UT2k3 Thoughts

Sinister_Sam's thoughts

Okay, so I was a pretty freakin' huge fan of the original Unreal Tournament. It's been something like 5 years since it came out, and yet I still play the stupid thing religiously nearly every week. I am an avid video game collector, and yet there has been no other game that has had such longevity for me.

I first really got into multi-player FPS games with Quake II. I remember playing it with Raptor and Atoll back when it first came out for Linux. I had played Quake I a bit before that, but it wasn't until Quake II's more refined online gameplay came out that I discovered how much fun it could be.

Quake 3 Arena left me cold, however. I felt it was a massive disappointment. Sure, it had awesome graphics, and was frantic and fast-paced, but it was also dumbed down and sterilized, IMHO. Unreal Tournament, on the other hand, seemed to be Quake II's spiritual successor, and it allowed not only for frenetic gameplay but for a certain degree of strategy.

When I first saw the UT2k3 screenshots, I was very leary of the game. It was looking way too much like Q3A, and instantly turned me off. But, at the request of Atoll, I tried it out anyway... and boy am I glad I did!

UT2k3 refined the domination-style games, added upon the classic deathmatch and capture the flag styles, and added a new bombing run style (which can best be described as football meets Unreal Tournament). The game was tight, the graphics were solid, and the play was enjoyable.

But I'm not quite as pleased with UT2k3 as I was with plain UT. For one, the weapons aren't quite as varied as they were in UT. Gone is the pistol you can hold double-handed, and the rocket launcher you can load up with five missles. The sniper rifle is gone, although there is a lightning gun that can snipe which takes its place. The full version seems like it doesn't have enough maps (though, since I have over 4 gigs of maps installed for UT, it could just be that I'm not remembering a fresh UT-install correctly ;-) and Assault (which was one of my favorite single-player types, yet was flawed when playing multi-player except for LAN games) was removed entirely!

So do I hate UT2k3? No, not really. It is a blast to play, and I love bombing run style games! However, it's going to be a game that I've bought to invest in the future. Give it some time for more of a community of mapmakers to crop up, allow them to make some kick-a$$ maps, perhaps wait for a few patches to fix some issues (my ATI Radeon will occassionally lose all textures giving me an effect as if the lights suddenly turned off).... basically give it a few years, and it may very well become as beloved as my UT is... ;-)

Atoll's thoughts

I actually really like Ut2k3. Alot more than I did the original UT. I really only got into UT this last year, before that, it sat on my hdd unplayed and unused. It wasn't until sam formed Clanam that I decided to pull it out and play it.

but 2k3 is excellent! The graphics are so much better than ut (and all of the quake games) that they put everythuing to shame! since playing the 2k3 demo, i've had a hard time seeing past the lesser graphics in ut enough to really get into it again. I guess that means I've been spoiled.

Of course, I do have a good Linux box with an nvidia geforce 3, so I haven;t had any of the installation torubles I've heard others in this clan have had, and ut2k3 does run so much better on my box then ut did (ut was writen mainly for 3dfx's glide, wasn't it?) so that could have a lot to do with it.

Plus, I was one of those ut players who always got confused by all the weapons. i never used the sniper rifle effectly, I would always kill myself with the redeember, and the stupid sludge gun would never work for me. so I like how the weapons in 2k3 arnet as varied as they were in ut.

I guess what I'm saying is that ut2k3 was made more for game players like myself, and less for players like sam. I think this game is God's gift to gamers... and that's the truth.