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[Raptomex]

Over the past month I've played the original UT (GOTY Edition) and UT2K4 (Editor's Choice Edition). Mostly against bots (they're actually quite competent allies and foes). I downloaded some mods for each just because. Nali Weapons 3 and Ballistic Weapons v2.5. And the fact that these two multiplayer-focused games offer fun single player experiences as well is amazing. A different time. Fast-paced, action packed, so much fun. Brings me back. I was a Counter-Strike player back in the day and I can remember the servers with the UT announcer guy. Good times. I think I prefer the original UT to UT2K4 (never played 2K3) but can we all agree that both games just take a massive shit on UT3? What the hell happened?

- First of all, I can't not think of Gears when I play this. I can't shake that thought. It's not really a bad thing, I suppose, but I can't say the visuals here look or feel unique. Epic seemed to love creating big bulky characters and bulky everything during this era. Not that it matters but in the midst of combat, I can't distinguish one character from another. They all look the same to me. I also realized Epic made three separate games that all share the same art/visual style with minor noticeable differences between them - UT3, Gears, and Bulletstorm (which I enjoy the most out of those three). That's not including the Gears sequels. Plus, anything with light just seems way too bright, the washed out colors, and it's just a very muddy looking game in my opinion.

- Something is off with the default maps. Maybe it links back to the art style but they all feel very "same-y". The maps are different from each other, yes, but, I don't know, something isn't right. There were some awesome maps in the previous games, set in some crazy, wacky, or just really cool environments. I didn't get that feeling here. Downloading the Community Bonus Pack Volumes among other map packs is a must.

- Up until this game, I saw this as a series of customizable first-person shooters in a way, and I'm not talking about mods. Just all of the in-game customization options. The fact that a mod like MapMixer has to exist is quite embarrassing compared to what came packaged in prior games or at least the versions I played. Why did they strip all of the customization options away? Was it the limitation of consoles?

- The bots seem less intelligent but I guess nobody cares since this is a multiplayer series anyway.

- Lol, that "campaign". They should have just stuck with the ladder stuff. At least they were fun. The funny thing is, this is almost the same thing, less depth than 2K4, but with a narrative wrapped around it all. It's just downright boring, though. But like the bots, who cares, anyway, except me, right? The cliffhanger ending just made me laugh.

- Who thought it was a good idea to get rid of Assault? And Domination? Not even Double Domination made the cut. Thank you, Community Bonus Pack Volume 4. I wasn't a huge fan of Bombing Run but, still, why remove it? Now that I think about it, why remove any game types?

- The developers seem to be obsessed with vehicles. Fuck the hoverboard. Getting shot and falling off is annoying. I've always preferred engaging enemies on-foot but even still, I think the vehicles in 2K4 were more enjoyable.


UT3 sucks. I don't understand how it ended up like this. In my opinion, MapMixer fixes many things but the game still feels more like a generic shooter than anything else. The PS3 version supporting mods is cool and I like the Greed game type. Those are the only positives I can think of.

I'm going to play some Quake 3 now since I'm still in a classic multiplayer shooter mode and feel like playing something fun again.

 

[JigglesBunny]

You pretty much answered your own question, they chased a Gears-like style and it didn’t pan out for them. It was a watered down version of UT.

Semi-related note, what the hell happened to UE4? It was having an open alpha for the longest time and then seemingly dropped off the map?

 

[Syril]

I liked how UT3 handled, but I wish they didn't use the Gears of War style. The attitude towards it internally during the development might have changed because of Gears of War had been made in the meantime and had eclipsed UT as their flagship. It was also the only one they didn't co-develop with Digital Extremes.

 

[HotchieMotchie]

UT3 felt like Epic was more focused on making a visual showcase of what a UE3 game could look like at 60fps than making a real sequel to UT2k4.

I still got some fun out of it, but it's a noticeable step down from 2k4, which felt like it was absolutely bursting with content—in comparison, UT3 feels kind of anemic. It doesn't help that Warfare just wasn't as good as Onslaught.

