Last month, we found out that Unreal Tournament 3 (on PC, along with Crysis) was selling quite poorly in the early going. And by poorly, I mean it barely made it over the 30,000 units sold mark – whether that’s due to a bloated market, piracy or something else altogether, we can’t know for sure. Mark Rein takes offense to the claim that UT3 isn’t doing well, stating:

It is amazing how people can look at two weeks of sales (in our case) in one single territory in the busiest Xmas sales season the industry has ever seen and come to the conclusion these titles are doing “badly”. I don’t think either title is doing so badly … This isn’t the fastest selling UT title ever but it’s doing pretty well and we’re going to support it with some pretty cool things to help it keep selling over time.

I don’t think anyone could make a similar claim about UT3 on PlayStation 3, which – despite being released on December 11 with very little notice – sold 113,000 copies, which is just under the mark hit by Uncharted in November (117,000) and quite a lot more than Ratchet sold in October (74,500).

It’ll be interesting to see how Epic proceeds from here in regards to how they treat the PS3 version versus the PC version. If sales are clearly better on PS3, who’s to say that Epic wouldn’t suddenly pay more attention to the console versions?

via 1UP

Halo fans who have PS3s can now rejoice that the ‘Wizard’ map has surfaced on Unreal Tournament 3. Let’s just hope that the Microsoft legal team is too tied up to do anything about it. Unreal Tournament 3 for the PS3 has really unleashed creativity from the PC modding community. Hopefully, user-created maps will be the future of console gaming.

Wizard may actually be a map that plays better on UT3 than it did with Halo.

We’re currently hosting the files for UT3 ‘Wizard’ for your downloading pleasure:

PS3 Download:

North American
European
German

PC Download

Via Epic Game Forums

The 6th annual Mod DB Mod of the Year Awards are in the final stages. Every year Mod DB pays tribute to the best mods and Indie games of the year and the teams that developed them.

Mod DB has managed to narrow down over 4,000 nominees submitted throughout the month of December to the top 100. You’re invited to download and vote for your favorite five mods. The final selections run the gamut from the expected Half-Life and Half-Life 2, Battlefront and Quake mods; to mods for Freelancer and Star Wars: Jedi Academy. You can also get a glimpse of the most anticipated mod projects for 2008.

Make your vote count at Mod DB.

I’m disappointed to see that none of last year’s Oblivion or Neverwinter Nights 2 mods made it into the top 100 for 2007. I’m very curious to see what’s coming up this year though. I’d also like to know how the new Fallout 2 mod faired.

After what seems to be a leak of sorts for the PS3 UT3 Mod Tools promised earlier, the first cross-platform mod ever for UT3 has just been released.

The Action Cam modification for both the PC and PS3 versions of Unreal Tournament III does what it implies: it allows the player to get an over the shoulder perspective (shown above) a la Gears of War. You can download either version of the mod from the links provided here:

Download Action Cam v1.0 (PS3) @ FileFront

Download Action Cam v1.0 (PC) @ FileFront

To get the mod up and running on a PS3, you’ll need at minimum a USB memory stick. A summary of how to use the tools as well as getting the custom content onto the PS3 are provided after the break.

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Despite Internet rumors to the contrary, Mark Rein has stated that Unreal Tournament 3 on Xbox 360 isn’t set for an April release, and a release date has yet to be determined. The rumors started after scans of a German gaming mag showed the game as being 90% complete and ready to launch in the coming months. According to Rein, Epic’s attention is currently focused on the European release of UT3 on PlayStation 3.

With all of the shooters you can find on 360, I don’t think anyone’s going to be particularly disappointed with the news. There’s certainly plenty of other things to be played right now, and personally I think the game is overhyped, anyways.

MaxConsole via Game|Life

iD Tech Camps is aiming to teach kids game development skills using the Unreal Engine 3 tools that come with Unreal Tournament 3 for PC. The Campbell CA based camp, the largest national youth summer computer camp in the U.S.. offers programs for beginning to advanced students, hands-on learning and instruction in small groups.

