Unreal Tournament 3, said to be best FPS?

Hello, Halo fans, you may already know about the score Halo 3 got, right?

9.0, Well, there is another Sci-fi FPS wich got a higher score than Halo. 9.5-10, it´s Unreal Tournament 3 we are talking about. If you have a PS3, I recommend you to go buy it immediately, it is one the best FPS I ever played, and I´m not the only one to think so.

The game features extreamly entretaining things like:

You will spend more time shooting than running in most modes.

Around 35 different and big maps, including gimmicks like planet teleportations and airdiving.

6 Totally different game modes (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Warfare, Vehicle CTF, Capture the Flag, 1-on-1 Confrontation)

2 FREE downloadable map packs.

Vehicles variating from giant tanks to quick scooters.

Easy-to-remember controls.

Here I leave you with a video review of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL4PK0VXKAM

I haven't really heard good things about UT3. Most people prefer the original or 2K4. What makes you like it so much when most of the rest of the internet skipped it over?

The guns didn't look too fun to use, and the characters looked a bit too Gears Of War-ish. I think it uses the same engine, but c'mon, main guy and Marcus Fenix are damn near identical.

Mystic said:

I haven't really heard good things about UT3. Most people prefer the original or 2K4.

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Actual UT fan here, just for perspective. I own all three of those games simply for the sake of mod-ability, and from what I've noticed there's a very distinct descending trend when it comes to the general quantity (and in some ways, quality) of user-made content. UT99 had custom guns coming out the ass to the point that several people made addons that supported swapping any weapon with any weapon as you pleased, regardless of the package it came from. UT04, whilst lesser in the guns department, had a few interesting vehicles to make up for it, especially when they weren't model swaps of existing official vehicles. UT3? Maybe it's because the budget required to make a decent modification to it these days is starting to rival an actual professional product, but custom content as of my last checking is fairly sparse, and consisting of either extremely minamalist stuff (like reloadable pistols, jetpacks and such), or stuff that could easily have passed off as a seperate game had they not required a copy of UT3 to run it.

Another thing to consider is that, quite frankly, it's just more of the same. Nearly all (if not completly all) of the weapons are just tweaked versions of the UT04 armoury. Nearly all of the gametypes are identical to UT04, save for Warfare (and even then, it's just a rehash of Onslaught that occasionally doubles as Assault). About the only thing I preferred UT3 over UT04 for was the new Necris vehicles, but aside from the big ball with tentacles and the giant War of the Worlds ripoff, they weren't anything particularly special. They're practically the same game otherwise, whereas one has prettier graphics and the other has an absolute ****ton worth of free, usermade custom content.

For me the nail in the coffin really has to be the story mode. It's the first time a UT game tries a story any deeper than "here's a tourney, lol. Have fun getting to the top", but it doesn't even attempt to pretend it isn't a tourney shooter. See, apparently there's a war broken out, but every side is using tourney-standard respawners now - so to win a fight, you kill people until their respawn charges run out. Sound familiar? It should, because that's the exact same conditions for winning a typical Deathmatch. And it doesn't even end there. They throw in CTF games (where you're repeatedly stealing a Field Lattice Generator, aka F.La.G (yes, it's really that lame) to stop them from respawning) and Warfare games (where you link a powerline from your base to theirs, then destroy their power core... honestly, it's a bit difficult to explain to non-UT-regulars). How on earth did they expect to be taken seriously when it's effectively just playing random skirmish matches until game's end? Was it somehow too much trouble to make a proper SP campaign ala Unreal I or II? It just feels like something that was shoehorned in at the last minute.

All in all, UT04 has the custom content, get that instead. If you buy a UT game for any less, frankly, you're a ******* idiot.

EDIT:

Ice said:

The guns didn't look too fun to use.

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This, I'll have to contest though. A point blank kill with a Flak Cannon is still glorious no matter which UT you're playing, and you'd be suprised what some people can do with a Shock Rifle or a Bio Rifle. It's kinda proportional to the player's skill for the most part. I bloody hate UT rocket launchers for the most part, but that's probably because I'm a sucky shot with it.

UT3's great, I like the feel better than UT2004, which feels uneasingly floaty. UT fan since the 3dfx demo. Not touched the SP, that's not what the focus of the game is about anyway.

A lot of the UT3 naysayers only experienced the old beta demo or the 1.x release, the 2.0 patch + Titan Pack really refines a lot of the stuff about it. The Steam sales spike earlier this year has to say something about that...

