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Preview of Unreal Tournament 2
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Looks like we can finally have a glance at the Unreal Tournament 2 screenshots and a nice preview. Wow, games these days are just too real (but you wont hear me complain!). Enjoy!"
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Will there be a Linux version?
Hail to the king, baby!
They're apparently including vehicles this time around, Tribes 2 style.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
It all looks and sounds very impressive, but one of my reasons for liking the original was it ran on machines that quake3 really didnt run too well on.
Sounds damm funky but I bet it doesnt play very well over a modem
I hope they truly mean low end hardware, and not a Duron 1ghz and a Geforce 2
Tis better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt --Abraham Lincoln
And Quake using a different engine but having the same gameplay is better?
The February issue of PC Gamer has UT2 as its cover story. The website hasn't been updated yet, but the magazine's already hit bookstores.
Here's a mirror.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
Eh, FYI Unreal was actually one of the few games that was explicitly using software engineering principles to (a) make it more attractive for licensing, and (b) make it last longer than most games (ie past the a-few-patches-and-thats-it stage). As a result Unreal 2 was able to take a lot of the modules and swap them out for better, more up to date versions. It's the same 'engine' but with all new physics code, rendering backends, character animation systems, etc. So now you have a system that can recycle the good part (data formats, editors, etc) and at the same time evolve to remain competitive.
The sniper rifle has been replaced by an "instant hit lightning gun" which does the same thing. Oh man that sucks I always liked the sniper rifle, I thought it was a nice touch compared to all the sci-fi weapons. Besides which "I sniped that bitch between the eyes" has a nicer ring to it than "I insta-lightninged the sucker".
;-)
The article says that it makes the snip^H^H^H^H intant-hit-lightning-gunner more visible, I suppose this is some justification because we all know sniping is lame
He who defends everything, defends nothing. -- Fredrick The Great
I personally really enjoyed Unreal and Unreal Tournament. Both ran well on low end machines. Both run great on high end machines.
It's my understanding that the new games all have a totally redone scripting engine.
Does anyone know for sure?
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Another game on the 'to buy' list for next year...
already been done. Tactical Ops (for UT 1)
There's also Strike Force, but Tactical Ops is the best IMO.
Then for Half-Life there's CounterStrike.
FYI, Tactical Ops & Strike Force are more taxing on the system than regular UT. Real life(like) requires more detail.
Those screen shots look good...but not great.
Personally, I won't be impressed until 3D environments are detailed enough that all of the game's sound effects are generated in real-time by the physics engine.
"Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho
Will they have an updated level editor to go with this? That's the only real thrill I get out of these games anymore, and the editor that came with UT, well, it's okay but it's much lacking in some features (stability, portability (file format-wise, robustness). A few more primitives would be nice; groups for actors would be nice (correct me if UED2 already has this), selections would be nice (real selections, not that shift-click cruft). A manual would be really nice. And an in-editor screenshot maker!
Or is this just wishful thinking?
How about: they've learned from the Unreal delay, now have a better clue of how much time it takes to do this and that AND they can probably re-use a lot of code. Enough reason?
0x or or snor perron?!
Minimum Requirements
Windows XXP
5 Geoforce Cards
4 1.4Ghz processors
3 French Hens
2 Turtle soundcards
and <pinky_in_cheek>1 Billion MB of Ram</pinky_in_mouth>
This
This is the only thing that worries me, personally, because frankly I suck. Maybe it's age, maybe it's the lack of patience to go check out the ultra-elite message boards where I can get the key bindings to use all these weird-ass dodges and double-secret jumps. Maybe it's the tendonitis which slows down my trigger finger.
I can be competitive, but it's taken a year to get there, and when people are dominating I'm just not good enough.
I hope there is still a place for me, the aging crappy FPS gamer. I'm the one who messes up your team by not playing well enough. I'm the one who accidentally fires at you when you're on the ledge, knocking you off and killing you. I'm the one who runs while firing the rocket launcher, forgetting that I'm about to run past a pole where my rocket will just blow me up, blow me up damn good. I don't want to be the lame one, it just happens.
You elite players need people like me in order to climb the ladder. Every army needs its cannon fodder. But if there are too many dodge keys to remember, no chance of being even the slightest bit effective doing anything, I'll just have to pass and you elites are only going to be left killing yourselves.
First person shooters have something holding them back from being ultra-realistic and that is the bubble that surrounds the player. The degree of seperation between the player and the world. What am I talking about? Take a look at this screenshot. Notice how the gun is JUST to the right of the player's eye whilst the clown is very seperate. The clown can never interact with that gun and can never come between the player and the end of the gun. In my opinion, as the graphics get more and more realistic this is becoming a bigger and bigger problem in getting the player immersed in the game. The gun example is just an example, what I am trying to say is that the player is very seperated from the environment in first person shooters and that is becoming a major problem. Notice also how the player can never see their own feet.