“We provide an environment where instruction is personalized and fluid,” said Pete Ingram-Cauchi, president and CEO of iD Tech Camps. “Teens choose our computer camp because we have the cutting edge software and tools that are most relevant in the industry. Partnering with industry leaders like Epic Games is vital. They believe in our teaching philosophy. They understand that a key component to offering the best tech courses involves instruction of the industry’s leading game engine, Unreal Engine 3, as provided with the Unreal Tournament 3 game.”

The Unreal Engine has been used in best selling games such as Mass Effect, BioShock and Gears of War.

“We’ve partnered with iD Tech Camps because of their reputation for quality game development instruction for As a student in a video game design program, this sounds like a lot more fun than the courses I’ve taken.teens,” said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games. “Unreal Tournament 3 delivers unparalleled game quality that gamers have come to know and expect from Epic Games. We are reaching an audience of gaming enthusiasts who play the game as well as learn to design and mod with our deep set of tools.”

Both iD Tech Camps and the iD Gaming Academy use Unreal Tournament 3 in their curriculum as well as getting some playtime in during NVIDIA-hosted Gaming Tournaments. Students will be taught to use the engine to add new levels, mod skins and replace characters to customize game play. Eventually they should be able to create personalized 3D video games with 3D environments and levels using the advanced special effects available with the UT3 engine.

As a student in a video game design program, this sounds like a lot more fun than the courses I’ve taken. Wish they’d had stuff like this when I was a kid. Where do I sign up?

Anyone interested can sign up at www.internalDrive.com

via Press Release

While we did post the first ever user created Unreal Tournament 3 map for the PlayStation 3 recently, the actual tools to convert mods from the PC and send them to the PS3 haven’t been made available to the public. Mark Rein posted an update on when we can expect the update to the Unreal Engine 3 editor on the official UT forums:

We’re very close to releasing an update to the Unreal Engine 3 editor, that comes with the PC version of UT3, that will allow UT3 mod-makers to cook their mods into the required PS3 format. We’ve been doing some internal testing and we’re hoping to expand to a wider group tomorrow or Friday. If all goes well then we should see the update released next week which is what I expect will happen. Obviously the process works, as we put out a few mods before Christmas and people seem to be playing them, but it is the update to the editor that we’re testing.

So cross your fingers, and a surplus of mods might soon be making their way onto the hard drives of PS3 UT players.

That is, if anyone is actually playing it – sales for the PC version were poor when we last saw sales figures, although the PS3 version is almost certainly a lock to sell fairly well. But I know I’m not the only one that hasn’t suddenly and completely lost interest in UT.

Gaming Steve has posted a list of New Year’s resolutions for a variety of game developers, publishers, systems, games and persons that’s sure to get a chuckle or two. (Which consequently means a fanboy cringe or two.) Everything from Take Two to Blizzard to the PSP is on the list, although the actual likelihood of even a fraction of these resolutions panning out isn’t quite as great as the list.

Here’s a sampling:

Blizzard: I resolve to stop making people totally nuts and finally announce Diablo III.

Valve: I resolve to release the next Half Life 2 Episode before 2010.

Electronic Arts: I resolve to not to milk BioWare to death and have them produce no more than one game per year … or two … and only very occasionally three. But never more than four games a year, I promise.

I picked out those three with the hope they, in particular, come true. I’d settle for one of the three, though.

Check out the full list of resolutions here.

That title might even be misleading – underperforming is practically an understatement for the number that Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3 put up last month. While neither game did have a full month on store shelves, both put up abysmal numbers.

According to the NPD, Crysis sold only 86,633 units, while Unreal Tournament 3 did 33,995. While you can immediately attribute Crysis’ poor sales to its insane system requirements, seeing UT3 do so poorly is shocking; it’s one of the most storied PC FPS series ever.

While it is a crowded market, as Next Gen points out, it still makes you wonder how much longer publishers will be able to go with the PC version of a game as the leading SKU – or in Crysis’ case, the only SKU.

The Unreal series isn’t really considered the grand-daddy of gaming; in fact, it’s more like the middle-aged uncle. But as some of you may know, a middle-aged uncle (who, in my case, lives out in the backwoods and has a surplus of guns and fireworks) can still be a lot of fun. The newest installment in the franchise, Unreal Tournament III, is finally out; and while it may show of the series’ age with its simple FPS gameplay, it can still provide an endless source of entertainment. Full review after the break.
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