UT3 Demo Impressions

I imagine a zen monk speaking to me, "The wise man shoots not at his opponent, but rather, where he will be." Quake and Unreal Tournament have always had a special place in my heart. Among the sea of realistic shooters, these two franchises have provided me with two services. First, they provide fresh visuals which are interesting and imaginative. The same can be said for the character design and the weapon design. Secondly, they provide a skill curve which is unseen in most games today.

The visuals of the new UT3 demo are fantastic. The textures are rich, and the geometry complex. Weapon design is great. All of the weapons look different from their predecessors. The link gun is of particular note- it now takes on a sleek futuristic appearance, somewhat similar to the portal gun from Halflife 2: Portal. The ooze from the ooze gun is also well done, and a piece of ooze already attached to a wall will interact with an incoming piece as you would expect. All of the ooze throbs and steams, which makes it feel a lot more deadly then it did in previous games. The level I have been playing the most, ShangriLa, also has very well done visuals. It is stylized to look like a Japanese temple, and has a lot of the items that characterize such an environment: bamboo stalks, water wheels, fortress like roofing, and large open windows. The entire map is surrounded by water, and some docks are accessible. The other DM map, HeatRay, is fashioned after an inner-city. It is dirty- very much a ghetto in appearance.

The gameplay is also refreshingly deep and has a learning curve which doesn't seem to cap out. On the twitch level, skill in Unreal Tournament relies just as much on actively dodging projectiles fired at you, as predicting where your opponent is going to be. In games like Counter-Strike, all the weapons (except the grenade) are instant hit, which makes prediction almost a moot point. In Unreal Tournament, the majority of projectiles take time to get to their target, so it becomes important to try and understand how your opponent is moving, and where they might be headed. On the tactical level, it is important to remain mindful of escape routes, whether or not you have the high ground, and what sort of pickups are nearby. Admittedly, the gameplay in Unreal Tournament is not for everybody. It is extremely fast, and is not what most people are used to in the current cycle of 3d shooters. For many, it may be so overwhelming that they immediately give up. I can say from experience though, that getting good at a game like Unreal Tournament, Quake, Painkiller, or Tribes is a very rewarding experience and will improve your play across all other 3d Shooters. I would encourage anyone looking for a higher then normal yield of satisfaction to give Unreal Tournament a shot.

As a demo, UT3 has alot of content, and should give you a fairly good idea of what you can expect from the retail game. I do have a few complaints though. First, the server browser sucks. Second, there should be a place in the interface where it says what everyone's ping to the server is. Thirdly, there shouldn't be keys which cannot have their configuration changed from within the interface. The console key of "~" and the mini-console on "tab" are of particular note. Lastly, there should be documentation on the dedicated server, especially for people who need to launch it from the command line because their machine doesn't have a 3d graphics card. Other then that, everything seems to be in order, and I am confident that Epic will deliver the expected UT experience when UT3 comes out next month.