Think this is a small issue? Well, imagine a game where the player COULD see their feet and enemies COULD come inbetween the player, the player's gun and the player's feet. Right now, first person shooters make the player feel like a gun floating in mid-air and shooting at things in the environment. DOOM didn't quite do that, it used view-bobbing and other techniques to prevent that feel. A newish game that has the same level of immersion is Medal Of Honour. Whilst I don't think you can see your feet in that or enemies can interact largely with the player, the player still gets immersed by things like view bobbing, realistic sounds and other activity keeping the player occupied.
Forget graphics, NOW is the time for immersion!
As an avid UT fan from the beginning, I am extremely excited about getting my hands on the new UT2. I do know that they have stripped the shock rifle out of it because it is too powerful, mainly when using the combo. However, they have replaced it with a plasma shotgun that allows for the same thing, but in moderation, and its not as powerful.
It also looks like epic is going away from the indoors tournament look and feel of UT. There are a few custom outdoor UT maps, but not many, and most of them are not sanctioned by the big ladders.
Like UT did to the gaming industry a few years back, I think that UT2 and U2 will do now. I also think that no games will be able to come close to it (in the same genre) for a few years.
-Vic
I'd really like to see a High-School map + relevant skins.... I just the idea of sniping physics teachers from the 3rd story drama class. This might cause some angst in Jon Katz and his fat mouth but it would be a real joy for me :)
Contain my voice. Place my user into your foe list.
The problem with FPS's is that it gets so damned repetitive. Run around, grab items, shoot a near-endless supply of enemies. Except for quality of graphics, how are today's FPS's different than Doom?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I say that we start the Coalition of Sucky UT2 Players.
This way we could have strength in numbers...
Hmm, actually that might be a bad thing. Could you imagine a line of use coming down towards the enemy firing rockets in front of us? We would probably kill more of ourselves than then enemy would. The enemy would see people flying all over the place and (s)he would not be doing anything.
It would would be so much worse on a level with a pit in it. Could you imagine us trying to use the teleporter? We would try to look really good by using it, but we would probably end up teleporting ourselves into the pit.
Of course it could be that we would only end up proliferating our suckiness, but at least we would have a support group (and why not, there is a support group for everything these days.)
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
One thing that interest me in all this UT2 / Quake 3 / Doom 3 stuff is the way in which these systems have achieved 3d immersion on the net.
I mean look at web3d.org (vrml) and how poorly it has done, now look at the game engines. Let's take the recently GPL released Quake 2. I saw it's out now for Mac OS X, windows obviously and linux I am sure now or soon. Plus you can run it in a window, not full screen if you wish. Now take that and develope a means to assign URL's like
quake2://w3d.nowhere.com/index.bsp to a slip gate that can pass this to the engine. Get a good 2D canvas in it to render text and images to view pages and perhaps a consol. The ideas go on and on.
It's a cross platform GPL'd 3d networked environment....
One of the screenshots shows various angles of a vehicle of some kind. Will those be included as well, a la Tribes and Halo?
Dyolf Knip
You can still see polygon outlines. Textures are still flaky at best. Lighting is still very unconvincing. I'm sorry, but games are not beginning to look "a little too real". On the contrary, they've still got a long way to go before they show even promise of looking photographic. All game engines out there currently provide essentially the same level of performance in terms of visual quality. Yes, I understand some game engines have advantages over others, but it all comes down to how they are used and the design of the game. Let me explain.
Game developers have traditionally pushed the envelope in terms of what hardware is needed to run the game. UT:2 doesn't appear to be doing that. They should not be afraid to use extremely high-res textures and let loose on the model complexity with much abandon. This may sound foolish, but also note that this is how the industry has traditionally worked. Popular and powerful software demands hardware makers to up the ante on performance. Think RAM and disk space would be as cheap as it is without Windows9x entering the fray?
Elements of the game's design also affect realism. It seems to be that on one hand, UT:2 is struggling to look extremely real, but at the same time, incorporates elements that undo any progress they made. I'm not talking about cheesy weapons or circus clown fighters. The environments - the structures and landscapes - just do not lend themselves to being believable. This is also in terms of detail, or lack thereof. There's no excess where there needs to be! Hardware will catch up. Go ahead, waste CPU cycles... people will buy a 2000THz Athlon Mustang XPXA 2015 Turbocharged.....
Why bother.
Dunno, I've seen both ends of the spectrum. My own cat is very docile in the bath; I can put him in the tub and he'll stay ther. He's still got some claws but he never uses them in the tub. Another cat I've tried to bathe was completely uncontrollable. I ended up having to toss her into a shower stall and just point the shower head at her since she'd have torn me to shreds if I was anywhere nearby.
