Ooh, man did I call it or what? After Master Chief and Samus Aran ended up on the PS3 courtesy of some fan-made mods for Unreal Tournament III, my next guess was that Old Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid 4 would be getting the same treatment. As it turns out, a modder by the name of “genZ” has shown off some preliminary models for the character on the UT forums. So far, he’s already got the basic structure down; now he just needs to fill in the colors and textures. Soon the trilogy of console characters will be complete. Then the way shall be paved for the dark lord of the consoles to rise and rule over the gaming world! Or there might just be one really cool three player match. You know, one or the other.
EA and Epic Games have announced that they are expanding their license agreement with the Unreal Engine 3. The company has already used the engine in several title, including Medal of Honor Airborne and Army of Two. According to the agreement, EA will implement the engine in at least five new title currently under development.
“With the largest and most talented studio operation in the world, it’s critical for us to give our studio teams the best tools they need to make great games,” said Frank Gibeau, President, at EA. “This agreement reflects our commitment to Epic’s technology which, in combination with our own cutting-edge systems, allows us to create ground breaking hits.”
That just leaves us to speculate at what games EA could be working on that would involve this technology. My guess is that they’re all going to involve shooting stuff though.
After Xbox poster boy, Master Chief, made an appearance in Unreal Tournament III via a mod, it was only a matter of time before a Nintendo character joined in on the action. One industrious modder going by the name of “Alcor43″ designed a Samus Aran character model for the PS3 version of the game for anyone to use. It looks pretty detailed though apparently the front is missing a face mask. Still, put this together with the Master Chief characte mod, and you’re in for one hell of a crazy firefight. Now we just need someone to make an “Old Solid Snake” mod, the trilogy of console characters will be complete.
Epic Games and Intel have partnered up to bring us the “$1 Million Make Something Unreal Contest.” The companies are asing aspiring game developers to come up with their own mods for Unreal Tournament III (PC version only; sorry PS3 owners) in the form of environments, gameplay, weapons, vehicles, and more; though full-conversion mods probably have the best chance. Winners will be selected in several categories with prizes including Intel Software Development Products and Velocity Micro PCs, as well as the grand prize of one Unreal Engine 3 license. Judging will begin in June with four preliminary phases until the grand final prizes are awarded in Fall of 2009.
But this is actually something for all of us PC gamers to pay attention too, whether we enter the contest or not. Why? Well the last time this contest was held, the winner was a game called “Red Orchestra,” which eventually made its way to retail and helped found Tripwire Studios. With a cool million worth of prizes at stake, you can bet some of the hidden best and brightest modders are going to start coming out of the woodwork. Besides that, since the prize is essentially the means to start your own development studio, the top ones are sure to be works of passion from the developers. And all the mods created for this competition will be made available online absolutely free. In other words, we’re probably going to start getting some good games next year for free. For more information, be sure to check out the contest’s official site.
Midway and Epic Games have announced that three new maps are now available for download for Unreal Tournament III on the PS3 and PC. As icing on the cake, it turns out this new content is 100% free for both versions of the game (take that microtransactions). PC users can download the maps by clicking the link below, while PS3 users can find them on the Playstation Network. The three maps include Morbias, Facing Worlds, and Searchlight:
Morbias is the deathmatch arena that started it all, perfectly suited for anything from small intense duels to chaotic free-for-all matches. The Unreal Tournament classic, Facing Worlds was one of the most played maps in gaming history. This beloved sniper map makes its return alongside an intricate new capture the flag map, Searchlight, designed for both z-axis rooftop runs and strategic indoor gameplay.
Maybe this will convince more people to jump on this woefully underappreciated game.
Epic Games has announced that a number of the top titles from their library (i.e. almost all the Unreal games) are now available to purchase and download over Steam. They’re now offering Unreal Gold, Unreal II, and all the Unreal Tournament games, including the newest Unreal Tournament III. That’s not so impressive. What is impressive however is that all of these games can now be bought together as the “Unreal Deal Pack,” which includes the entire Unreal collection for $59.99. There’s also a 10% discount running for a limited time on all the individual games as well as the bundle (so you can get it for $53.95 at the moment).
“Epic is a leading developer of game engine technology and has produced some of my favorite games of all time,” said Gabe Newell, president of Valve. “It’s an honor to be working with them and offering their current and classic titles to the millions of Steam gamers around the world.”
Not a bad deal for some of the top games of all time. I wonder if Gears of War will end up on there eventually.
Joining his Epic Games colleague Cliff Bleszinski, Tim Sweeney – the co-founder of Epic – has stated in an interview that he believes the PC gaming market is being beat down by consoles, thanks in large part to the growing prices to build a high-end machine. With such a massive performance difference between low-end and high-end PCs (which Sweeney estimates to be “something like 100x”), he says it’s impossible to design a game for those high-end machines and then scale it down to play on what he calls “mainstream PCs.”
