We're eventually going to get to the point where someone recreates the Old Testament as Klingon musical theater in Unreal Tournament 3, but until then, we'll have to settle for custom characters and UT2D gameplay mods and user-generated content like this Super Mario Bros. style map. If only we could add mods to cancer research or something. The cure would be on the internet with a Creative Commons license by the weekend.

UT2D-SuperMario_Beta [PC/PS3] [Epic Forums - thanks, Samuraidino!]

We're still trying. We're working with Microsoft to try to figure out how to support it, but regardless of what happens, mods will play a part somewhere along the line. We'll make sure we get a fair share of mods working. We'll figure that out.

Now the user-based developers behind Tactical Ops (a classic UT mod similar to CounterStrike) are talking about bringing Tactical Ops 3 to consoles. While the team doesn't think that the first release of TO3 will support the PS3 or Xbox 360 (due to issues like button mapping), they're confident in the possibility for future releases. And when console mods become the size of full games, we can't stand behind a waist-height object fast enough.

Huge Unreal Tournament III mod whets PS3 appetites [CVG]

We may be jumping the gun a bit here, as the modder currently slaving away on Old Snake is still, well, slaving away. But the attempt by modder "genZ" is already looking solid. Pun unfortunately intended. Who out there with some Zbrush or 3D Studio Max skills is willing to whip up a very threatening Mega Man?

MGS4 Old Snake [UT3 Forums - thanks, Esq!]

As Microsoft explained before, there's nothing illegal about creating or downloading such mods. But that doesn't mean Epic will pay you $1,000,000 for one. Their Make Something Unreal Contest bans the use of "third party intellectual property, including, but not limited to software, images, characters, logos, names and trademarks." Still, some pranks are so good, they're worth the free work.

Character - Samus Aran [UT3Mod via PS3Fanboy]

I remember loading Facing Worlds from the original UT on my first bohemeth 19-inch monitor and feeling dizzy as I looked to the Earth below, making my stomach churn. A few years of innovation later, my 46-inch HDTV should force an alien baby through my shirt.

Free DLC Now Available for Unreal Tournament III [Gaming Today]

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]

...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.

If it doesn't work out with Xbox 360, depending on sales of the game on that platform, I imagine we'll find a few of the best mods and get them on Xbox Live Marketplace. I don't think 360 users are going to suffer drastically - they're just going to miss out on a lot of crazy, cool fun stuff and the ability to exchange it among themselves. They may also end up paying for content that is free on other systems because Microsoft now has to host it and certify it.

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.

Epileptic Gaming

Who out there has been playing a lot of UT3? And is anyone eagerly awaiting the 360 version? Do you still care about the franchise?

Mark Rein: We don't have a solid release date for UT 3 on Xbox 360 [maxconsole]

First User Created Content for UT3 PS3 is released! [Epic Games]

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]

While both of these games are likely to have followings for years to come, we can't help but to wonder if Crysis' "this game will melt your antiquated Earth computer" philosophy hurt its initial sales. As for UT3, not that many buyers could have been holding out for the PS3 version...so it's shocking to see the game have such a mediocre launch.

Crysis and UT3 show disappointing November sales volume [opposablethumbs]

PSExtreme
The most important thing about Unreal Tournament III is its speed. Where as UT2004 felt heavy and a little on the clunky side, Unreal Tournament III feels lean, and mean, and frenetic. Even though the speed of the game was slightly slowed down for the PlayStation 3 version (meaning, the players run a little slower), the intensity is still chaotic

1UP
Playing with the Sixaxis controller quickly erased any concerns about whether the game would struggle without the traditional PC mouse-and-keyboard setup. The default stick response errs on the little-too-slow side to keep from being spastic for the average user, but it can be dialed up to as twitchy as you like.

GameDaily
If it is multiplayer action you crave, then Unreal Tournament has it in spades. Team Deathmatch, Deathmatch and Capture the Flag are obvious favorites, but the new Duel and Warpath modes are real attention getters. With Duel, you face off against an opponent on a smaller map, resulting in a more intimate battle. Warpath involves some strategy, as you must capture and shut down enemy nodes in order to make their energy core vulnerable. Although the multiplayer support is only half of what the PC version handles (ten to sixteen in comparison to thirty-two), the PS3 edition is still lots of fun.

GameZone
The biggest change, and the one that affected me the most [from UT2004], was the removal of the adrenaline counter. I didn't know prior to playing UT3 that Epic had removed it, so it came as a big surprise not to have it included in UT3. In the past, the adrenaline counter permitted players to build up the meter through the means of kills or picking up items on the map to gain access to abilities such as invisibility, but with it removed, it felt like a little part of my soul died. [Ed note: having hated that adrenaline meter, we're thrilled.]

