halWhat's this button?After setting my preferences and login name, I was happy to see Cathode returning as a selectable character. I chose her (if you can call a robot “her”) and began customizing. Depending upon the character you select, you will be able to pick things like head accessories (helmets, goggles, etc), shoulder pads, body type, legs, and boots. A few of the characters were locked, but we were told that there would be a number of them that could be unlocked through the singleplayer campaign and that Gamestop and Best Buy would both be offering “unlockable” characters with purchase. I should note here that the menu was very clean and relatively simple, but there were plenty of options if you drilled down far enough. Even the old favorite “small weapons” option was intact.
Over the marching Unreal Tournament 3 menu music in my headphones I heard Epic Games lead level designer, Jim Brown, explaining how to do something to everyone in the room, and a quick glance around revealed a player or two in-game. Taking this as my cue to begin, I fired up a quick match of DM-Deck. Immediately I noticed that, despite its greenish-hue, this version follows closely in overall design to its UT 2004 counterpart. What’s even clearer though is that great care has been taken to eliminate obtrusive meshes, giving it a very UT-feel.
Whoops. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to be in Deck and am quickly directed to the LAN where a match of DM-ShangriLa is underway…
CARNAGE! CARNAGE! CARNAGE!ShangriLa is one of the levels featuring some art assets from Epic Games China that was formed last year, and the Asian architecture looks great. Quite a few different terrace levels as well as some walkways in and around the buildings surrounding the courtyard make up the play area and it comfortably fits our current eight to ten player load. Once again, everything seems to be tucked neatly out of the play area without feeling empty or drab.
With a few rounds of ShangriLa under our belts, DM-Sanctuary was loaded. This one should be familiar to anyone that saw the videos from ComicCon. While not quite a poster-child for z-axis gameplay, there are spots throughout the church-like structure that offer some varied heights from which to frag. It’s a medium sized level with a fairly good inside/outside flow, so you’re in no danger of getting lost. All the action seems to center mainly around the interior Armor Vest as well as the Redeemer platform that hangs dangerously out over a rather long drop. Epic has really tried to tackle the player visibility problems that plagued Unreal Tournament 2004. They’ve implemented a particle system that enhances the color of the enemy player’s armor the farther he moves from you. In addition, team beacons return, making it apparent at a glance not only who is on your team, but the name of the player at whom you are looking. I was able to quickly pick out both opponents and team mates at a distance in every level I played. Everyone seemed to enjoy the map so we let the map reload, a process that takes just a few seconds. When the round ends, you’re taken to a scoreboard and as soon as ‘Ready’ appears at the bottom of the screen, you can click into the level where you’ll await the other players that are loading the map.
<3 CTF +1Next up was CTF-OmicronDawn, which should be familiar to anyone that noticed Epic Games’ ‘Name That Map’ contest. Finding your way around a new CTF level can be confusing at first, which made me especially grateful for the helpful arrows that briefly point the way out of your base. The paths through the bases in this map seemed especially maze-like so I also made use of the F2 button to recall the directional arrows. Even so, I think it’ll take me a few playthroughs to get a feel for the layout in this one. Shock whores will be pleased with the ShockRifles courteously placed in the flag room and those more inclined to snipe will appreciate the SniperRifles occupying the windowed room overlooking the two walkways in the center of the map. Essential to UT CTF is the Translocator. It’s best described by saying that the trajectory falls somewhere between Unreal Tournament and Unreal Tournament 2004. There are a limited number of charges (seven, I believe), though I never ran out. There did seem to be a slight pause (a half second or less) required between translocations, perhaps due to the animation of the player reappearing. On a sad note (for me, at least): the Translocator Beacon camera has been axed. Talking to Steve Polge revealed that function had been recently removed due to a bug. As a side benefit, quick-switching back to your previous weapon after translocation works flawlessly now.
Flags! ...and wheels!After a pair of games on OmicronDawn, a Vehicle Capture the Flag level called Suspense was loaded. The focal point of this map is a super-colossal sized suspension bridge. Each of the support towers contains a large platform which is perfect for sniping or for firing off an AVRiL Longbow rocket at the vehicles below. If you like, you can even drop down below the bridge and take that route. It’s important to note that, like VCTF-Corruption that we previewed in January, there are “players-only” partial routes from flag to flag. You’ll have to play a little cat-and-mouse, but it’s entirely possible to capture the flag using only your hoverboard and your feet. At the ends of the bridge are large open areas and two small, semi-enclosed base structures, making it ideal, but not perfect, for hiding with the flag. Each side has an almost complete compliment of Axon vehicles, making for some nice tank battles across the bridge. One thing I noticed during Suspense was that your crosshair now turns from grey to red as it crosses the path of an enemy vehicle. It certainly makes it easy to pick out Raptors from a bright skybox, but it almost seems like an unnecessary aid. Most will be happy to know that the ShockRifle no longer has the extreme push back effect and it’ll take a fair few more hits to take down a vehicle with that weapon.