If we go back 10 years ago, the difference between the high end and the lowest end may have been a factor of 10. We could have scaled games between those two. For example, with the first version of Unreal, a resolution of 320×200 was good for software rendering and we were able to scale that up to 1024×768, if you had the GPU power. There is no way we can scale down a game down by a factor of 100, we would just have to design two completely different games. One for low-end and one for high-end.
That is actually happening on PCs: You have really low-end games with little hardware requirements, like Maple Story. That is a $100 million-a-year business. Kids are addicted to those games, they pay real money to buy [virtual] items within the game and the game.
Sweeney didn’t deny that there is a market for PC games, though — quite the contrary.
… PCs are more popular than ever. Everyone has a PC. Even those who did not have a PC in the past are now able to afford one and they use it for Facebook, MySpace, pirating music or whatever. Yesterday’s PCs were for people that were working and later playing games. Even if those games were lower-end ones, there will always be a market for casual games and online games like World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft has DirectX 7-class graphics and can run on any computer. But at the end of the day, consoles have definitely left PC games behind.
It’s a very insightful interview. He’s make some good points without bluntly proclaiming that PC gaming is dead. Integrated graphics are a major problem with PCs nowadays, according to Sweeney, and the fact that you can go buy a new PC and it be incapable of running a modern game is a serious problem.
Usually when we see a trailer branded with the “Unreal Engine” watermark, it’s for some new sci-fi FPS or a historical hack-and-slasher or some other game that involves flashy effects. So imagine my surprise when I loaded up the trailer above to find a video for a game using the Unreal 3 Engine that’s a rhythm dancing game. Admittedly, this is probably the best-looking rhythm game ever. The game is called “MStar,” and it’s part of a new social networking service being developed by Nurien Software. The company hopes to create a new platform for social interactions that incorporates several casual online games. “MStar” will be included in the package, allowing players to customize their own characters, dance virtually, and even create and share music videos. There will also be a game called “Runway,” which will have players creating their own fashions and then walk a runway in them. Finally, there will be “QuizStar,” which is a basic online trivia game.
“We wanted to create a social virtual world – sort of like a 3D MySpace – where users can create, collect, combine and share legacy media such as music, photos, video as well as 3D objects such as clothing, furniture, pets, cars and more, all in a beautiful 3D environment,” said Taehoon Kim, co-founder of Nurien Software. “We wanted to give users a powerful new vehicle for self-expression that breaks down real world limitations. We at Nurien believe that if people created homepages in the ‘90s to express themselves, and if they have migrated to blogging and using social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace today, then the next natural step will be to inhabit fun, virtual worlds with user-created avatars.”
Basically, the software will allow people a ridiculous amount of customization so they can create an avatar and then watch them move about in a realistic manner. The company plans to start a closed beta for the service next month, before launching the full service in Korea and China later this year.
That’s…cool? I guess? I don’t know; I’m kind of in the camp that thinks social networks are great in theory. Unfortunately, as has been the case of late, giving people too much creativity just leads them to make some of the ugliest crap you can imagine (glitter graphics? glitter freakin’ graphics!?). With that in mind, I’m not sure we need more realistic graphics. On the plus side, when you see a guy online wandering around dressed as a giant phallus, you’ll know immediately to stay away; just like in real life.
A minor bit of news, but worth noting anyways. It looks like the upcoming Sin City video game has been dated for sometime in early 2009, according to developer Red Mile. This would set it to release around the same time as the sequel to the hit movie. And that’s about all we know about the game at this point, other than the fact that it will use the Unreal engine. Maybe next year we can see how someone can take a license that’s heavy on story and relatively low on action and turn it into a video game.
Red Mile Entertainment has announced that they have licensed the Unreal Engine 3 from Epic Games for their Sin City video game…and that’s pretty much it. No new info on what the player might be doing or which of the many storylines the game will use. I mean, seriously, do we get to play as Marv at least? Is there going to be a genital-ripping mini-game?
“The Unreal Engine is one of the most technically advanced engines on the market and is a perfect fit for our Sin City video games,” said Glenn Wong, president and COO for Red Mile. “The engine has powered several of the best-selling games of all time and I am very glad we have the opportunity to arm our developers with such a world-class product.”
Well at least we know the game will probably look pretty slick. As much as I love the Sin City movie and comic books, I’m a little hesitant about seeing it turned into a video game. Usually movies and TV shows with a heavy plot and sparse action don’t translate too well into a good game (see Reservoir Dogs, The Sopranos: Road to Respect).
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. Read the full article
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.
