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Welcome to the new Planet Unreal! Planet Unreal relaunches with a brand new look and new UT3 info from our interview with Epic's Jeff Morris. Keep watching PU for all the latest on UT3 in the run up to the release this November! More >
UT3 Due This November! Unreal Tournament III on PC and PS3 now has a date - the game will debut on these platforms this November, with the Xbox 360 version of the game coming sometime in 2008. More >
Tribes of the East Play as the orcs in the final chapter of the Heroes V saga. Get the standalone demo!
Updated UT3 Primer Check out our UT3 primer for a look back at UT2003/4, and forwards to the next game in the series.
Epic's Jeff Morris Interviewed The new Planet Unreal launches with the an exclusive interview with Epic Games' Lead Producer Jeff Morris, with lots of new Unreal Tournament 3 info!
Thursday, 27 September, 2007 � Planet Unreal News
The Real Reason For UT3 Xbox 360 Delay?[ 1 Comment ] 11:44 PST | redef | Print News | Category: UT3Gamasutra is speculating that the Xbox 360 debut of UT3 may have been delayed for reasons other than Epic�s commitment to the PS3. Gamasutra suggests that instead UT3 might be released on the 360 at a later date in order to avoid being �buried under an avalanche of Halo hype,� of which they point out that IGN�s GamerMetrics reports that UT3 has the �strongest affinity to fans of Halo 3.� This, of course, is just speculation�but interesting nevertheless!
Midway today announced an exclusive PC collector's edition for the highly anticipated first-person shooter, Unreal Tournament 3. This limited edition is encased in a special tin hard cover. Included is an Art Book featuring the flawless art style found in the vehicles, characters, weapons and environments that are signature trademarks of the Unreal Tournament 3 universe. In addition, the limited collector's edition includes bonus DVD extras, featuring:
* Unreal Engine 3 Toolkit Video Tutorials - More than 10 hours of in-depth tutorials about game modifications that can help players break into the game development business
* The History of Unreal Tournament - Take a look at the history of Unreal Tournament, while hearing first-hand interviews with the creators and team behind the legacy.
* Behind the Scenes of Unreal Tournament 3 - Get a deeper look behind the making of the FPS giant and how the dedicated team at Epic Games crafted its return.
The limited collector's edition will be available in limited quantity at select retailers for a suggested retail price in the U.S. of $59.95, available November 2007.
This limited collector's edition will also be available across the UK, Europe, South Africa, Russia, Australia and most other territories.
The tutorial videos should be a great resource for people looking to get started with the new UE3 tools.
In other news, BU reports that the "Iron Guard Lauren" that was reported to be free with copies of UT3 CE purchased at GameStop is in fact an unlockable in-game model rather than a figurine.
Emblazoned with swastika, SS insignia, and other National Socialist German Workers Party trappings, Dreamer61's Mercedes epitomizes questionable user-created content. And Unreal Tournament 3, which allows PlayStation 3 players to import maps and mods made on PC, must answer the question the car provokes, too: How much freedom is too much freedom? "You're free to create what you want, to express your artistic vision," he says and laughs. "Lots of museums have pictures of naked ladies...."
"They don't have the Hitler hoopdie, do they?"
"No, they don't. But you know what? They could. If that had been a real car, painted up like that, and it was a historical thing that illustrated how terrible the Nazis were...that's the beauty of free speech."
Meanwhile Kotaku took a break from Mario cakes to play some UT3 Deathmatch, posting a hands-on preview based on their experiences.
The FPS genre has slowed down in the past few years, literally. Games like Halo may be fun, but they don't have that crack on speed sense of split second intensity that the UT series has offered since its first incarnation. The major blame should probably fall on analog sticks. They just don't work as well as a mouse for extremely quick 180s to rocket jumps to sniper rifle headshots. But in UT3. the controls are extremely tight�they've clearly been given a lot of love. The razor responsive mechanics are in no way hindered by analog sticks. I don't know how that's possible�maybe we've just gotten more used to the controllers, maybe it's Epic ingenuity (and new adjustments like a rotary gun selection�but UT3 has not been slowed down and I will not be playing it with a mouse, even with that option.