The Orange Box
IGN
Even in Portal, a short title that often requires a little trial and error, this problem is massive. The 360 version takes about three seconds to load your last checkpoint if you die. The PS3 version takes seventeen. It hurts.

GameSpy
Voice chat, especially over Bluetooth, has problems...Although EA has implemented some fine options for testing out your headset in-game (negating the archaic practice of exiting to the XMB to make adjustments), it's a bit of a moot point. We tested out three different Bluetooth headsets (including the Jabra packaged with Warhawk and a USB headset) and nothing seemed to work.

Kotaku
There are some other unusual hitches [in TF2], such as a brief pause as your character goes underwater and a visible delay in the launching of the Demoman's grenades. Game-killing bugs these are not, but serious players will most likely find themselves cursing their PS3s when one of these idiosyncrasies leads to their death...

GameDaily
Valve blends its older games with newer content, delivering an essential bundle only a fool would ignore, unless said fool demands the best version.

I'll be picking up UT3 this week. What about you?

Of course, Rein says they'll have a mechanism in place to blacklist certain mods that users report as objectionable, but the user created content on the PS3 version is the real deal. It's not just "rearranging chairs on the deck" a la LittleBigPlanet, it's scripting, graphics, models, level design.

Rein also chimes in, albeit briefly, about Square-Enix's plans with the Unreal Engine. Every sensitive about slights against his company's platform, he hints "there's a game that doesn't look anything like our games" coming from the Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest factory. Details are scarce, but Rein does let us know it's "neat." Consider it pre-ordered!

The Unreal Man: Mark Rein Speaks [Gamasutra]

Those driven to the brink of insanity by warnings of the UTIII's delay to 2008, which were later semi-scuttled by Rein himself can finally join the rest of us with full mental faculties intact. Welcome back. And yay!

Unreal Tournament 3 for PS3 has gone gold for North America! [Epic]

Topic: UT3 Soundtrack Release [gamespy]

Actually, let's just stick with the "gold master" argument and point out that UT3 is prepared for mass duplication and should ship on November 19th. Europeans could see the game as early as November 23rd, but there's no way Team America is hurrying up on your accord. We'll all be too busy playing...and using steroids to train for Beijing.

Unreal Tournament III dated on PC [mcv]

Then again, it's not like these companies are conjuring engines out of thin air. If you want a first look at the Unreal 4 engine, just take a glance at Unreal 3...and apparently a trip past Tom Sweeney's desk won't hurt, either. Because until we have Barbie's next adventure with real solid plastic boob physics, that much will have to do.

Unreal Engine 4 in Development [via destructoid]

Beyond Unreal is reporting some new Unreal Tournament III demo details on their site. Though they don't list a source, those guys seem pretty plugged in, so I trust them.

The demo will likely feature three maps, none of which will be a Warfare map:

DM-HeatRay is planned to be in the demo. It is the destroyed urban environment that features a lone DarkWalker which is dropped in at specified times during the match. The level strongly conveys a UT-like city setting (complete with the occasional train running on an overhead track) is pretty stunning.

VCTF-Suspense is the second demo map. Set on an immense suspension bridge, this level is set up with Axon vs Axon vehicles and the action takes place in three planes: on platforms high above the bridge, as well as on and under the bridge. It has a nice mix of open sniping areas and tight corridors. There's a little water there too if you care to take a dip.

The final demo map may be DM-ShangriLa. This one has been seen in some of the videos before. It features buildings with Asian-themed architecture and the action takes place around a courtyard.

Hit up the site to read why Warfare maps don't make sense for the demo... and what a Warfare map is.

More UT3 Details [Beyond Unreal]

The development team feels they're pretty close to being ready to release this so it could come out this week but for safety sake I'd say it should be out within two weeks.

One week and 6 days. You heard it here first. Don't be a sucker who reads other gaming news sites and is like, "Two weeks? I'll write that on my calendar and will not read another thing about UT3 until then." Be the sucker who writes, "One week and six days? I'll write that on my calendar and move back into my hole until then with a bottle of Jack." See what we're getting at here?

UT3 beta demo coming soon [via opposablethumbs]

In other PS3 delay updates, the European version of Midway's BlackSite: Area 51 will see the Xbox 360 version hitting first, with the PS3 version arriving in early 2008. The official bad news for PS3 owners, right after this.

UPDATE: Mark Rein writes on the official Epic Games forums that the delay is not set in stone and that Midway was simply warning investors about the possibility of a delay, adding that "our goal is still to get the PS3 version of UT3 in stores before the end of 2007." He later writes "there is a chance it will come out in December." The silver lining is that the PS3 version will now feature all of the maps present in the PC version. Thanks, Shane!