Koroush Ghazi is on a roll again with yet another addition to his ubiquitous Tweak Guides website. This latest addition covers tweaks for the newly released Unreal Tournament III Beta Demo. If you haven’t already noticed, the UT3 Beta Demo is a bit lacking in tweakable options via the menu (compared to its predecessors). So if you are a bit miffed about this, this guide is definitely for you.
The guide covers, in detail, all in-game options (graphical settings, gui, audio, network, etc.). In typical Tweak Guides fashion, we’re also treated to a series of screenshot comparisons of what those graphical sliders actually do. Not stopping there, Koroush continues with the meat of tweaking UT3: editing the UT3 .ini files. It is here that you will find the game’s more hidden options; often the ones that may gain you those few extra FPS otherwise not found using the menu options alone.
Koroush also lists about fifty console commands and a few command line parameters. Wondering what your framerate is? Check out the list of console commands. If you were wondering if the UT3 Beta Demo had a built in benchmark, pay close attention to the final page of the guide covering command line parameters.
If UT3 is crashing on you, follow the links early on in Koroush’s guide for hotfixes, links, & what-not. I, like many others, am experiencing crash problems of an unknown nature with UT3 Beta Demo. Fortunately, it’s not a deal breaker, but it is an annoyance. Generally, once I get into a game, I’m home free. Also keep in mind that the Demo is Beta, so it’s entirely possible there is no solution to your problem.
My favorite tweak here has got to be the “-nomoviestartup” command line option. I can’t tell you how tiresome it is to click through all that crap at the beginning. Thank you, Koroush!
And if you missed Koroush’s Orange Box Tweak Guide a few weeks ago, be sure to check it out as well.
As if yesterday’s Call of Duty 4 PC Demo wasn’t enough, here’s something else to occupy your time.
We’ve just received the PC demo for Midway and Epic Games’ Unreal Tournament III here at FileFront, and it’s available for your downloading pleasure. If you’re a fan of the series, you can expect the same high-speed, low-drag action that has become a hallmark of the multiplayer based shooter. If you’ve never played an Unreal Tournament title before, hang on to your hat. The frantic pace of this shooter is sure to keep you coming back.
So, on to the downloads!
You can grab the demo of Unreal Tournament III here.
You can also check out the UT3 page over at FileFront here for all the videos and screens your little heart desires. You can even head over to the FileFront Files Network site for UT if you so desire.
Jerry O’Flaherty, known for his roles as art director on Gears of War, Unreal Tournament III, and the Command and Conquer series, has been chosen to helm the upcoming Thundercats movie. O’Flaherty promises to stay faithful to the franchise and explained how the jump from video games to a CG-animated film will make the transition into filmmaking much easier:
“It feels like a natural thing for me to step into. Games have come so far now. The last four years of my life have been about bringing the energy of filmmaking into the videogame experience.”
As a child of the 80’s, I was already pretty interested in the Thundercats movie, so this just makes me more intrigued. Gears of War had some pretty cool cut scenes, so it’ll be interesting to see what O’Flaherty can pull off. And if there’s a video game tie-in that’s actually good, that would be sweet.
What do you get when you take Gears of War, and add a few more months of development time? Now, take that same game and add over-the-top vehicle battles? Well, you get this:
Unreal Tournament has always had sort of a niche role in the FPS scene. Overshadowed by Quake and Half-Life in it’s early years, Unreal Tournament has struggled to find a place of its own. From what we have seen so far, Unreal Tournament 3 looks to finally be the title that sets this franchise out on its own. It may just have to, as it stands to compete directly with Halo 3 for your gaming dollar come this holiday season. Will it be up to the task? It’s hard to say. Until then, feel free to drool at these brand-new screen shots.
Rejoice, you devoted, you faithful, you few, you Apple gamers. For those of you who have braved the worst title library of available games in history, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. In a surprising move, Epic Games VP Mark Rein has been quoted as saying that both Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3 will make their way onto the Apple platform.
What does this mean? It means that the Unreal 3 engine, the engine that is going to power countless next-gen titles, will be available for Apple users. Apple’s recent switch to the Intel chipset can be wholly responsible for this development, and it seems for once, that Apple “gamers†catch a break. Now all they have to do is upgrade their RA-… uh… Hard Dri-… uh… Video Ca-… buy a new Apple.
Unreal Tournament 3 E3 2007 Trailer
Here’s the new trailer for Unreal Tournament 3 that was unveiled at this year’s E3. As you can see, the game looks freakin’ incredible. It already promises to live up to the fun and fast-paced gameplay of past UT game with a slew of new weapons and vehicles. Unreal Tournament 3 should be out this November from Midway.
