Epic Deconsolify Unreal Tournament III

via Computer and Video Games


A beta version of the UT3 patch is out, and it's awesome for at least two reasons. 1) It fixes lots of complaints we and other UT fans had about the awkward and over-restrictive menu and server browser, and b) it's backwards compatible.

That would be a total no-brainer in any other area of software design, but it's so rare in game patches that I'm actually going to have to explain what it means. It means you can still play with people who don't have the patch. That curious sound is the collective jaws of Valve, DICE and Blizzard hitting the floor.

Though there are a few bug fixes and balance tweaks, the majority of the changes are direct responses to fan complaints about perceived consolification and, quite clearly, my review. Three of my complaints have been at least partially addressed: death messages now clearly state which weapon killed you, the scoreboard shows the ping for all players (provided the server's running the patch, duh) and the server browser is almost usable. Almost. You still can't browse all gametypes at once, which given that there are only about nine populated servers for each mode at the moment is rather irritating.

And our biggest complaint still stands: the bots are idiots at Warfare, the best game mode. Sure, you can't overhaul AI in a patch. But that's not necessary: all we need is a way to order the bots to leave the orb alone, and their incompetence would hardly matter. You can still get that extra 1% you need to break into the nineties, Epic. Come on, you can do it.

Still Epic have made me, and the rest of their community, rather chuffed. My favourite thing in the patch is sort of a niche pleasure, but you should try it nonetheless. Check 'record demo' when playing a match against bots, then load it up from the Community tab in the main menu. At the console (Tab), type "slomo 0.1" and then "showhud". You can now watch your heroics in bullet-time, and screenshot them from any angle in all their beautiful HUD-free glory.

In fact, you can use the reverse trick to make yourself look awesome: play a game with slomo set to 0.1, then play the demo back at full speed ("slomo 5"). You are now a pro gamer. Send this demo to Fatal1ty and he will wire you his gaming millions, crying.