Unreal Tournament 3 is on its way to its third beta patch since release, with the latest – v1.1 Beta 3 – currently being privately tested by server admins. According to Planet Unreal, it contains all of the fixes from the previous two patches and will likely be released if no major issues are found.

While you can’t get your hands on the patch just yet, we’ve got a changelist for your enjoyment. It’s quite lengthy, but taking a look at it and thinking about the mods that are sure to come for the game, I feel like running out to the store to pick up the game.

Hit the break and check it out. Read the full article »

The past two months have been so jam packed with high quality game releases, that it was easy to let any number of good games slide under your radar. December isn’t quite the same, but it’s easy to still be overwhelmed with games to catch up on. Consequently, a few of this month’s releases might go unnoticed, so we’ve got a brief look at those games.

Hit the break for the December edition, or check out one of the previous month’s editions.

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Epic VP Mark Rein, has stated that Unreal Tournament 3 for the PS3 should integrate with Sony’s Home online world space in a recent interview with Gamasutra. UT3 is now confirmed for a December launch with Home set to go live early 2008.

“We’re planning that you’ll be able to get a party together in Home and then file into the game from an Unreal space. Home’s pretty cool, so we’re planning to do that. That’ll make it easy for… what I like about that is that you’ll be able to form without us having to build a party system. It won’t be as detailed as a real party system, but the idea is that we could all meet up in a room and go together in the game.

I think it’s really smart that eventually if everybody does that, each company doesn’t have to develop its own way to all meet up somewhere and all go into a game. I think that’s a very smart way to do it, and I kind of wish Xbox 360 would do that, and I’m hoping that they will at some point.

In other words, all these games have these different systems for getting together and then traveling into the games together or playing as teams or whatever. I expect that to be a dashboard functionality at some point in the future for the Xbox 360, and I think Sony’s already thinking that way with Home.”

Rein also approves of Sony’s Trojan Horse strategy of incorporating blu-ray into the PS3 gaming system.

I think there’s nothing wrong with the Trojan Horse strategy of “let’s get this device in the living room, and it can play music and DVDs and high-definition movies.”

Publishers will say, “Hey, there’s ten or however many million of those. Let’s spend a little bit extra to buy our disc and stick it in.”

I think once it’s there, there’s the temptation to play games on it, regardless of what your original meaning was. If people buy it as a Blu-ray player, they… will play games. When the big ads come out in August for a new Madden game, they’ll pick up Madden. They’ve got the equipment, so why not? They’ve made the investment.”

Players can get the whole detailed interview with Epic’s Mark Rein on Gamasutra.

Despite being delayed until next year, Epic Games picked up the slack, kicked things up a notch and made good on Mark Rein’s claim that Epic would get the game out before year’s end.

Maybe it wasn’t so much a claim as a promise of dedication, and Epic has certainly made good. The game will first hit stores on December 10, with “limited quantities” shipping the next day. This no doubt is due to the game’s bumpy development cycle, but it’s great to see that PS3 owners will be able to get their hands on UT3 before Christmas. Make sure and rush out (and dare I say pre-order) on the release date if you’re fixated on getting it, otherwise you might end up having to wait until ’08.

Now let’s hope they get crackin’ on that 360 version.

Yes, you heard right. The PC version of Unreal Tournament 3 is now available. Simply head out to your favorite software store, and drop $49.95 for the regular version or $59.95 for the collector’s edition. This news is only for the PC version of the game; however, the press release states that the PS3 version is scheduled to be available soon.

It’s always interesting to see what developers have to say about their game at launch. Mark Rein of Epic Games said of UT3, “Unreal Tournament 3 delivers on the promise of high-caliber game quality that gamers have come to know and expect from Epic Games and the Unreal franchise. The power of Unreal Engine 3.0 has enabled the development team to set new expectations for what cutting-edge graphical and gameplay quality for a first-person shooter should be.”

I wonder how well this installment of the series will do in light of the recent release of Call of Duty 4, and the hordes of folks already playing it online. The Unreal Tournament games have always drawn a fairly large group of hardcore devotees though, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see some pretty impressive sales figures for this iteration. It’s also interesting to note that Epic just released Gears of War for the PC, which would seem to be a direct competitor to UT3. Of course, when you’re competing with yourself, the winner is predetermined, right?