Posted by David on Friday, June 8th, 2007 at 1:36 am under Epic Games
It’s easy to be critical about a game. Typing “THE GRAFIX SUKS” in all caps on a forum takes hardly any effort at all. What we sometimes do not realize is somewhere out there is a team of people that spent countless hours working to create those graphics. Even if the graphics are below average, an amazing amount of effort was put forth to produce them. I have had my hand in making games in the past, and I can be totally sympathetic to the challenges of the industry. But who are these mysterious developers? Where did they come from? What are they working on now? Those are the questions that I hope to answer.
Who are they? Epic Games
When were they founded? 1991
Where are they now? Cary, North Carolina
How do I know them? One Must Fall: 2097, Unreal Series, Gears of War
What are they working on? Unreal Tournament III
What does Unreal Tournament III look like?
Anything else we should know? Epic Games’ lead designer Steven Polge recently described Unreal Tournament III as “Gears of War on crack.â€
Count this as an obscure article - at least for we American readers - but Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games, talked with German PG Games Hardware magazine a few weeks back about some of the enhancements in the Unreal Engine, DirectX 10 support and the upcoming Unreal Tournament 3. Sweeney also mentioned how Gears of War’s development has influenced the Unreal sequel:
PCGH: Are there any things you learned while developing Gears of War for next gen consoles that you can now benefit from when finalizing UT 3 for the PC?
Tim Sweeney: The Gears of War experience on Xbox 360 taught us to optimize for multi-core, and to improve the low-level performance of the key engine systems. This has carried over very well to PC. The division of UE3’s rendering and gameplay into separate threads, implemented originally for 360, has brought even more significant gains on PC where there is a more heavyweight hardware abstraction layer in DirectX, hence more CPU time spent in rendering relative to gameplay.
Also, the 360 work we did resulted in an engine that also runs well on low-end and mid-range PCs. This is very important for games today; the high-end PC gaming market alone is not big enough to support next-generation games with budgets in the $10-20M range. You need to run on ordinary mass-market PCs as well. In reading PC gaming websites, one might get the impression that everyone owns a dual-core PC with a pair of $600 GPUs in SLI configuration, but the reality is very different. More than 80% of PCs sold today are still single-core, and have very low-end DirectX9 graphics capabilities. Unreal Engine 3 supports those configurations well.
There really isn’t a lot of solid info but the Gears of War and Unreal Engine information is at least interesting for hardware minded folks.
Ooh, man did I call it or what? After Master Chief and Samus Aran ended up on the PS3 courtesy of some fan-made mods for Unreal Tournament III, my next guess was that Old Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid 4 would be getting the same treatment. As it turns out, a modder by the name of “genZ” has shown off some preliminary models for the character on the UT forums. So far, he’s already got the basic structure down; now he just needs to fill in the colors and textures. Soon the trilogy of console characters will be complete. Then the way shall be paved for the dark lord of the consoles to rise and rule over the gaming world! Or there might just be one really cool three player match. You know, one or the other.
EA and Epic Games have announced that they are expanding their license agreement with the Unreal Engine 3. The company has already used the engine in several title, including Medal of Honor Airborne and Army of Two. According to the agreement, EA will implement the engine in at least five new title currently under development.
Epic Games and Intel have partnered up to bring us the “$1 Million Make Something Unreal Contest.” The companies are asing aspiring game developers to come up with their own mods for Unreal Tournament III (PC version only; sorry PS3 owners) in the form of environments, gameplay, weapons, vehicles, and more; though full-conversion mods probably have the best chance. Winners will be selected in several categories with prizes including Intel Software Development Products and Velocity Micro PCs, as well as the grand prize of one Unreal Engine 3 license. Judging will begin in June with four preliminary phases until the grand final prizes are awarded in Fall of 2009.
Midway and Epic Games have announced that three new maps are now available for download for Unreal Tournament III on the PS3 and PC. As icing on the cake, it turns out this new content is 100% free for both versions of the game (take that microtransactions). PC users can download the maps by clicking the link below, while PS3 users can find them on the Playstation Network. The three maps include Morbias, Facing Worlds, and Searchlight:
Epic Games has announced that a number of the top titles from their library (i.e. almost all the Unreal games) are now available to purchase and download over Steam. They’re now offering Unreal Gold, Unreal II, and all the Unreal Tournament games, including the newest Unreal Tournament III. That’s not so impressive. What is impressive however is that all of these games can now be bought together as the “Unreal Deal Pack,” which includes the entire Unreal collection for $59.99. There’s also a 10% discount running for a limited time on all the individual games as well as the bundle (so you can get it for $53.95 at the moment).
Red Mile Entertainment has announced that they have licensed the Unreal Engine 3 from Epic Games for their Sin City video game…and that’s pretty much it. No new info on what the player might be doing or which of the many storylines the game will use. I mean, seriously, do we get to play as Marv at least? Is there going to be a genital-ripping mini-game?
Koroush Ghazi is on a roll again with yet another addition to his ubiquitous Tweak Guides website. This latest addition covers 