UT2004 on the other hand is boring, especially online. All you'll find is dumb invasion servers with crappy mp5s and badly designed novelty maps. Deathmatch? Just sniper only / rankin only servers. Onslaught? If you like Torlan, sure... Mods? No one really plays mods. Models? Yeah if you like characters from other games, uncanny mix of adhd in a fps game, only motivating for the kids. UT2004 was great in 2004-2006, but now it's just way past its prime. Recommending it for 2009-2010 is just silly, and it's not available on the PS3 anyway. I'll gladly be an idiot of a series of asterisks than experience that.

a bee said:

UT2004 on the other hand is boring, especially online. All you'll find is dumb invasion servers with crappy mp5s and badly designed novelty maps. Deathmatch? Just sniper only / rankin only servers.

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Funny, I've never seen either of these. Maybe it's because I never browse Invasion servers. Thank god for individual gametype listings.

Onslaught? If you like Torlan, sure...

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Oh come on, it ain't THAT common.

Models? Yeah if you like characters from other games,

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So I take it you haven't visited SkinCity lately. Frankly I'm just surprised you weren't complaining about the overabundance of furries.

and it's not available on the PS3 anyway.

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Who would recommend the PS3 version over the PC one, anyway? UT's not the kind of twitch gaming that works well for gamepads, particularly if you're a Shock / Sniper specialist.

I got UT3 for the 360 a while back. I got it based on the fact that it did 2-player splitscreen and featured bots, a feature set much like Perfect Dark Zero, my personal pet FPS.

The only thing I really liked about it was running around mindlessly shooting bots on the "easy" setting. It's too fast paced for my tastes, and too difficult for me to aim at everyone when they're running at a gazillion miles an hour. The story was just impossible at points because the allied AI was unpredictable.

Gears 2, in contrast, also has bots and splitscreen and is a far better game. The gameplay is slow enough that skill comes down to more than twitch based aim-shoot. In terms of difficulty, I got to a point where I could hold my own against hardcore bots. To boot, the campaign isn't dependent on your allies. Well, there's Dom, but he's most likely your couch friend anyway.

Also, regarding scores as determining game worth:
Halo 3, a 94.
UT3, a 82
Gears 2, a 93
PDZ, at 81.

Sonnarku said:

You will spend more time shooting than running in most modes.

I don't really know what this means, other than,"Camp the enemy spawn and sprint to where weapons drop".

Around 35 different and big maps, including gimmicks like planet teleportations and airdiving.

This is nothing to boast over. Many other games feature similar amounts of maps, But the gimmicks in the game are noticeable.

6 Totally different game modes (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Warfare, Vehicle CTF, Capture the Flag, 1-on-1 Confrontation)

Many of the game modes feel very similar, trust me.

2 FREE downloadable map packs.

Mods.

Vehicles variating from giant tanks to quick scooters.

The vehicles usually don't play too much of a part in the game, but I agree they are a nice change.

Easy-to-remember controls.

lol

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Response in bold.

How can the worst game in the series be the best FPS? Quake III annihilates this game, at least in terms of multiplayer. Sure, there's a pseudo-single player campaign, but it's all based off of multiplayer.

Also, 6 "totally different" modes? Deathmatch and Team DEATHMATCH (along with two CTF modes) doesn't exactly sound totally different, if you ask me.

Blacklightning said:

Funny, I've never seen either of these. Maybe it's because I never browse Invasion servers. Thank god for individual gametype listings.

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Do you like shooting at bulls in bikini bottom with solid snake and master chiefs? I don't.

Blacklightning said:

So I take it you haven't visited SkinCity lately. Frankly I'm just surprised you weren't complaining about the overabundance of furries.

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Fortunately these rarely show up in autodownload and I also have the choice to not get them. The regurgitated amount of anthro foxes and cats derived from Hide's work make up only 6% of the models there anyway.

BlueZero4 said:

Also, regarding scores as determining game worth:

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I wouldn't rely on professional critics that glow everything (like Bioshock). The best reviews are the negative ones that go into detail. Just find those 1/2 star reviews hidden in the pile of sugar and you've got something useful to read.

Bigboi said:

How can the worst game in the series be the best FPS? Quake III annihilates this game, at least in terms of multiplayer. Sure, there's a pseudo-single player campaign, but it's all based off of multiplayer.

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Q3 is on the PS3?

It feels nothing like UT2k4, which still takes the cake for one of the best FPS games of all time, along with TF2. I played it on the free weekend, and to be honest I found it to be pretty poor, it was too dark and grey to be recognisable. It had similar guns and a tele-gun-thing, but that's where the similarities end.

And yes Ice, Gears and UT3 are on the same engine, Unreal Engine 3.

Are you sure it's not just one of the best on the PS3? Because the PS3 line-up isn't exactly good in terms of shooters. a bee, not on the PS3? So what? You need some sort of ancient relic to not be able to run UT2k4 at some sort of setting, you don't need a console, especially since it's an FPS, a genre designed around the mouse.

a bee said:

Q3 is on the PS3?

