Unreal II Demo Released

G9o writes "The demo for Unreal II: The Awakening has been released. The 153MB file is available for download at Fileplanet or FileShack. Originally Epic said they weren't going to release a demo for it, but perhaps the mediocre reception changed their mind?" In related news, French games site FactorNews are hosting a press document that claims "Unreal II" for Xbox, "Unreal Assault" for PS2 and "Unreal Tournament 2004" for PC will all be shown by Infogrames at E3, albeit possibly behind closed doors.

Comments

A better place to download

[Control-Z]

I usually download whatever I can from http://3dgamers.com You don't get all the crap that FilePlanet puts you through.

Re:A better place to download

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

$6/month for one service, that I would rarely use. Doesn't make sense.

I see a lot of "subscription services" starting up with unrealistic expectations. How many people can afford to pay $5 a month for EVERYTHING that they use occasionally? not fucking many. One reason why I haven't subscribed to WineX. I dont' want to encourage that. I don't want to encourage media companies to try to charge me $3.50/ week to access content that I'd rather purchase outright for a reasonable price (see DVDs) either.

If Epic or any other publisher really expects to continue to use demos to promote their product THEY NEED TO FOOT THE FUCKING BANDWIDTH BILL. Just like in the early days of Quake, et al. A free demo isn't a free demo if you're bludgeoned into paying a subscription fee, or flooded with unnecessary Java download applets.

Lots of companies seem to think that subscriptions, or "software as a service" >spit are a sure way to "guaranteed revenue" in this post dotcom economy. They haven't done the fucking math, or they wouldn't be trying to charge $5 and more for the subscriptions. If you want an GUARANTEED revenue,l you're going to have to lower your per-head expectations. Because once EVERYONE is wanting their $5 of flesh a month, people will have to start making choices about what they reallty want/need, and YOUR product may be the one that gets flushed down the toilet.

Re:A better place to download

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

The problem is (at least with FIleplanet) I have to allow them to run a Java app, and I have ot wait in line. Now the line thing wouldn't be a big deal, if it would start the download when my place in line arrived, but LAST time I tried to get something from fileplanet, I went away and did something else. Because I wasn't sitting in front of my computer watching the advertisements in the queue window, when my time came, I wasn't there, and it eventually timed out. I lost my place and had to start over.

Not acceptable. The publisher should be paying for this (in this case bug fixes).

File Planet has its place. There is NO excuse, however for publishers that grant them an exclusive on a demo, a patch, or a beta. THat's clearly aimed at generating revenue by denying other options. That didn't happen in this particular case, but there are plenty of others in which it does or did (Planetside, Asheron's Call 2).

Re:A better place to download

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm sure Epic is all broken up inside."

If Epic keeps releasing subpar games like Unreal II: The Awakening, not releasing demos in a timely manner and making FilePlanet the exclusive provider of said late demos I wager they will be both broken up inside and out.

Ahh, the old days..

[Masem]

I remember way back when when they released demos BEFORE the game hit the shelves, as to give people a chance to play it before buying and as to hopefully make them buy it at full price rather than stale bargain bin prices.

Mind you, 100meg+ demos aren't very EASY to transfer nowadays, much less with the terrible state of sites like FilePlanet, etc. (Has anyone considered a positive use of P2P to split such large files over several clients?)...

Re:Ahh, the old days..

[deadsaijinx*]

It's really for marketing, it makes more sense to just feed them little bits and peices, maybe one level before it's released. maybe. They turn plenty of profit keeping the lid on it. Of course, for those epic games that everyone wants to play (DOOM3), a demo would just kinda ruin it. I wouldn't download a demo for DOOM3, it would just kinda ruin the fun of playing it for the first time once i've boughten it.

on a lighter note, you can easily find the demo on a p2p network. Just search for "full insert game title here", and 90% of those files will be demos.

Re:Ahh, the old days..

[ewhenn]

(Has anyone considered a positive use of P2P to split such large files over several clients?)

Im not trolling here. If the company wants to boost sales (or attempt to) by releasing a demo, they should be the ones to supply the bandwith for it. They should not rely, or expect, a user base to pay for an internet connection to distribute their files, so they can profit.

UT 2 and UT 2003

[Ninja Programmer]

Bizarre -- I've already bought and finished both games. Not bad, just kind of short.

Re:purple argh

[deadsaijinx*]

I don't know, I like it, kinda gives you that surreal look. Personally, i think its nice and easy on the eyes, which is good if you look at a screen all day. What would be cool though is if the slashdot logo was in old arcade block style. i would like that.

now to go offtopic, is it just me, or can we no long hit the anon on for our posts?

Re:Yep, it'll be a good game

[19Buck]

Now I just have to stand in line at file planet for 60 mins.

The Unreal engine has never looked better if you ask me, and the ragdoll physics just rock.

The story however, completely sucks. Absolutely nothing memorable or original about it. enemy AI is dumber than a brick (of course) as well.

Weapons are completely uninspired. your starting weapon is quite good, and throughout the game, you pick up quite a few new ones, but there is just no overwhelming tactical reasons to switch weapons at all.

Save your money till this one is in the bargain bin.

Linux?

[DarkSarin]

Hey, what about linux? does epic plan to support linux with this game too? If they want to maintain the image they are culivating of being linux friendly (see UT2003), they need to release this for us linux ppl. I don't like windows, and I am doing everything I can to get rid of that sorry OS (this is not a flame). I find windows to be buggy, bloated and full of BS.

Re:Linux?

[Nick_dm]

/. is not simply a linux site, if you read Taco's opinions on the type of news that gets posted he's fairly clear on this and if you look at the front page atm it confirms this (2/10 linux related afair).

Having said that, its a real shame there is no linux port after releasing one for ut2k3, espcially as its a single player game, so they won't need to bother patching it much after release.

Reason for demo

[kdgibson]

Here's why I think they released a demo of it. It's evidently already out, and since it sucks (according to posts i've read) it hasn't been a good seller. Maybe they think releasing a free demo to people will encourage them to buy the full version. Just a thought.

Re:they ran out of ideas over a year ago

[Sycraft-fu]

UT 2003 wasn't really intended to be anything new. What Epic has realised is that with most multi-player FPSes, there are two big places to make money: the mods and the engine. UT 2003, like the orignal, is very, very moddable. There are already tons of mods out there and tons more will come. Go find yourself one you like. All the 3d FPSes I've ever played online have been for a mod, not for the orignal game.

The other, and probably even bigger way Epic expects it to make them money is the engine. UT 2003 is the for sale, show off version of the new Unreal engine. Many companies are intrested in liscencing this engine technology for use in their games. Splinter Cell, for example, is an Unreal engine game using the new UT 2003 codebase.

So for their purposes, just doing UT over again and better was enough. Look at Quake and Quake 2. There was nothing new with Quake 2 single player, same old shit. The built-in multiplayer was the same stuff too. However, it had nifty new graphics and got modded all over the place.

Re:Yep, it'll be a good game

[Jerk City Troll]

There aren't enough polys in those boobs. Boobs don't really turn me on if they look like geometric figures. We need NURBS man, do you know what I'm saying?