Epic Games has really been dancing around announcing the release date for Unreal Tournament 3. They told us it was coming along nicely and what “exclusive” content 360 owners would be treated to, but they kept avoiding the topic of a release date. Today they took one baby step closer to finally revealing it, as they announced that the game will be released this summer.
As I said with those “exclusive” maps – they amount to being extremely insignificant if the 360 version doesn’t have mod support. (And all signs are pointing to no on that subject, thanks to Microsoft.) But, in fairness, Epic’s hands are tied, after all, so at least they’re trying to provide something of substance that wasn’t delivered in the PC or PS3 versions.
We’ve got a new trailer for the game up on FileFront, but it’s behind an age gate, so click here to check it out.
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There’s still no release date attached to Unreal Tournament 3 on Xbox 360, but Epic is already telling people what they’ll find in this version of UT3 that they won’t get elsewhere. Five new exclusive maps that aren’t in either the PC or PS3 versions of the game, two new characters, and support for two play splitscreen play. You’ll also find the free downloadable content Epic released a few weeks ago on the disc right form the get go.
That’s all well and good, but it’s not going to matter much if Microsoft doesn’t allow Epic to enable mods in the 360 version of the game. All the exclusive content in the world doesn’t mean squat when modders can easily recreate both the maps and characters for the PC and PS3 versions of the game.
Epic’s Jeff Morris talked about how UT3 is a twitch shooter, and is just what people need that have tired of the more tactical shooters on the market. While he might have a point about that, it’s still going to leave a lot of people in the dark on a feature that has been a mainstay of this series since its inception.
We keep hoping that Microsoft will come around and let user created content and mods become a feature of Xbox Live. Or, at least, allow third party games like Unreal Tournament 3 to support them. But if Chris Satchell, group general manager for Microsoft’s XNA initiative, is any indication, Microsoft isn’t exactly on the verge of making that happen. In an interview with Eurogamer, Satchell touched upon the concept of allowing mods onto the 360. He claimed that, aside from IP infringement, security is a huge concern when allowing mods to run rampant.
“I’m a little disturbed when I think about other systems and people using what we call native code - code that goes right down to the metal - and then allowing people to run script mods on top of that without the right security measures. It could be really dangerous.
“We’ve drawn a hard line because we very much care about security, and it seems like some other platforms don’t seem to care quite as much. That kind of worries me for consumers. But all I can control is what we do on our platform, so that’s where I’m going to focus - we’re going to keep you safe because that’s really important to us.”
It was quite clear that Satchell was pointing a finger at Sony and the PS3. When Eurogamer mentioned that, Satchell explained that it’s a problem faced on any platform that allows for people to use native code. He explained, “There’s a lot of people out there that just want to prove they can screw things up.
“I think there’s very mature, sensible hackers who just want to prove how good they are, and they don’t cause harm, and there’s malicious hackers, and any platform that let’s you do that, and doesn’t have the right security measures in place - whether it’s Sony, whether it’s Nintendo, whether it’s Apple, whether it’s anyone - you’re inviting trouble, because sooner or later someone will want to prove they can do it.”
So, that’s apparently Microsoft’s reasoning for not allowing mods. Is that a satisfying answer, though? I imagine most people would say, “Screw security!” immediately upon hearing Satchell’s claims, but they might not be quite as happy if their credit card or Live ID information were somehow stolen. That isn’t to say I think Microsoft should continue their policy. I see this as a challenge that Microsoft has to face — not something they should ignore because of the problems it presents.
Responding to a thread regarding a rumored release date for Unreal Tournament in the latest issue of EGM, Mark Rein stated that there’s still no release date for the PlayStation 3 timed exclusive. He did, however, give a vote of confidence for the game’s development, stating, “The game is coming along really nicely.”
Of course, you wouldn’t really expect him to say anything else, would you?