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Because that obviously means it's not a legitimate comparison, since UT3 obviously isn't on the PC or 360.

Sonnarkku, your post reads like an advertisement.

As for me, I dislike UT3 because the quality of the engine is poor. During the development stage, they were showing off the game running fluently on a GeForce 7800 (which is roughly equivalent to my card, the Radeon X1800 XT, and also similar to the graphics horsepower found in the Xbox 360). I tried out the demo, and it seemed to run okay, save for a bit of hitching at the very beginning of the map due to the background loading (averaged around 30 FPS most of the time). Wasn't totally convinced the game was worth buying, though. At the time, Orange Box was more enticing when it came to gameplay.

I tried UT3 Black during one of the Steam free weekends. This time, the framerate saw a drop to 20 FPS with hitching everywhere, even at a slightly lower resolution than I used to run the demo. Apparently Epic Games snuck in some "optimizations" for nVidia-based GPUs that caused ATI systems to hitch while loading or displaying shaders. This happened during gameplay. Not the beginning, but in the middle of matches. This is not a RAM problem. This is not a CPU or hard drive problem either. It's an issue with the developers being too stupid to test on different GPUs.

Oh, and guess what happened after I quit the game? BSOD.

Seriously? I've been able to run other games without these horrible problems. Epic knew what they were doing when they made Unreal Engine 1 and 2. For version 3? They've lost their mind. I'm sorry, but I just can't take them seriously anymore.

P.S. Wanna know how the engine fares on an nVidia card? There's someone else in this community you can ask, who will probably respond with, "I couldn't even run it at some point because it crashed at startup."

I've used various ATI cards with UT3 and experienced none of the problems you are having.

Defragging and a good hard drive would definitely help though. I play with maximum details set.

I think the bigger fiasco with UT3 is the linux release that's being held back by SpeedTree licensing issues. Seriously, SpeedTree? Middleware that makes trees is keeping a game from reaching an audience?

Middleware is overrated.

FoxBlitzz said:

P.S. Wanna know how the engine fares on an nVidia card? There's someone else in this community you can ask, who will probably respond with, "I couldn't even run it at some point because it crashed at startup."

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Nope, ran fine at max on my 8800GT.

a bee said:

Defragging and a good hard drive would definitely help though. I play with maximum details set.

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Except that it wasn't the hard drive. The hard drive indicator wasn't going off during the hitches. It's clearly the nVidia-specific "optimizations". Other ATI users have reported issues with this as well. If my card is equivalent to a 7800 and they claimed the game ran smoothly on that card, then I should have been able to run it fine. There's no excuse. Absolutely none.

Cue said:

Nope, ran fine at max on my 8800GT.

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I wasn't referring to you.

I've played UT3 on worse, a Radeon x600, and I get 40fps max in high detail on that, 1280x1024. I'm only missing out on extra bloom with that card. The 2.0 patch made it run even better, also allowing some extra stuff to be disabled in advanced options.
I've seen UT3 on a x1900 first hand though, it's actually not much faster than x600 at all despite being a full generation ahead. Whats up with that I do not know, but the Radeon HD series that came after is beautiful and smooth on it. ATI dropped support for their cards prior to HD since March of this year, anyway.

Despite that, none of these cards given me the fatal BSOD with UT3. Can not say the same for Source though, the ATI sponsored HL2 games don't even look right on the cards they're meant for (the fog bug!)

If you're not forgiving epic for the 2.0 slowdown you get with UT3, maybe you also forgot how slow UT2004 was compared to UT2003 technically? On the same machine where UT2003 goes smooth, UT2004 appears choppy, and it doesn't add any more detail or features than UT2003 ever had, and this is just simply comparing on DM-Anatalus. Suspicious de-optimization of Unreal isn't exactly new...

I played the game on the Xbox, I never really liked it. The weapons are all the same as any other FPS with a few variations. The story mode is repetitive, as well as the maps you have to deal with. Let's not forget the lack of story dialog

Half-life 2 was a much better game in my opinion, but I'll hold off explaining why.

If my card is equivalent to a 7800 and they claimed the game ran smoothly on that card, then I should have been able to run it fine. There's no excuse. Absolutely none.

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Just because they are similar doesn't mean they are the same. For example, if you have noticed the past PS3 ports of 360 games. They are terrible. Slowdowns and loading screens everywhere.

Probably the same situation with you, if it was targeted for NVida X. It isn't probably going to work as well on ATI X.

How much ram do you have? What is your processor speed?

This thread's title is heresy.

The game isn't spectacular.

Sure, UT3 has its highlights, but honestly I have a better experience playing UT2004 than UT3, and that's after playing 04 second.