Of course, UT3 wouldn't be part of the franchise without its trademark weapon set, and the amount Epic tweaks the fan favorites can make or break a game *cough* lighting gun *cough*. My personal favorite has always been the flak cannon, and it returns here with gusto. Regular fire can still kill baddies in one shot from close enough quarters, but the big difference is alternate fire. It's still an explosive grenade, but the shell seems less restricted by gravity. Still requiring trajectory calculations to strike your target, I was at one point able to bomb an enemy from...I dunno...pretty far away. After congratulating myself, I wondered how I even knew that was possible as this was my first time playing the new version.
IRC Interview Logs: No PC/PS3 Interplay & More[ Comment ] 9:44 PST | redef | Print News | Category: UT3 - InterviewsA chat with some folks from Epic was held yesterday, and from it have come a lot of new bits of UT3 info. The entire chat log is available in here, where it is all formatted nicely by BeyondUnreal who were host to the event. Additionally, ShackNews has a write-up that summarizes many of the important bits. Here�s an excerpt from the ShackNews article since it was so nicely done:
"Our PC fanbase is of ultimate importance to us. They are our bread and butter," added Rein, possibly addressing post-Gears of War claims that Epic is now a console-focused studio. "We can't let them down or compromise their experience in any way to accomodate cross platform play."
Further addressing the subject later in the chat, Rein explained the heavy PR focus on the PS3 game. "We've been talking about the PS3 version a lot because the game is really something new for the PS3 customers and being able to do mods on consoles is pretty exciting to us," he said. "But we never forget that those mods COME from the PC community and the PC is still our lead platform for UT. So thanks for your continued [support]--you're going to see lots of cool things from us in return!"
Monday, 24 September, 2007 � Planet Unreal News
PS3 Unreal Tournament 3 to be Missing Maps[ Comment ] 5:25 PST | jambo | Print News | Category: UT3IGN got a chance to get their hands on a build of Unreal Tournament 3 during a Pre-TGS event at Sony's headquarters last week. While playing, Mark Rein made some interesting comments in regards to the PS3 version of Unreal Tournament 3 missing some maps to be found on the PC version.
"...because the system didn't have the resources to produce a smooth gameplay experience."
Thankfully though, all of the modding facilities that made the Unreal Tournament series famous will be available for PS3 owners.
"...there are plans to allow for players to release mods for sale on the Playstation Network and then the most popular mods and maps will be compiled and sold in an updated Unreal Tournament 3 package later down the line."
Bring on November!
Sunday, 23 September, 2007 � Planet Unreal News
Fraghouse Invasion v5 Released[ Comment ] 22:58 PST | redef | Print News | Category: UT2004 - ModificationsThe Fraghouse Invasion mod team has released version 5 of their rather fabulous mod. Version 5 is particularly significant, encompassing an enormous amount of changes and new additions. Below is a small (incomplete) list of those improvements. Check out their site for screenshots and more info.
Possessables Not quite Karma physics, but the Hammer is now a "possession tool". When selected, any objects that can be picked up by the Hammer are highlighted. This new feature can be used extensively on several maps to build fortifications and other structures.
Reworked Inventory System The EXP system has been replaced. Instead, monsters will randomly drop special pickups. These pickups include health packs, suicide orbs, "pergrandis" boots, spectrometer goggles and teleporters.
Movement system The player is granted a wider range of acrobatic skills, such as the ability to dodge constantly from wall to wall, allowing quick movement across a map, as well as being able to stand on top of other players to form ladders. Furthermore, the new "climbing gloves" allow players to dart from surface to surface as well as reach higher levels.
Improved HUD The new HUD is much more visually active: the team bonus feature is represented graphically, as are in the inventory items in the top right corner.
Bloom FHI enters the "High Definition" age with its own custom bloom (adapted from the original Wiki version) used on several maps where appropriate. Blooming great! (Sorry). This feature can be turned on/off in the "Player" menu.
Code Major coding improvements over previous versions. Improved AI, server improvements (uses far fewer resources), general optimisations. The Epic Turret crash bug has been averted (it no longer crashes dedicated servers).
