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Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land Things weren’t looking good for Epic’s once-powerful franchise, Unreal Tournament. The release of UT3 met slow sales during a November when new IPs were dominating the charts as the holidays approached. Now Midway has announced that UT3 has sold 1 million copies. The catch? That figure includes both PC and PS3 titles. I think that at this point we can call it—Unreal Tournament is no longer a powerhouse franchise.
Of course, Epic still has Gears of War and the oft-licensed Unreal Engine. So they’re not going hungry or anything. UT3 and Stranglehold hit 1m sales [MCV]
I am constantly amazed by the work people put into modding things. Just the thought of going into that code and trying to figure out how to change things around just makes smoke come out of my ears as my brain turns into a burnt potato chip. This video shows a great Unreal Tournament 3 mod with the world done as LEGO Land. All of the environments are destructible and it looks near perfect. Not only can you watch the video, you can download the mod for your very own if you’d like. It resides on GameBlews along with instructions for use on both US and EU PS3s. You can check out another video of the map after the jump.
After finally getting around to loading my copy of UT3 for PS3 last weekend, I can really appreciate just how easily Epic made downloading elements during multiplayer—it feels just as simple as it did years ago on PC. But Epic is still fighting the good fight to bring this same level of PC integration to the Xbox 360 version of their game. From Mark Rein: …we’re hopeful. Microsoft hasn’t said “no” yet, but then they haven’t said “yes” either. We need them to say “yes,” and we need them to do it soon.
So what happens if Epic can’t strike a deal with Microsoft?
Epic’s games come in two flavors: First person and third person. Mix it up, guys! Can’t you make other types of games? You know, games that aren’t shooters? Epic honcho Mark Rein says: We love making shooters, and I’m certain there are still countless ways we can improve in that genre. We look at Gears of War and we see the pimples, we look at UT3 and think ‘we should also do this, we should also try that, if only we had more time and more people, we could have done…’ so I think we’re continually looking at our own games and thinking there are lots of unfinished puzzles left to solve before we move on to something else… There’s still a lot of low hanging fruit in this genre — we need to pick some more of that.
And that fruit, dear reader, pays the bills and buys the brown suits. Mark Rein Interview [Guardian Unlimited]
Epic Games plan to demonstrate the latest Unreal Engine 3 features at this year’s Game Developers Conference next month. The presentation will run on the half hour for each day of the show.
The Epic folks will also be speaking at two sessions:
“Automating Regression Discovery: Finding the Wrenches in the GEARS OF WAR,” will be presented by Martin Sweitzer, programmer, Epic Games. This intermediate-level lecture, to be held Wednesday, February 20, 12:00-12:30, in West Hall Room 3004, will be geared toward programmers, although production and management may also benefit from the talk.
“UNREAL TOURNAMENT 3 Postmortem: ULTRA KILL!” will be led by Dr. Michael Capps, president, and Jeff Morris, producer, Epic Games. This postmortem, to be held Friday, February 22, 2:30-3:00 p.m., in West Hall Room 2001/2003, will cater to all developers, regardless of experience.
I hope they delve a bit into the whole Playstation 3 Unreal modding. It seems like it should be getting a lot more attention than it is.
The numbers we’ve seen on Unreal Tournament III sales for PC haven’t been good, right alongside fellow November PC release Crysis. But while Epic’s Mark Rein asserts that neither UTIII nor Crysis have flopped:
It is amazing how people can look at two weeks of sales (in our case) in one single territory in the busiest Xmas sales season the industry has ever seen and come to the conclusion these titles are doing “badly”. I don’t think either title is doing so badly.
As for Crysis sales being a bit higher:
Crysis probably has 3-4x the marketing budget of UT3 and more mindshare because it is a PC-only, high-end, single-player oriented game. This isn’t the fastest selling UT title ever but it’s doing pretty well and we’re going to support it with some pretty cool things to help it keep selling over time.
While we’re (OK, I’m) a huge Unreal Tournament fan, when the latest installment’s advertising needs to call upon its Gears of War street cred, one has to wonder how relevant the IP is to the emerging younger market.
The guys over at Epileptic Gaming have put together a couple of quick videos to show off just how easy it is to import Unreal Tournament 3 mods from your computer to your Playstation 3. Hit the jump for a video that shows you how you can add mouse and keyboard support for the PS3 version of the game.
Not long after the first official piece of user created content for the PlayStation 3 version of Unreal Tournament III arrives, the community has answered the call, with a handful of new maps and a new mutator, something we hope is the start of a long-running trend. The details on each are nestled within the official thread created by Mark Rein at Epic Games’ forums, with links to required files and details contained within. Deathmatch map DM-Elevation can be seen above and was created by user “warby”, also responsible for the excellent Shadow of the Colossus-style map for Half-Life 2.
First User Created Content for UT3 PS3 is released! [Epic Games]
The PlayStation 3 version of Epic Games’ Unreal Tournament III has long been crowed about as the first game on Sony’s console to support user created content, such as mods and maps. Today, owners of UTIII have their first taste of homebrewed PS3 add-ons, as FileFront presents the game’s first player-created map, DM-Shrine, for download. The deathmatch map is designed for 2-6 players and was built by 23 year-old Thomas Browett of Nottingham.
FileFront has the download and installation instructions, which, curiously, point out that removable storage of some sort is required for import. Whether it be compact flash, Memory Stick or simply a USB thumb drive, it seems one can’t simply download to the PS3′s built-in mass storage via the internet browser. What’s up with that?
FileFront Exclusive: First Ever PS3 Unreal Tournament 3 Map [FileFront]
Unreal Tournament III is one of the fastest, deadliest shooters around these days on the PC and PlayStation 3, and now early next year Mac gamers will be able to join the battle, no Boot Camp required. MacSoft has announced the Macintosh version of Unreal Tournament 3 to be released in earl 2008 for ultra-stylish computer users everywhere. “MacSoft couldn’t be happier to bring Unreal Tournament 3′s insane fast-paced action and brutal weaponry to the Mac,” said Peter Tamte, president of MacSoft parent company Destineer. “We have a long history of bringing the Unreal series to Mac gamers, and with its expanded campaign mode and killer vehicles, Unreal Tournament 3 is the biggest, best and bloodiest game in the series yet.”
I could poke fun at Mac users here, but I’ve come to the realisation that the only reason I don’t own a Mac is that I just can’t afford one right now. Sometimes I hold up pictures of them from magazines in front of my desk and pretend I am hip and happening too. *sniffle*
