Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo
Rating:




Hold onto your hats ladies and gentlemen, because this is going
to be a long one, and to that end, I’m going to dive right into my
general impressions before going more in-depth. Basically, if you’re
wondering whether or not to download, read the first page, and if
you’re looking for in-depth analysis keep reading. I just can’t say
enough about this demo and there’s a lot to say, along with some
complaints to address and perhaps some flaws to highlight.
Of course, quantity of content isn’t worth anything if the quality
is there… so is it? Well, just glancing around at the screenshots
should tell you that graphically, yes, it’s a winner. There’s more
to it than that. The models actually seem to be running along the
ground, even over terrain, there are some nice cube reflection maps
on rippling water, and the death physics certainly add to the
satisfaction of a kill, or scoring in bombing run.
While the official system requirements list:
3D Accelerator card with 16 MB VRAM (*32-128 MB VRAM RECOMMENDED) 16 MB
TNT2-class DirectX® version 6 compliant video card...as acceptable, you
would be pretty much insane to try running UT 2003 on a TNT2 card. We
know, we tried. It's not pretty. This game expects a lot from your video
system, and if you want to really enjoy it, you'd be well-advised to
upgrade to even the lower tier of nVidia cards, or an Radeon. The demo,
as released, did not work properly with Voodoo cards, but is expected
to be fixed in the first patch. The game looks and plays beautifully on
Radeon cards (you might want to Google up the Radeon Tweaker to further
enhance performance).
The audio is top notch, with 5.1 surround and EAX support, and just the
right number of yelps, crunches, explosions, zaps and the gravel voiced
‘HEADSHOT’. There have been many people who find the so called ‘sports
announcer’ in Capture the Flag and Bombing Run annoying, so bear in mind
you might be one of them, and to turn him off you have to do it in an
.ini file as opposed to in the menus.
Now to the crucial part… to briefly sum up the gameplay there is only one
word. Fast. If you don’t like things fast, you can scale down the speed,
but you’ll be lucky to find a server running slower than standard.
Move fast and unpredictably and aim true. That’s the basics of this game.
With the movement tricks you have a lot more room to be unpredictable, and
it goes a way to balance out the weapons that do strong splash.
Linux performance varied widely. It would appear that there is still a lot
of work to do in this area. UT Linux pretty much flies off your screen,
while UT 2003 Linux has some problems, including hard crashes, generally
lower frame rates than in Windows, and major slowdowns in firefights. We
were able to fix our crashes by setting NvAGP in XF86Config-4 to '1' from
the installation default of '3', at no small sacrifice of performance.
Even with an Athlon 1800 XP/Ti4600 combination, 1 gb of PC2700 DDR RAM,
we were relegated to a mere 20-40 FPS in Linux.
It has the UT look, the weapons, while little new, were cool in the first
place, and the movement has a newer fast paced feel to it. And if you’re
embarrassed to play online, you can beat down the bots. It’s what they’re
there for.
Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos
Rating:



Warcraft III is a strategy game set
heavily within an RPS (Role-Playing Strategy) environment that
takes the individual combat and interactive environments found
in role-playing games and combines them within a competitive
strategic environment. It puts players in command of smaller,
potent parties of heroes and troops. They adventure and do battle
in a dynamic world of living towns, wandering monsters, characters
and quests, while simultaneously devising strategies to defeat
their enemies.
Many years after the Dark Portal that bound the Orcish homeland
of Draenor and the Human world of Azeroth was destroyed, a young
Orc named Thrall was captured and raised as a slave by humans
who followed the ways of treachery rather than those of honor.
warcraft 3 Using the skills driven into him by his captors with
his own natural strength and courage, Thrall escaped his wicked
masters and, once free, set out to find his stolen heritage.
Finding his kind forced to live passively in controlled settlements,
the young warrior sought out the few, scattered Orc clans that
managed to evade the wrath of the Alliance. From their camps
in the harsh wilderness, Thrall swore to lead his brothers back
to the status their heritage demanded. Under Thrall's leadership
as the new Warchief of the Horde, the Orcs rediscover their
abandoned Shamanistic culture and use this newfound power to
revolt against their cruel wardens.
As civil strife rages through the nations of the Alliance,
the lands of Azeroth undergo strange changes, and the threat
of a new, unseen foe draws near. Finally, in an unholy firestorm
from the heavens, the Burning Legion arrives. Cursed to roam
the greater realms forever to consume the primal energies of
magic to survive, the Legion has ravished world after world
in its mad lust for arcane power. Cunning, sinister and seemingly
unstoppable, these dark slayers come to not only drain this
domain of its magic, but to eradicate all life within it, as
well.
Warcraft is introducing Role-Playing Strategy, players will wage
war in a fully interactive world that incorporates non-player
characters, wandering monsters, neutral towns, strongholds, temples,
and environmental effects.
Four different races to command including Orcs, Humans, Undead,
and Night Elves, each possessing unique units, magical abilities
and weapons of war.
Advanced world design tools allowing players to customize every
aspect of the game including tile sets, character art, quests,
mission objectives, and unit types, AI, attributes, special
abilities and spells.
Expanded multiplayer options over Battle.net™ including a larger
number of players per game and multiple game types including
team play and questing.
Duke Nukem Forever
is set to make an appearance, "When it's done", so going on that,
we'l assume it's well in to next year just in time for a new lot
of game engines, like Unreal
Championship 2003, Unreal
2 and Doom
3. Good work 3D realms, maybe they'll decide to switch to
one of these engines and hold up the development for another few
years. Duke Nukem Forever was expected to have battle scenes set
against the backdrop of New York City, but publisher Arush Entertainment
is reviewing the game for potentially offensive scenes due to
the September 11 terrorist attacks. Nevertheless Duke Nukem Forever
should be another fine contestant to the ever growing first person
shooter game arena.