Midway Provides Financial Update

CHICAGO, Illinois, October 2, 2007 - Midway Games Inc. (NYSE: MWY) today announced revised estimates for the Company's third quarter ended September 30, 2007, and fiscal year ending December 31, 2007. The changes are primarily to reflect Midway's decision to release Stranglehold for the PLAYSTATION® 3 computer entertainment system in the fourth quarter rather than the third quarter, the expected movement of Unreal Tournament 3 for the PLAYSTATION 3 system into the first quarter of fiscal 2008, and lower expected sales of BlackSite: Area 51 primarily due to the adverse impact of the split shipment between the Xbox 360 and the PLAYSTATION 3 system, with the European version of BlackSite: Area 51 for the PLAYSTATION 3 system shifting into the first quarter of 2008.

The Company now expects third quarter revenue of approximately $39 million, as compared to the Company's previous estimate of approximately $50 million, and a net loss of $0.33 per basic and diluted share, compared to the Company's previous estimate of a net loss of approximately $0.23 per basic and diluted share. On a non-GAAP basis, the Company now expects a loss of approximately $0.27 per basic and diluted share, compared to the Company's prior estimate of $0.17 per basic and diluted share. A reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP guidance is provided in a table at the end of this press release.

For the year ending December 31, 2007, the Company now expects full year revenue of approximately $170 million, as compared to the Company's previous estimate of approximately $225 million, and a net loss of $0.85 per basic and diluted share, compared to the Company's previous estimate of a net loss of approximately $0.44 per basic and diluted share. On a non-GAAP basis, the Company now expects a loss of approximately $0.66 per basic and diluted share, compared to the Company's prior estimate of $0.27 per basic and diluted share. A reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP guidance is provided in a table at the end of this press release.

David F. Zucker, president and chief executive officer, commented, "While we regret that these delays will cause us to lose some valuable holiday sales in the near term as well as shift revenue for some of these titles out of 2007 and into 2008, we remain confident that our technology strategy and product plan position us to grow both revenue and market share as we move into the heart of this console cycle. Looking ahead to 2008, with our core technology platform now in place, we expect to release a number of titles, including already announced console versions of Unreal Tournament 3, a next generation installment of our NBA Ballers franchise, Wheelman, and TNA iMPACT! the video game. We also expect to release several as-yet unannounced titles such as next generation versions of our hit franchises Blitz and Mortal Kombat, and two exciting new ambitious open world games. We intend to give more details on our 2008 release schedule in the near future."

The FPS genre has slowed down in the past few years, literally. Games like Halo may be fun, but they don't have that crack on speed sense of split second intensity that the UT series has offered since its first incarnation. The major blame should probably fall on analog sticks. They just don't work as well as a mouse for extremely quick 180s to rocket jumps to sniper rifle headshots. But in UT3. the controls are extremely tight—they've clearly been given a lot of love. The razor responsive mechanics are in no way hindered by analog sticks. I don't know how that's possible—maybe we've just gotten more used to the controllers, maybe it's Epic ingenuity (and new adjustments like a rotary gun selection—but UT3 has not been slowed down and I will not be playing it with a mouse, even with that option.

Of course, UT3 wouldn't be part of the franchise without its trademark weapon set, and the amount Epic tweaks the fan favorites can make or break a game *cough* lighting gun *cough*. My personal favorite has always been the flak cannon, and it returns here with gusto. Regular fire can still kill baddies in one shot from close enough quarters, but the big difference is alternate fire. It's still an explosive grenade, but the shell seems less restricted by gravity. Still requiring trajectory calculations to strike your target, I was at one point able to bomb an enemy from...I dunno...pretty far away. After congratulating myself, I wondered how I even knew that was possible as this was my first time playing the new version.

The answer: polish. Physics explain themselves when implemented so cleanly.

The Shockrifle is another fan favorite that has been done justice. At first I didn't recognize the design. It's beefier in your hand. Precision shooting has been made easier with the weapon, something that will need tweaking for instagib fans, but as a weapon in normal play it's become far more manageable to strike opponents. Using the alternate fire, you can still shoot balls of energy, and shoot the balls for that trademark combo explosion. The combo still requires a high level of precision, which is good, since I think the explosion is bigger than before. Or maybe staring at one of the most beautiful effects I've seen in a next-gen title made the moment seem larger than life.

The one level I played had a perfect layout for killing sprees. It was so natural that I quickly found my running pattern, dominated, repeated. (The bots were on easy I think, but shhhh).

Based upon those too few minutes of play, UT3 is an absolute must buy. And based upon my projected awesomeness, it's also a must get fragged by (me).