Dyolf Knip
I remember reading PlanetUnreal a while back and they posted the specs required for Unreal II (and I assume Unreal Tournament 2). They were likely preliminary guesses, but they serve as a good indicator of the direction the developers are going.
The idea was that you could actually run the newest generation of Unreal games on slower hardware than Unreal Tournament. Yes, slower. I think it actually spec'd a Pentium 233, but I can't recall exactly.
Apparently the new engine does exactly what the Kyro cards do. It only draws what is necessary, thus allowing older hardware to still play the game. I don't know how this will affect Kyro cards where they have a price-performance advantage.
I also remember reading about how Unreal was going to use ATI's TruForm (I think) technology to change expressions and the like on models. So that would be one advantages of having a brand new high end graphics card...
Honestly, these graphics are SO 1998! Maybe I'm spoiled by the PS2, but you'd think with all the GeForce 3 power they have at their disposal, they'd use some curved surfaces in the levels. The maps (especially the Egypt one in the screenshots) look like they were drawn by a six-year old with a demo version of 3D Studio that was limited to 100 polygons.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Easy, the sniper rifle replacement is meant to make the weapons more even. Making the old one available would mean there is no reason to use the new weapon, defeating the whole point...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
- For creating what looks like a kick-ass single-player game. Online gaming is great but until everyone has a T1 in the living room...
- For creating a game with weapons that don't look like they came out of Star Wars. They look like they came out ouf Aliens.
- If the big-map capability is good, for creating a game that is not claustrophobic and feels more like Delta Force 2.
I played Unreal and UT to death. Unlike Q3A, I felt that I got my money's worth. I'm definitely going to spring for this one as soon as it hits the shelves.
Yay!
A lot of people are.. 'So what, Doom is coming out within a year' and 'Q3 is better' etc etc. I guess some people don't realize why UT is a special game.
It's the simple customizations you can do. While Quake 3 is a lot of fun to play, the interface is quite rigid, and there are few options to adjust how the game plays.. unless you want to download giant mod packs of course.
With UT, you have 'mutators'. There's lots built into the game.. things like 'Insta-Gib' (a single shot = death style mode).. 'Rocket Arena' (rocker launchers only), and so on. You can customize every game you play in this way.
Not only that, but you have more modes of play. Now just CTF and deathmatch.. but a 'Return to Castle Wolfenstein' style Assault mode where you have to complete objectives.. a 'Domination' mode where you have to hold several checkpoints.. and even a 'Last Man Standing' mode where the only goal is to die as few times as possible.
It's the way you can constantly refine the games to your own style that makes UT fun.
Another great feature is that you can change the game speed! You can run as low as 50%, or as high as 200%. I always play UT at 120% because then it matches the speed of Q3.. as UT is generally a slower game action-wise.
So.. UT is great because Epic understands that simple tweaking and customization options means you can get far more out of the game!
mogorific carpentry experiments
Umm, the leaked tech demo - a playable version of certain levels - has been out for months. And you're getting excited about a few measly screenshots?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It's a pain to boot into a crash-prone, uncustomizable, unintuitive, BUTT-UGLY OS just to play a game.
I am not the Sniper type. I am the HURT ME type...I tend to run full assault most of the time.
The thought of no sniper rifle is so ridiculous though. The return to Castle Wolfenstien has some form of spot ability to it. Everytime you shoot you see the tracer. However if you are in a good spot, tracer or not you have some ability to not reveal your exact location.
I have noticed if you have 2 good snipers, they will have fun copeting against each other:
Sniper A: shoots and kills Sniper B. Then has a few pot shots at other B team players. Sniper B respawns and hits Sniper A. Then pot shots a few A players. Also each shot causes a meter on the left of your screen to reset...thus making your gun more shaky...the longer you are steady and don't move the easier to aim. Thus you cannot rapid fire snipe.
This makes them a hassle at best yet still allowing other players to have some fun. They are trying to copy the Quake RAIL it sounds like to me which is a mistake...Unreal, and Tourney will lose alot without it.
Last comment...Assuming UT2 allows for mods, I will be a player. Hopefully somoone will create a sniper rifle, as well as the BEST UT mod out there now is CROTCH SHOT!!!! If you have never played CROTCH SHOT MODE you are missing out...Nothing like being the CROTCH DOMINATOR!!! In essence you have a VERY small area of your crotch that is the same as a snipe to the head...only you heart CROTCH SHOT instead. Any gun can land the hit bit its really a small area so its not to dominating.
Razzious Domini
I could be a GREAT KARMA WHORE if I could just shed the few morals I have left.