UT3 Collection's Edition Details[ Comment ] 22:48 PST | redef | Print News | Category: UT3VE3D points out that Gamestop has a page that is providing details concerning what the collector�s edition of UT3 will contain. It certainly looks like there are some interesting tidbits to be had! Here�s the info:
The Unreal Tournament III Collector's Edition contains:
Bonus Packaging:
* Exclusive Collector�s Tin
Bonus Content:
* Collectible Hard Cover UT3 Art Book
Bonus DVD:
* 10+ hours of Unreal Engine 3 Toolkit Video Tutorials
* The History of Unreal Tournament
* Behind the Scenes of UT3
Surreal Game Design[ Comment ] 1:09 PST | redef | Print News | Category: Elsewhere on the Web - Commentary and Fun StuffOnce locally hosted mapper Hayden Wilkinson, who is now busily creating games over at Surreal Software, let us know that they have launched Surreal Game Design. While this website isn�t directly related to Unreal titles, many readers will likely find it interesting given that it provides a little insight into the minds at Surreal where they are working on a (currently announced) Unreal Engine 3 title. In particular, if you are an aspiring designer or are interested in the topic it will certainly be worth checking out.
Epic's UT3 IRC [ Comment ] 0:56 PST | redef | Print News | Category: UT3 - EventsBeyondUnreal have let everyone know that they�ve scheduled a little chat session with the folks from Epic. The chat is scheduled for a couple weeks from now, giving you plenty of time to think up your own UT3-related questions in hopes of having them answered by the masters themselves. Here are the details:
When: Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 @ 8pm EST (GMT -5:00)
PCGH: Is there enough space "between" Dual and Quadcore CPUs to optimize for? I.E. is it feasible to optimize for two cores, three cores etc. or rather optimize for "many cores", regardless of the exact number?
Tim: Yes. Unreal Engine 3 runs two primary threads and a scalable pool of helper threads. The primary threads handle gameplay and rendering, and provide a constant heavy computing load. The helper threads are scalable to many cores, and handle physics updates, streaming, and decompression now, with threading support being added to other systems over time. In this architecture, a 3-core PC would provide measurably more physics performance than a dual-core PC.
Michael Capps Interview[ Comment ] 14:33 PST | RaptoR | Print News | Category: UT3 - InterviewsEpic President Mike Capps was interviewed by GameTrailers.com at the Leipzig Games Convention in a video currently making the rounds on the Internest. Mike talks about UT3's weapons, visuals and gameplay in a video which also features some UT3 gameplay footage.
Frag.Ops has been around even longer than UT2004 (it was originally developed for UT2003) and the mod has seen a lot of tweaks and adjustments in that period. Developer Pandora Studios (a twenty-person team of modding enthusiasts) just released its latest 2.20 update a couple of months ago and the new build shows a lot of polish. This total conversion mod features 12 detailed maps set in some highly diverse urban, industrial and outdoor environments. From snow-covered Arctic installations and lush tropical jungles to large urban buildings and even a funeral parlor, the settings are imaginative and perfectly suited to fast-paced UT2004-style combat.
Our horribly unscientific process was as follows. A very kind tester pulled out all the names and put them into a spreadsheet. I read through them in a few mind-numbing hours, picking out names that I thought were clever, interesting, or different. I sent those sixty names to a few guys on the team, and we picked our top five:
CTF-FracturedWorlds
CTF-Icarus (been used before, but such a good fit)
CTF-Ionosphere
CTF-OmicronDawn
CTF-TaintedDawn
Gratz to the guys who first suggested those names (in order): thesimo, Chicken Pot Pie, Nathillien, keyrat, and SonicBlade.
Some other really cool names we liked, but didn't think were a good fit:
CTF-Akashalypse -- just sounds bad ass!
CTF-BlackSun -- great nod to Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash
CTF-EtherealDawn -- Akasha means 'ethereal' so that's cool
CTF-WorldsEnd -- Mike the english major couldn't handle a missing apostrophe
Okay, so we narrowed our list of five down to Icarus and OmicronDawn. And after a vote from the whole UT3 development team, the winner is...
CTF-OmicronDawn!
It's straightforward, it says what it is, it's memorable... and you can't beat alliteration. (Can I say assonance without getting banned by WarTourist?)
Thanks to keyrat for being the first to come up with this name. This guy has made exactly one post on our forums, and it was a good one!
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