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!"

Comments

Here's an interesting bit...

[FauxPasIII]

They're apparently including vehicles this time around, Tribes 2 style.

Re:Graphics Hardware

[Bert Peers]

I hope they truly mean low end hardware, and not a Duron 1ghz and a Geforce 2

Yeah, that's how the game got its name -- after playtesting it on a 486, in 320x240 in 16 color mode to get *some* framerate, the toss-up was for "dopey" or "unreal".

Re:Ugh

[Bert Peers]

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.

Sniper Rifle

[nzhavok]

The sniper rifle has been replaced by an "instant hit lightning gun" which does the same thing.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 ;-)

Re:Sniper Rifle

[eddy the lip]

this is something that i found interesting when i made the switch from Q2 to UT - what was considered acceptable behaviour seemed much different. Q2 had a kind of Broughton's rules and if you deviated from those, abuse was heaped upon you, but in UT, any kind of slimy behaviour was ok. i liked that. maybe this was in part because of the thought that went into the gameplay. you simply couldn't do things like spawn camp

but, damn, i am going to miss the sniper rifle...

Tough Minimum Specs

[ellem]

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>

Bad news for us crappy players

[Tony Shepps]

"In other words, we are focusing more toward the actual skill of the player rather than luck."

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.

Mmmhhhmmm... but...

[James Foster]

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!

I'm Not Impressed...

[Lethyos]

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.....