If you haven’t tried the demo of UT3 yet, you can grab it right here. As always, FileFront has a ton of screens and trailers available at the FileFront UT3 Page.

Yesterday I reported on something Mark Rein mentioned about Unreal Tournament III on Xbox 360. More specifically, about how development on that version of the game wouldn’t begin until next year. Turns out that’s not exactly the case, as Rein rectified his comments today and sent the following note to Joystiq:

What I probably should have said was ’start working on it again’. We had the game up and running on all three platforms up until last spring. In fact Official Xbox Magazine came out and played the game for a great cover story they did on it. We stopped working on the 360 version so we could concentrate our efforts on shipping the various PC and PS3 versions. Once we get those out of the way, and take some time to enjoy the holidays with our friends and families, we’ll start working on the 360 version again. There’s still a decent bit of work to do. For example we have simple LAN play but no Xbox Live implementation yet and we need to work with Microsoft to figure out how to accommodate mods on their platform.

That’s better news than what we had before, but it still sounds like it’s going to be quite a while before we see UT on 360.

If you’re waiting on the Xbox 360 version of Unreal Tournament III, you might be better off picking up the PC or PlayStation 3 version, if possible. Epic VP Mark Rein has said that the developer has yet to even start developing the game for Microsoft’s box, and that’s due in large part to mods. Development on the game won’t even begin until next year, so the release seems pretty far out.

Part of the reason for this [delay] is the Mods. The PS3 is an open system, and they embrace user-created content. But there isn’t really a way to do that on the 360. So our job, when we finish the PS3 version, and we’ve taken a little break, is to sit down with Microsoft and to figure out how we can do Mods on their system.

It seems to be a recurring problem, especially for Epic, which has always been a company very focused on the community’s involvement in creating maps and mods for their games. Whatever the solution ends up being, I imagine the process for getting these things into the 360 version of the game is going to be a major hassle and take much longer than it will on PS3.

via RIOTTT

It seems odd that an announcement like this would come so late in the development cycle (UT3 releases this month on PC), but Epic and IGN today announced that GameSpy will be incorporated into Unreal Tournament 3 on both PC and PlayStation 3. This isn’t unexpected by any means, as just recently it was announced that GameSpy was going to be incorporated into Unreal Engine 3.

GameSpy provides a variety of things, including VoIP, stat tracking, messaging, and leaderboards. This technology will be implemented into both the PC and PS3 versions of the game, although the extent of these features that will be seen in the PS3 game remains to be seen.

This seems like a bit of a slap in the face for Microsoft and their Games for Windows Live service. Maybe if there was no tiered level to the service, Epic would have more strongly considered Live. As it stands, this reinforces the usage of yet another online gaming service in what is becoming a very congested market.

Enemy Down in cooperation with Midway and Play.com is sponsering a GBP 50,000 Unreal Tournament 3 play-off. That’s about $105,040 for our readers in the U.S. There will be a single player tournament which boasts a prize pot of £20,000, and a team based tournament with an incredible £30,000 prize pot up for grabs.

To qualify to participate in the UT3 Tournament, players MUST pre-order and purchase a copy of the regular or limited edition of the game from play.com. Players will receive a unique registration code which will be required to confirm their entry into the tournaments. That one unique registration key may be used to enter both of the tournaments. Your registration code will be sent by play.com via email once your copy of the game has been posted. For teams entering the tournament, every member of your clan will need a registration ID in order to take part.

The Tournament will be decided at a LAN final in March, 2008.

From the Enemydown UK National UT3 Championships FAQ:

As long as you can order your copy of UT3 from play.com then you may take part in this tournament however you should be fully aware that all the servers will be hosted in the UK and the LAN final will be UK based and we are not covering travel expenses. Should you make it to the final stages you will need a passport if you are not from the UK. UK residents can use a driving license or a passport.

via Enemy Down

Unreal Tournament 3 recently went gold, and Midway has given the official word that the long-awaited sequel will be out on November 19. But, as that’s a Monday, you might have to wait until the following day for retailers to put it up on their shelves.

While the PlayStation 3 version still has no official release date and was more-or-less delayed into 2008, Mark Rein’s last word on the matter was that developer Epic Games is still shooting for a 2007 release date. Hopefully they can pull it off, as PS3 owners certainly won’t mind having another quality FPS available.