Epic also said in its August counterclaim that it is in its own best interest to fully support UE3 licensees in order to capture subsequent licensing deals, so, according to Epic, it wouldn't make sense to neglect or "sabotage" UE3 customers...[but] the profits Epic assured for itself by having Gears of War as the marquee title for the Xbox 360 dwarf any gain Epic would receive from Silicon Knights purchasing a subsequent licenses for the Engine.

Silicon Knights Blast Epic Games' Counter-Claim In Lawsuit [firingsquad]

Nothing has changed at this point...we're working toward a November release.

Ahh. Phew. We were worried there for a second. Wait, wait! Stop talking! Noooo!

We don't know the specific release date yet and I think it is always prudent to remind our fans that we value quality over release date. They've come to expect that from UT and we don't want them to think we're handling UT3 any differently.

No date for Xbox 360 version [gameindustry]

We do not know exactly when the game will be completed. All we've said is that we're hoping for a November release but as you know we value getting it right over getting it right now so there's no guarantee of that.

Truthfully, Epic may be better not releasing the game in November. Sure an 08 launch would cost them the holiday season, but there is plenty of competition on the store shelves in the coming months. But we hope not, because all that slower paced Halo 3 multiplayer will get us craving some crack-on-speed UT3 gameplay.

Forum [via aeropause]

What we told Microsoft last year — they wanted a demo for Gears of War and we said 'you've got a choice — you can have the demo this year or the game this year'... We're not a big huge company with the resources to do that, and all the time we're testing that demo we're not testing our full game, which we need to be doing constantly... We'll have a PC demo for UT, [but] I don't think we'll have a PS3 demo before the game ships.

OK, we went a little far with the behemoth. We got a little excited, our journalistic integrity went into the toilet and we're sorry—at gargantuan proportions.

Today's he back with some back peddling and side-stepping. What's more, he's disappointed. Over on the Epic Forums, Rein writes:

I continue to be disappointed that folks on the internet treat any positive thing we say about one platform as some sort of critique of another platform. We're a multi-platform company folks please come to grips with that. We like the PC. We like the 360. We like the PS3. We like the Macintosh. We like Linux. We will deliver UT3 for all of these platforms and it will rock on every one.

The simple facts state that the optical disc on the PS3 holds more data than the optical disc on the 360. If we exceed size of the 360s optical disc then we'll have to find alternative ways to get the content to 360 users such as making it downloadable. Adding a second DVD to a game like UT3 would be a challenge because when playing online you might not know exactly what map you're going to be playing next and we have to be able to accommodate users of the core system. So does that mean the disc on the 360 might have a map or two less? Possibly although it is too early to tell for sure. People love Unreal Tournament because we always ship it with tons of great content but that also makes it a bit of a disc hog - in a good way

Obviously, and as is true with most major games on 360 and PS3, you're going to be putting your hard drive to good use if you want to experience the full richness of content that UT3 will have to offer over the lifetime of the game. the fact that you can do this is a good thing.

I don't know the exact numbers but I suspect the version of Gears of War that most of our customers play today on their 360s, when you combine the downloadable content with the content on the disc, is larger than what we could fit on the 360's optical disc alone. So clearly there are perfectly good strategies to cope with this situation. We're all very used to downloading extra content for console games and with UT3 there will be lots of it for all supported platforms. In fact the cool thing about our engine is that when you make content for one platform it can run on all of them. If history is any indication, the vast majority of UT3 content won't even come from Epic - it will come from some very brilliant end users with lots of cool and innovative ideas.

When it comes to user created mods on the 360 — we will work with Microsoft to find a way to support them. We just don't have all the answers today and it isn't our chief priority at this very moment because we already have our hands completely full shipping UT3 on PC and PS3 as well as shipping Gears of War on PC. When we get those out of the way, and get a little time to spend with our friends and families, then we'll get back on this issue and figure it out.

Is the 360 version limited? [Epic, Thanks Vecha!]
Mark Rein Pic [Flickr]

Cross platform play isn't decided yet. Please keep this thread about keyboard and mouse for PS3.

We're guessing that Apple's move to the Intel chipset has made Unreal-based software a lot easier to port into Apple's OSX. So Epic's confirmation here doesn't just speak for their two popular titles, but for every game based upon the Unreal Engine 3...which is basically every game. You poor Mac gamers have suffered long enough. Expect to see a lot more titles coming your way in the future. Epic Confirms Gears... [insidemacgames]

Chances of finding me online playing any of those maps will be slim though, as my basic Unreal play strategy is to spend several days beating the snot out of bots, get online and lose one round miserably, then take out my frustrations on more bots. Computers I can handle. You humans are a tricky lot.

UT3 In The August Issue of OXM [BeyondUnreal via Voodoo Extreme]