While I’ve voiced my disappointment with Unreal Tournament 3 on these pages before, the recent release of Facing Worlds/Face certainly grabbed my attention. Between that and a LEGO mod I posted about in February, I’ve tempted to buy the game. This of course begs the question if Xbox 360 owners will ever see user generated content in this version of UT3. We can only hope the answer is yes, but I doubt Microsoft is ready to change its ways for one third party game.
As Jonathan reported earlier, the new (free!) map pack for Unreal Tournament 3 is now available for download from the PlayStation Store. You’ll get Facing Worlds and two other maps I couldn’t care less about because Facing Worlds is the greatest thing ever, courtesy of Epic Games and Midway. That sure is awfully nice of them, and it makes me wonder if we’ll get to see a similar pack for free on Xbox 360 once the game gets moved over to Microsoft’s box.
Turok also is getting the downloadable content treatment today, although it’s not free. $4.99 will net you five new maps (although that statement might not hold true if you don’t view changes in time of day as constituting a “new” map).
$8.99 is the asking price of the new flOw bundle, which simply includes the full game and its expansion pack. Nothing new about the actually content, but if you want to take the plunge with flOw, this is the way to do it.
For the next two weeks (until April 15) you’ll find Warhawk on sale for just $29.99, $10 cheaper than it normally costs. You can use that saved money to buy some of the downloadable content that’s been released for the game since last August, or maybe you can just change paces and pick up that flOw bundle.
Videos, themes, Rock Band tracks, and an update to High Stakes: Poker Edition are also new on the Store. Hit the break for the full list of content. Read the full article
You might think that Microsoft’s lawyers are moving quickly to rob every penny from the individual responsible for creating the Master Chief character model in Unreal Tournament 3, but you’d be wrong. As it turns out, what serves as an homage to the Halo series is being treated just as that – not as an act of copyright infringement.
A Microsoft attorney that goes by the alias “DonkeyXote” writes on his Windows Live blog:
Many people are talking about the Master Chief mod for Unreal Tournament 3, that allows you to play in the character of the Master Chief on the PS3. Many people are surprised Microsoft is “allowing” this.
Actually it’s nothing more than the Game Content Usage Rules in action. When these were developed, people all thought they were focused on machinima. The truth is that while they do address machinima they also allow for a lot of other things. Mods like this are one of them. The developers aren’t selling the mod, they’re not monetizing Microsoft’s IP, they’re just creating something to share their love of the Master Chief on a new platform. It’s a great thing for us and a great thing for the gaming community. And much though I love my friends at Epic, Unreal Tournament isn’t Halo. This will also remind people of just how great the Halo games are and remind them that if they’re done with the user-created faux-Halo experience, the real Halo is available only on the Xbox 360. And no one is taking characters from PlayStation games (do they even have any games?) and putting them on our platform…
Aside from the annoyingly anti-Sony, Halo-is-the-best-thing-ever sentiment that he has, I’m glad to see Microsoft isn’t seeking to put a stop to this. One has t wonder what Microsoft would do if Halo levels were replicated in UT3, which seems like more of a “when” rather than an “if.” Writing that, I feel as if I’m about to be barraged with links to different Halo-inspired UT3 maps.
The sort of creativity and ingenuity that modders exhibit on a consistent basis never ceases to amaze me. Most recently, the mod wowing me is the one seen above – a level designed inside of Unreal Tournament 3 where everything is constructed from LEGOs. Better yet, it’s a destructible world made of LEGOs, so you can blow apart buildings, vehicles and bystanders, only to watch them crumble in hilarious LEGO fashion.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that a few of us like LEGOs, but I mean come on – how cool is this? I know there are LEGO games out there (of the official and unofficial flavor), but to do this through the confines of a mod is pretty incredible. Better yet, thanks to the PlayStation 3 version’s mod support, you can experience this on either the PC or PS3.
Microsoft, get your act together and let this sort of stuff happen on your console.
