Hands-On Preview: One shooter to rule them all
There are few games out there with the stature of Doom or Quake, but the Unreal series certainly fits in that group. Unreal, Unreal II, Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2004—those are just a few of the titles that won awards and helped define online multiplayer FPS gameplay for the PC. And is there any single game engine out there that's as influential as the Unreal Engine? Not only have professional developers used it to produce everything from Brothers in Arms to Splinter Cell to Gears of War, but garage-based modders have turned it into just about anything they could dream up. So what's next for one of the grand old men of shooters? Well, according to the developers, Epic wanted to do something more than just remake UT 2K4 with better graphics.
Which—at least as far as the demo is concerned—is exactly what Unreal Tournament III looks like. To be fair, they've promised that they're going to flesh out the single-player campaign with a bit of backstory and some sort of plot, but it remains to be seen what that will really mean in a game that's always been about the shootouts. For anyone who didn't play an earlier Unreal incarnation, the game is set in a bloodthirsty future in which the primary sport is a kill-or-be-killed affair. Players take on the roles of “athletes” armed with a massive arsenal—and sometimes beefy vehicles—in order to wreak a little havoc and have a bit of fun. The rules are simple, and the new demo includes a few familiar gametypes, from the usual Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch to a vehicle-heavy Capture the Flag mode. Also in the new lineup is a one-on-one Duel mode in which players queue up to fight quick battles. The winner takes the field and keeps playing while the loser heads to the back of the line to try again. At the other end of the spectrum is the grand-scale Warfare mode that has masses of players out to destroy the opposing team's base while capturing control nodes along the way to make this possible. It looks like this one is set to take the place of the popular Conquest mode, which (along with a few others) isn't included in the upcoming release. While the new maps are advertised as being three times the size of the old Conquest maps, current player counts cap at 24 in the demo. Hopefully they'll up this by the release date.
Neither Duel nor Warfare were present in the demo, however. The old standby DM and TDM modes are there, and just as playable as always. They don't ask for much thinking, though, just a lot of run-and-gun. It was the the Vehicle CTF that offered the most interesting play even though it too follows a familiar formula: grab the enemy flag and bring it home to your base to score a point while preventing the enemy team from doing the same. First team to three points wins. When a game like this comes together and a team actually cooperates, there isn't much of anything in life that's any better. The demo CTF map was the usual fare, with one base on either end of the map, with plenty of “arena” space near the bases for blasting and bombing, sniping or whatever form of death-dealing you might be into. The two areas are joined by a huge bridge that forms a natural choke point just to keep things interesting. The bridge also offers plenty of platforms and passages and such to keep snipers and sneakers and anyone bent on taking out a tank with a rocket launcher happy. Like a lot of UT maps, it has a little something for most everyone.
Throw a couple of flying vehicles into the mix and things really start getting good. There are both air-to-ground and air-to-air assault vehicles, each using the familiar WASD controls to move plus spacebar to control altitude. As simple as it sounds, it takes a bit of practice to get down, and you'll spend a good bit of time bouncing off of walls and scraping the asphalt as you try to get the hang of things. Once you do learn the ropes, though, it'll make for some great gaming moments. In one battle, I was able to hover a distance away from an enemy base while raining down a good bit of death and destruction. In another, I was on foot and thought that I had found a great sniping point at the top of a bridge structure until an enemy hovercar appeared to unleash a volley of rockets and ruin my party. The new game will also give all combatants a hoverboard that'll get them quickly from one end of the map to the other. I didn't try it out, but it looks like this little flying skateboard will change the face of the UT battle by allowing players to cover ground—and move captured flags—almost effortlessly. The only downside is that you're pretty vulnerable while your floating along.
A slew of ground-based vehicles round out the experience. The heavy tanks are great for tearing a path through the enemy, but they're slow-moving. I once got caught motoring one across a bridge, happily tearing up the light vehicles and pedestrians unlucky enough to cross my path—that is, until I paused a moment to traverse the turret and scan for new targets and an artillery barrage rained down around me. Yes, the game now includes a self-propelled artillery piece that can reach out and touch targets halfway across the map. I tried to roll out of the kill zone, but the heavy tank was just too slow—the first barrage had weakened my armor, and the second one did me in. Otherwise, the vehicle lineup is pretty familiar, and if one vehicle is destroyed on the field, it will respawn back at the team base after a short delay.
The focus on vehicle combat likewise extends to the ground-pounders' weapons. The Link Gun, long a friend of UT grunts, includes an alt-fire mode that repairs partially-damaged vehicles on the fly. Shield Gun lovers may be disappointed to learn that it has been dropped in favor of the new Impact Hammer, which produces an electromagnetic pulse that the savvy footsoldier can use to quickly disable any vehicle. Most other weapons made the transition from the older game in a familiar form, including staples like the Flak Cannon, the Rocket Launcher, and (for some reason) the Bio Rifle. Comprehensive weapons racks are one nice feature of this Vehicle CTF map. They offer the player access to a brace of weapons at one go—no need to run around with a basic assault rifle for long. UT3 also includes some of the usual power-ups including health, armor and a damage multiplier. The armor is a bit different from before since it's now location-specific. You'll find leg armor or body armor, although it's not clear exactly how this matters in-game, because there's still only the same old single health total listed in the HUD.
Since multiplayer is a staple of Unreal Tournament, it makes sense that Epic has streamlined the process of joining an on-line game while also adding a few features. There's an instant action option that drops a player into the first available game of a specified type. The multiplayer screen also includes a traditional server list, but with detailed filters that simplify locating your preferred game setup based on things like gametype and whether you prefer a “pure” server and a few other fields. And the built-in leaderboard and news features make sense in a game that's based on a sporting event. It was necessary to create an account in order to get into the on-line play, but this was easy since it was done in-game and didn't require registering at an external website.