After a nice, long standoff in VCTF, we broke for lunch where we viewed an upcoming trailer intended to show off the singleplayer portion of Unreal Tournament 3. This was accomplished mainly through a few impressive snippets of the in-game cinematic. After this treat, Mark Rein bragged on the Epic Games China team a little bit, complimenting them for the great art assets that they’d produced for UT3, indicating that they may eventually take on a game of their own. Along the same lines, the majority acquisition of People Can Fly (best known for their Painkiller series) was mentioned and Mark Rein praised the work they did on a few of the Gears of War bonus levels and indicated that they too had a new IP in some phase of development.
Returning to the test room, we once again took our seats to check out VCTF-Sandstorm. This U-shaped level has a flag nestled inside one of a handful of semi-open multi-tiered structures. The base is at the bottom of a winding sandy terrace, broken up by low stone walls. At the top of the hill is a tunnel leading to the other team’s half of the map. You can take a very large slow-moving slanting elevator to the top of the wall that divides the map where you can pepper your opponent with fire from above. The hook in this map is that every few minutes a sandstorm erupts, greatly reducing visibility in the map, which just so happens to be a fantastic time to grapple onto a passing Fury and airdrop into the enemy base! I admit I was skeptical of this when I first learned of the sandstorm gimmick, but it actually works out quite nicely. This map also afforded everyone a good opportunity to check out the Necris vehicles since both sides were equally equipped.
We’ve detailed some of the other Necris vehicles in our last preview, so I’ll just stick to the new ones. The Scavenger is the ball-shaped Necris vehicle that can move about either with its spider-like legs or by retracting them and rolling about Metroid-style, crushing opponents in its wake. I found that in its compressed state the Scavenger offered great speed for towing a flag carrier, but it lacked the maneuverability of the Viper. Overall, it seemed difficult to control effectively and I think it will take some time to grow on me. The Fury flies about with its tendrils facing forward and a tap of the alt-fire gives you a tremendous boost. The compromise is that, like the DarkWalker, the plasma it shoots has a limited range. Fortunately, the plasma deals out fairly heavy damage when you do manage to close in on your target.
It's like Onslaught... but not.The Warfare gametype has changed tremendously from the sprawling mega battle that we first envisioned to something of an Onslaught/Assault inspired jack-of-all-trades. In fact, each Warfare map we played or discussed had a slightly different angle or hook to its gameplay. We started off with Necris_Torlan which is one of a few implementations of the map you’ll see in the game. This one has been utterly ravaged by the Necris process and even the famous center tower is battle-worn. We played a Z-shaped node layout that should be familiar to most those familiar with the original, though the corner tank nodes and the road nodes (East and West sides of the map) are optional and not at all connected to the others in this implementation. You can still take those optional nodes and gain the riches and spawn points associated with each, but they will not give you a path to the enemy primary node. Each primary node is now partially encased in its own mini-base structure, complete with an Energy Turret that can move on an arc-shaped rail to avoid being a stationary target.
The LinkGun returns as the primary node-building tool, though you now need only stand close to a fellow LinkGun wielding team mate to enjoy the multiplied damage, effectively allowing all to fire at the target. At your core and select nodes an orb station becomes available to you. Only one orb per team exists, but it is a powerful item that can help turn the tide of a seemingly lost cause. With it, you need only touch a connected enemy node to seize it for your team. The catch is that you must stay close-by tethered to the node via a beam until it can be built completely. To re-take a node being held this way, you must kill the enemy orb-carrier. It’s pretty easy to keep tabs on incoming orb-carriers as you not only get an announcement, but you can see them on the mini-map in your HUD and via an energy beam emanating from the orb into the sky. As the orb-carrier, you’re basically target number one and you’re lit up like a Christmas tree. Good luck with that. Compared to Onslaught, this is the main difference between Warfare as it exists in this map. As I mentioned previously, each level seems to have its own hook and the next map was one such example.
The Necris Nightshade was present in this version of Torlan and I was able to hijack one of these to spend a few minutes mucking about with its various deployables: SpiderMines, EMP Mines, Slow Volume, and Shield. They are all entertaining in their own right, and I have no doubt that it’ll find a use when player counts are high. In this test, however, there were too many other things happening to really have time to drive this slow moving vehicle to an area to unleash its surprises and judge its effectiveness. I did manage to go into invisible mode and road kill a few enemy players, however!