One of the biggest patches that hit this week was the new LotRO: Shadows of Angmar Book 12, but normally when you log into the game it is an automatic update. For those you who for some reason did not get the update, the European patch was sent to FileFront this week and you can get it by clicking on the link above. Otherwise there is not much else to report in the patches department other than Stranger, Unreal Tournament 3, Combat Mission Shockforce, and FIFA 08. You can get these patches and more by visiting this link.
As far as demos are concerned, we received Fashion Boutique, Spaceforce Captains, Avernum, Light of Dreams and a few others that you can see here.
Check back with us next week and hopefully we will have some more.
CliffyB seems to have caused quite a mess with his comments that PC gaming is in “disarray,” but in other corners of the Internet (does the Internet have corners? then how does the globe have corners?), Mark Rein sat down with Gameplayer to discuss Unreal Tournament 3, Gears of War, and the Unreal Engine.
So where do you see the limitations [of Unreal Engine 3] coming in? At which point do you start thinking you need to move onto the next engine?
Well there’s so much more further to go with this generation. The Xbox 360 and PS3 are really only in their infancy and we’re going to make a couple of more games for them. It’s not a case of next game/next engine. You can see we have brought UTIII out and we are doing cool stuff on these systems so we are with it for the near future now. We do have a research project for the next engine but that’s just Tim Sweeney writing bits of formulas on paper [laughs]. We won’t be seeing any changes until we see changes in the console technology. So who knows? It could be five years; we don’t have a clear time-frame for it. But we are working closely with Intel on projects and an engine down the road that’ll really take advantage of that.
So with UT out the door it’ll be pretty quiet for you guys next year?
We’ll just have to wait and see. You know how it is – people are like ‘you just did Gears of War, when’s the sequel out?’ We’re still working on the first one guys! Now we’ll be working on stuff for UT. For us it isn’t a case of ‘we’ve put our game out, it’s time to move on’. Putting our game out is one step in supporting our game. That’s the public step. Now the game is out we have to watch what happens next. That’s all about the way we roll. We see the game as just being the start of the user experience and we’re working more and more around the mod contents. But it’s a case of getting this game out, seeing what people can do with it and working from there.
I wouldn’t put much stock in Rein’s comments that it could be five years before the next generation of consoles or Unreal Engine; it sounds more like the first number that came to mind rather than some secret he knows.
I also wouldn’t put too much stock in the idea that Epic’s not working on Gears of War 2. We know it’s coming, Mark. Don’t you play coy.
The usual fanboy wars are ultimately a major exercise in futility (and idiocy… and a lot of other things), but when you hear a bigwig like Epic Games’ Mark Rein, it’s worth listening to. In an interview with Guardian Unlimited, Rein was asked if he thought consoles were catching up to PCs in terms of the FPS genre, which has traditionally been stronger on PC.
His response:
I’m a real fan of the PC, but yes, consoles are definitely stealing a lot of hardcore gamers from the PC. When Call of Duty 4 came out, I heard some of our guys sitting around talking about the great game they’d had last night and I’m like, ‘Hey guys, what server are you playing on? I’d love to come and join you,’ and they said, ‘Just send us a friends request,’ It was at that point I realized they were all playing it on console. Plus, the sales of the console versions are something like ten times the sales of the PC versions.
With that in mind, you’ve got to think that Mark Rein is happy that they brought Unreal Tournament 3 to PS3 and (hopefully, in the future) Xbox 360.
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?
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:
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
The focus of this week’s PlayStation Store Update is clearly High Velocity Bowling. The partially motion controlled bowling game will be a nice counter to all of the fast-paced action PS3 owners will be enjoying in Unreal Tournament 3, Uncharted, and Ratchet & Clank.
The promised Folklore add-ons we talked about here has also arrived, along with the weekly Rock Band DLC fix – Black Sabbath is the featured artist. All three songs – “War Pigs,” “Sweet Leaf,” and “N.I.B.” – are covers; so, fair warning.
A handful of videos – including today’s brand new GTA IV trailer – are up, and to round things out there’s a multiplayer demo of TimeShift and the PS one Classic Wild Arms.
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.
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.
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.
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.