Plus they got rid of Assault mode, which was my favorite mode

 

[Ionic]

They took the amazing Onslaught and Assault gamemodes in UT2k4 and combined them into the thoroughly unejoyable Warfare mode. It was just a huge blow to my enjoyment of the game. At least some of the vehicles were cool looking.

 

[Rad-]

UT lost me when they removed Assault. That was the only mode I ever played.

 

[TheBowen]

You pretty much answered your own question, they chased a Gears-like style and it didn’t pan out for them. It was a watered down version of UT.

Semi-related note, what the hell happened to UE4? It was having an open alpha for the longest time and then seemingly dropped off the map?

UT4 is still around I believe, and pretty good from what I've heard

Been meaning to get it for the longest time

 

[Pai Pai Master]

Semi-related note, what the hell happened to UE4? It was having an open alpha for the longest time and then seemingly dropped off the map?

UT is basically a crowdsourced game, most of the content is meant to be community-developed and they've always said that it's a longer term project. As far as internal development goes their focus has clearly been on Paragon and Fortnite first.

 

[Poppy]

ut2k4 was so good that ut3 was bound to look bad by comparison, but even with that in mind, it really was lame as hell to me

pretty sure i switched back to 2k4 or 99 after two days

 

[badcrumble]

Man, I miss the ridiculously robust mod/mutator community from UT99. UT99/Q3A days were like the golden age of multiplayer arena FPS level design and so many varieties of gameplay were delightfully fun on those maps.

Facing Worlds sucks balls though. the UT series equivalent of Starcraft's Big Game Hunters

 

[BladeOfSanjuro]

UT99 is still the standard, the greatest CTF game made this side of Quake 2(TF2 has its moments, but its 2nd in my mind). It introduced the Assault concept(which by the end of the game's lifecycle, players had figured out all sorts of tricks to get around the scripted checkpoints), had the best representation of the shock combo, and had very strong 3rd party map support.

UT2k3 was a graphics upgrade with a downgrade in gameplay. The avatar animations for the characters didn't convey the same 'confidence' the player characters did in the first game, did this weird side to side shuffle thing. The translocator suddenly had limits, but could fire in gigantic, predictable arcs. The lightning gun was a weird replacement for the sniper rifle, and headshot detection seemed way spottier. Also the "Adrenaline Pills" stuff is just dumb, someone would run around grabbing 100 pts of adrenaline, do the "Speed" button combo and then capture the flag with little to no resistance. Also "Dodge jumping" was added, which was a really weird change in flow from the original game's "Dodge" concept, which was perfectly fine, and for some reason, no other game has managed to capture since. Almost all of the maps had really bizarre scaling compared to the player avatar and didn't really flow with the "Dodge Jump" much, people would constantly get caught on the smallest meshes. The 2nd version of CTF Orbital was a pale shadow of its original.

UT2k4 did a decent job of fixing the grievances 2k3 introduced, Onslaught was a decent addition, but really the vehicle based game and the on-foot game should have remained separated. The Manta was always a ton of fun. Maps were more open and supported the available movement options. Assault returned, all was better.

note: Unreal Championship 1 and 2 came up sometime before UT3... Unreal Championship 1 is like a rehashed console 2k3, and is largely forgettable. UC2 is a phenomenal game in its own right, where they made it almost like you were selecting a fighting game character(in reality, you were if you picked Raiden), and the melee system was well handled IMO. Still wondering where Unreal Championship 3 is.

UT3 handled much better than 2k3 did, and the weapons seemed tighter, but had bulky gears dudes, a weird single player, and out-of-place hoverboards that were there instead of the Translocator in some game modes. It also had the closest-to-UT99 shock combo representation at that point in time. Seemed like there was limited 3rd party map support at best.

the current UT alpha is the closest to the original game as any of them has been, but it is definitely still in an alpha state.