Ok.. ok.. let’s go in-depth a little first shall we? Since I’m a longtime fan and veteran of the UT series, I’ve got so much to say about this that we’ll be splitting it into three or four entries. This first one will cover Duel, DeathMatch and Team DeathMatch as the competitive players, like myself, will see and experience it. In the next entry I’ll give some thoughts on Vehicle CTF and the last one will be about anything I missed, with maybe an entry on tweaking thrown in afterwards.

This limited beta demo features only two DM maps and one skin, an unfinished interface, older beta code & graphics that reach only up to medium detail. No one really knew what to expect gameplay-wise.

Fortunately all that negative talk turned out to be BS. I’ve been playing it all week and there’s only one conclusion I can reach with regards to this game: Godlike. This is the true successor to UT that we’ve all been waiting for. It’s the DeathMatch game that looks set to pull off what Doom 3, Painkiller, Quake 4, UT2003 and UT2004 failed to do. And everyone I’ve talked to, even those with a measly 20 fps and performance issues, loves it.

The two maps included in the beta demo are Heatray and Shangrila. Heatray is a large-scale, rather dark, map which includes a Necris Darkwalker vehicle which spawns every 3-5 minutes or so. The layout itself is decent and fairly enjoyable for some public games, but not quite optimal for genuine organized TDM/1v1 matches. It’s the most popular map on publics, but definitely the lesser of the two. Still it provides some fun gameplay, particularly for just some random large-scale pubfights, while also allowing plenty of advanced tricks, like walldodging into the healthvial hallway from on top of the armor vest platform.

Shangrila looks to be the DM-Rankin of UT3. It’s a good-looking map that’s not too dark (for some too bright actually) and provides stellar TDM/FFA gameplay. It’s one of those demo maps that’ll probably end up becoming a staple map for competitions for a long time to come… and while not particularly amazing it is pretty damn good still. Most interestingly this map allows for a lot of advanced movement and offers many options for skilled players to exploit the new movement to their advantage. Proper mastery of walldodging and double jumping will earn you the element of surprise in any situation. Most interestingly the prime items/focus of the map are not located in the busiest/most common areas, namely the shield belt and armor vest which are both tucked away in slightly obscure corners. The uDamage is central, but will leave you wide open to snipers and all sorts of pain.

The new movement is a slight mix of the original UT and UT2004, with its own unique touch to it. The walking speed is fast, even beyond games like Quake or Painkiller, but there’s none of the strafejumping. Dodging is back and provides a fast-paced, up-close-and-personal experience much like the original UT, although they land slightly further. Meanwhile walldodges and double jumps return from UT2004 and maps are now designed to fully cater for these moves, providing many secret routes for skilled walldodgers.

Overall gameplay feels a lot more like the original UT, particularly with the fast-paced movement focusing more on up close battles rather than controlled, dull, long-distance sniping matches (UT2004 I look at you). It’s definitely amped up a few notches from UT2004 and even the original UT wasn’t quite as fast as this game is. That said, it takes a while to get used to the revamped movement system, even if you’re a UT veteran.

In terms of items and overall DM gameplay UT3 takes a great leap back towards the core UT gameplay. Jump boots, Big keg o’ health, health vials, invisible and uDamage pickups, thigh pads and armor vests all return. Health packs have gotten a style makeover and UT2004’s Berserk adrenaline combo has been added as a pickup, which combines with uDamage for the Juggernaut announcement and massive deadly force. Adrenaline pills have finally vacated UT maps in favor of regular pickups, which certainly improves gameplay for the losing side in a match. Interestingly these powerups also drop when you die, meaning you’ll have to be a tad more careful in their use.

Armor distribution has changed significantly from previous UT games. Thigh pads and Armor vests soak up part of the damage you receive, whereas helmets function as either soaking armor or soak up a full headshot before dissipating. The shield belt also makes its return as a sort of secondary health bar. Health packs once again only add up to 100 health, whereas health vials and kegs o’ health add up to 199. Overall in this game there’s potential to have more capable armor than ever before, but it’s also far easier than ever to take down that armor and the other player.

The reason as to why it doesn’t matter that armor has gotten a buff is because the weapons are more powerful than ever before. Rockets deal a whopping 100 damage and can be launched either solo, in groups of three or as grenades. The enforcer is nearly as deadly as its predecessor and the impact hammer is the most effectively lethal melee weapon I’ve seen yet. Meanwhile the bio rifle and link gun have received a massive boost, although it’s no longer possible to link up with teammates using the link gun… in this regard it’s strange that it hasn’t been renamed to its original pulse gun moniker.

The only three weapons that don’t immediately feel immensely powerful in contrast to their predecessors are the shock, flak and sniper rifles. Shock primary is still deadly, but no longer the be-all end-all weapon of death it was in UT2004. Shock combo’s meanwhile have gotten deadlier – and more difficult to pull off – than ever. The sniper rifle has a new, lengthy, delay on firing which makes it a tad unwieldy to use at first… although it’s easier than ever to make headshots (one of my UT2004 eC clanmates even has twice as many headshots as regular sniper hits on his UT3 stats). The flak rifle meanwhile is clearly extra-ordinarily deadly in primary fire, albeit much less spread out and harder to hit. Whereas it’s secondary has received a totally wacky arc and takes a lot of getting used to.

From a competitive point of view this is looking to be the best DeathMatch game since 1999, by far. It’s not just fun to play and well-balanced, but even fun to watch too! It no longer feels like some clean match of precise accuracy as UT2003 and UT2004 did, but has turned back into genuine DeathMatch, where weapons aside from shock and lightning also do deadly damage. The lack of a shield gun and reintroduction of lengthy weaponswitch times further balances things out as gameplay is no longer overly defensive, but relies on genuine planning and intelligence, rather than merely whipping out a shield gun and running away…

Mapdesign further helps lift the game to new heights, as it returns to the good old UT standard of no-nonsense map design. Plenty of space to maneuver combined with great background textures make up the maps this time, rather than dozens of pretty meshes to collide with (which would be UT2k* style mapdesign). Hopefully we’ll get to see some more good maps in the full game!

Of course it’s not all great. The user interface sucks, the server browser sucks, the score overview sucks, in-game settings suck, the announcer sucks, there are no death messages unless you allow them in your .ini, there’s very little content relative to the full version, etc. A lot of bugs and compatibility issues, e.g.: 1950 Pro video cards rendering less frames than 9800 Pro video cards, but overall it’s nothing that shouldn’t be fixed come retail.

The fact that gameplay-wise the best complaint I’ve seen thus far is the lack of Nali Warcows should go a long way to showing just how good this game is. Sure Epic has some flaws to work out, but what they’ve provided us in terms of core gameplay is easily modern classic material. Not only does just about every core UT fan love it, but most UT2004 and Quake players I know do too. This will definitely be the DeathMatch game to play for the coming years. That said: I do miss those Warcows…

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