After a switching sides and playing a second round in Torlan, we moved on to a second Warfare map, Islander. One base is surrounded by walls and bristles with defensive Rocket Turrets and Energy Turrets… but starts with no vehicles. The other base is fully stocked with heavy hitters like Goliath tanks and Paladins. Each has a single node with a core close by.
Other maps we discussed have one-time triggerable events such as an avalanche of snow, a flood of water, or a core damaging charge that can be triggered by completing certain objectives, while another featured twin drawbridges across which you must attempt to move your team’s tank. Only… to lower the drawbridges you have to stay in a fixed position at one end of the bridge. So you can see there are definitely Assault-like qualities to Warfare and that there are many possibilities with the gametype. It should be much easier to create interesting new twists with the introduction of Kismet, the visual scripting tool included with the Unreal Engine 3 editor.
Being slightly overwhelmed with the new elements of the gametype, the new HUD and icons, the announcements, and the sights and sounds, I can’t say that we got a real good feel for how well this gametype will play out on a server filled with Warfare-experienced players. The idea seems good, but I wonder even with all of the aids given you, if newcomers won’t also find it all a bit confusing and overwhelming.
An old classicWhile a few others were watching an editor demonstration, Sir_Brizz and I enlisted the help of lead level designer Dave Ewing to fire up one last level – CTF-Coret. Obviously, this is a remake of CTF-CoretFacility from Unreal Tournament, but it has a visual style of its own. Parts of the exterior walls and roof are opened up with windows and skylights, revealing a detailed nighttime cityscape and there are other nice touches as well. But other than a bit of cleanup in the center part of the map and giving the rooms and corridors just a tiny bit more room, this one plays exactly like its classic counterpart.
We tried a slightly different approach with this level and it is something that I think that people who prefer co-op to human competition will be interested in. You can choose a mode that allows you to always force bots to a single team and you can specify the ratio of bots to human players so that as people enter or leave the game, bots can be added on the fly. If you prefer playing outnumbered, you can set up a match 2:1 so that you and say three other friends, are facing eight bots on the other team. Or you can keep it 1:1 and as they join up a new bot will enter the other team.
Damn these bots!It’s no secret that the godlike UT2004 bots, despite their cheating ways, were by no means impossible to defeat, so we felt pretty comfortable when Dave chose Masterful bots to occupy the blue portion of the base. It didn’t take long to realize that we were mistaken. I was pretty impressed the first time I grabbed the flag and made the jump to the upper hall, only to find out a little too late that the bot defending the flag had teletrained down the hallway after me. I had to chuckle when I first realized that every time I entered the flag room, the defender seemed to be in a different spot. At first it was near the jump pad to the hallway, on the second trip it was the upper Shock Rifle level behind the flag, and on the last attempt I saw it closing in on me – once again a little too late - from the windowed wall to the right of the flag stand It seemed to be hiding from me. The bots also now track you with their head and weapon and will miss you more consistently with human aim. They are also pleasingly verbose – just as quick to let you know that “the orb carrier is approaching the objective” or other helpful information as they are to rip you with an insult. Steve Polge let us know that most of the advanced bot behavior is now contained within the code of the bots instead of relying so heavily on action spots, and that bot pathing should be much simpler. He even indicated that they were capable of dynamic pathing. I was definitely impressed with the advancement in AI and this, along with the co-op options for both the multiplayer maps and the singleplayer campaign, will go a long way towards making Unreal Tournament a viable offline option as well.
Duel and demoOne gametype we didn’t get to play was Duel, which essentially allows you to set up a queue of spectating players that take on the winner of the current deathmatch. Survival is the name of a mutator shipping with the game that might become popular in Dual. Survival eliminates the need for spectators having to wait for an entire game to elapse by switching out the fragged player with one from the queue while the winner remains. Expect some returning mutators such as Instagib and Big Head along with a few new ones.
The demo should be out any day and will include VCTF-Suspense and DM-ShangriLa (both mentioned above). It will also contain DM-HeatRay. We didn’t get to play this one, but we did watch a tester playing it on the PS3. The level is set in an urban environment, but at timed intervals a drop ship will deposit a DarkWalker on a suspended platform for the use of whoever can make it there first. The DarkWalker is actually the perfect vehicle for this kind of gimmick as its long tendril legs allow it to climb over low buildings, giving you a War of Worlds kind of feeling.
The retail release is getting close, people. There’s a real possibility that this may turn out to be the best Unreal Tournament yet. Download that demo and judge for yourself!
Thanks to Epic Games and Midway for making all of this possible!
Topic: UT3 Hands-On (Read 1565 times)