests (the search for the Nosferatu, to be exact) and the pace has been much better because the loading times aren’t very punishing anymore. Before my upgrade, I had to stand a two-minute wait each time I visit a large area. Today, it’s been trimmed down to around 40 seconds, which is still pretty long compared to say, the Unreal Tournament 3 demo.

Anyone out there patient enough to play this game?

Post from: EveryJoe

The Backlog Files: Vampires and shooters work, but severed arms don’t

You see, Mark Rein announced that the PS3 version of UT3 will support the keyboard and mouse scheme.

“I checked with Steve Polge and he said that YES we are supporting keyboard and mouse in Unreal Tournament 3 on PS3. He is confident we are doing it in a way that will be balanced without feeling “gimped” for either side. We’ll also allow people to choose whether or not they want to allow mixed controller vs. keyboard/mouse games or not.”

Good one, Mark. In retrospect, your news of UT3 not having cross-platform play between the PC and PS3 is almost making me feel bad because this new keyboard/mouse scheme for the PS3 levels the playing field between the two platforms.

Then again, aging video cards resulting in choppy visuals would give PC jockeys a scapegoat if they ever lose to a PS3 gamer. I mean, have you seen how purdy UT3 is? It’s almost as scary as Crysis.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the image.

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Post from: EveryJoe

UT3 for PS3 will have keyboard support

Mark Rein, vice president at Epic Games, announced at the developer’s forums that Unreal Tournament 3 doesn’t use Games For Windows Live.

“We have not decided about cross platform play between PC and PS3. We’re not 100% sure that users want that feature but if we get time we’ll play around with it and see how it works. In the mean time we plan to be able to serve the PS3 from PC servers so that should help us gets lots of great servers going.”

The PS3 users won’t stand a chance, unless they sell out and use auto-aim.

Post from: EveryJoe

Epic: UT3 won’t use Games For Windows Live

Great news to all you Mac twitch gamers! Two marquee shooters are being developed for your platform of choice. First is Unreal Tournament 3, which as you know is coming out for the PC this coming November. According to Macworld, this news shouldn’t surprise Mac fans because it has been mentioned in Epic Games’ forums, and has been said to be suitable for the Mac.

The other shooter might come as a surprise though. Epic VP Mark Rein told GameTrailers that Gears of War is also coming to the platform.

Notice anything interesting about the two shooters?

They’re both using the Unreal Engine 3, and apparently, porting games that use this core software component to the Mac won’t be that big of a problem.

Still, one can’t help but wonder if bringing these shooters to the Mac would be worth the effort, particularly because of the platform’s small user base. Sure, the PC market may be smaller than the sheer bulk of people owning consoles, but it’s relatively bigger than the Mac market.

A BusinessWeek commentary on Mac gaming revealed that a “successful” title might sell 50,000 units. How many units do you suppose would these two shooters sell?

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Post from: EveryJoe

UT3 and Gears of War to attack the Mac

Is such a claim possible? You and I know how purdy Gears of War looks.

Here’s the short of it: Epic Games, the makers of both games, has been working furiously to improve the Unreal Engine 3 since they released Gears of War late last year. Your proof:

Steven Polge, Epic Games’ lead designer for Unreal Tournament 3, confirmed that the game’s Xbox 360 version will come with four-player cooperative play and two-player split-screen in single player. You’ll also see 18 different vehicles and five types of turrets.

Spiffy becomes iffy
The preview gets a bit iffy when Polge started to ramp up the hype regarding the game’s controls. The controls were so good that half the people that work on the game prefer to use the Xbox 360 version.

When the guy responsible for the controls joined the playtesting sessions, he used a controller while everyone else used keyboards. The amazing part is, he “kicked everyone’s butt.”

How can controls be so good that people using controllers start beating keyboard users? Doesn’t that sound a wee bit unbalanced? It sounds more like auto-aim, a disturbing trend that became more prevalent when more FPS games are being created for consoles.

Halo grows horns
Case in point: Halo 2 for the PC. Plug in an Xbox 360 controller when playing multiplayer and you’ll notice that it’s easier to land your attacks when using a gamepad. The worst part—you can’t disable it, or find out if an opponent is using a controller.

Ergo, it’s not the UT3 controls that are good. It’s the auto-aim that’s spectacular.

Make no mistake, I love console shooters like the next rabid gamer. I just don’t like it when unfair advantages are exploited, especially in multiplayer when everything should be equal. Keyboards versus controllers may not be equal, but so is auto-aim, regardless of control scheme.

Great work Epic. You’re showing the world that people who use controllers need to resort to auto-aim to beat keyboard users.

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Post from: EveryJoe

New Unreal Tournament controls are so slick